When you say t50...
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Anonymous
Go Scarlet Knights! ❤️🖤 |
Anonymous
Maybe not all students, but many elite kids are spreading out to these schools nowadays. |
Anonymous
I taught at a large public in my grad school days. The idea that undergrads are exposed to elite profs is pretty much not the case. The top profs did research with their PhDs mostly, that was their job. Most lower classes are taught by assistant professor though along with some PhDs needing extra money. I knew full professors who hadn’t taught any undergraduate classes in many years. It is a waste of their time. |
Anonymous
Cool story. That has nothing to do with large classes though. And I went to a large public not so so long ago and had many associate and full professors, especially at the 300 and 400 level, including the head of a department, the dean of the honors college, and a former FTC chairman. And these were classes with fewer than 30 kids. It still happens today. It’s normal. While a few superstar professors may get out of it (and this is true at private research universities too, btw), most full professors are still required to teach an undergrad course once a semester or once a year. This “large publics with hundreds of kids in every class taught by a 24 year old grad student” is mostly a DCUM myth, though far from the only one around here. |
Anonymous
Formerly elite at that level. |
Anonymous
Not a myth… I have taught at three t30 Publics, including one that most people here talk about often. I was not tenured. I now teach at private university. This is what my experience has been up to this point. At every one of these publics, the top professors rarely teach any Freshman/Sophomore classes. Some will teach Jr/Sr classes, but MOST will only teach graduate students. The vast majority of lower level classes are taught by a combo of non-tenured professors and PHd students. That is just how it is. At some publics the ‘big name’ tenured professor shows up two or three times a semester…..typically in the 1st class and then sometime mid-semester. The rest of the class is taught by his/her PhD Students. At my private, one of the conditions was that I HAD to teach all 3 undergraduate courses (two entry level) and 1 graduate course. Im not supposed to let my grad students do anything other than be a TA. All tenured professors have to teach entry level classes. It is a big difference. I know some here would like to pretend it is not, but it is. The larger the dept, the higher the likelihood you kids will have a PhD student or a non-tenured professors teaching them. My kid is now a Sophomore in HS and depending on his major, I will guide him accordingly. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
PP Thank-you; I’m in the private sector now but people just refuse to believe me when I explain the reality of large public’s and undergrad. |
Anonymous
But see, you've pulled a bait and switch here. It went from “large classes taught by TAs” to “top professors don’t teach freshmen/sophomore classes.” There’s nothing wrong with being taught by an assistant or associate professor. There’s not some brilliance that comes with suddenly being promoted. Nor do you need a top researcher in their field to teach an intro class. 300 and 400 level classes are almost exclusively taught by tenure-track or tenured professors, including full professors. But your experience also seems to be subject specific, because it simply isn’t the reality for a lot of top publics. I work with faculty all over and most of them teach undergrads. You can talk to the kids. You can see the undergrad courses online and you can see which faculty teach what. Terrence Tao taught undergrads at UCLA until he won the Fields medal. The entire econ department at Berkeley—one of the best in the world—teach undergrad classes, including Bates Clark medal and Nobel winner David Card until he switched to emeritus status a few years ago. I guess for the CS or some of the STEM lemmings, they may be stuck in a bunch of huge lectures, but it isn’t the case in most of these subjects or for most students. |
Anonymous
I would add Outcome. This is basically how the employers look at the schools which arguably the most important evaluation as they are the ones pay for the end products. Parents and students pay for the college services and employers pay for the college products. Money doesn't lie. |
Anonymous
Agree that it would be good to add outcome but that's a lot harder to measure than admission and graduation stats. |
Anonymous
One of the major source would be the data and information from the Department of Education. It's the direct result by the actions of the employers. Also these are at least better than the arbitrary magazine rankings. https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ |
Anonymous
DP. It's true that profs often teach undergrads but the administration doesn't reward great teaching...so profs don't consider teaching important. There are many good things about UCLA and Berkeley (several grads in our family), but undergrad teaching is not really a strength. |
Anonymous
PP. Sure, but I would take that even further and say top professors are not necessarily good teachers or focused on it at all (public or private), which is why this whole debate is silly. Plenty of adjuncts or full-time lecturers are better than their research-oriented counterparts. I just hate the whole “everyone is being taught by TAs,” because it isn’t true in most cases. But if you want great/prioritized undergrad teaching, LACs are the answer. |
Anonymous
Agree. Also, I probably overstated it when I said UC profs don't care about teaching. Some really do and are excellent teachers. But the institutions don't incentivize teaching so many don't. |