| Alchemy, the large class myth has been vastly exaggerated (either deliberately or out of ignorance). The fact is, freshmen classes are going to be large at almost ALL research universities. Whether a class has 100 or 400 students doesn't matter, the professor isn't going to be able to truly give personalized attention to those students. In fact, even if a class has 15 students, a professor will probably not have time to give them individualized attention. Those professors at elite universities are generally reponsible for 4-7 PhD students, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars of research, finding more money to fund their research and for the publication of major papers. Bottom line, professors at top universities believe that it is the student's responsibility to learn and take the initiative. I guess it is too much to expect of 20 year old children, but that's how it is...not just at Michigan, but at schools like Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, Penn and Stanford to name a few. |