bclintonk

I honestly don't remember. It's been a while. But I suspect it was pretty similar to recent years. I don't have 2009 figures, but in 2008 Michigan awarded bachelors degrees to 66 Philosophy majors. That made Philosophy the 17th largest out of 105 majors in the College of Literature, Science & the Arts (LS&A). I currently count 24 tenured/tenure track faculty in the Philosophy Department, though a small number of them hold joint appointments with other departments or schools within the Univeristy. Pretty good ratio.

You're right, English is bigger. There were 369 bachelors degrees awarded in English in 2008, making English the fourth-most-popular LS&A major, after Psych, Econ, and Poli Sci but ahead of History which ranks fifth. I count 72 tenured/tenure track English faculty, excluding emeriti. So there are 5.5 times as many English majors, but only 3 times as many English faculty. On the other hand, with approximately 75 upper-level English courses per semester open to undergrads, I find it difficult to believe that an English major who wanted small courses taught by professors couldn't fill her schedule with them. The question is what happens at the intro level, and there the answer is, I'm not sure. I know that in Philosophy I was able to avoid large intro-level lecture clauses and TA-taught sections because I was in the Honors Program which had its own Honors-only Intro Philosophy and Intro Logic classes, both taught exclusively by tenured/tenure track faculty. Whether it's the same in English is something you'd have to investigate.

Now I'm sure in English there are some especially popular upper-level courses that get pretty big, and that many English majors elect to take some of those courses notwithstanding their size. That's a choice, albeit perhaps not a necessity. And that makes a school like Michigan different from LACs. On the other hand, the trade-off is that no LAC in the land can come close to matching the breadth of coverage of the field, or the depth in particular parts of it, that is embodied in those 75 upper-level English courses per semester to choose from.

The problem with an argument in the form of "I have NEVER heard an English major at a large public university report . . . " is that it assumes all public universities are alike. They aren't. They differ enormously in their faculty resources, in the fraction of those resources devoted to undergraduate education, in the degree to which they rely on TAs to do undergraduate teaching, and so on. Unless you've actually examined the particular university in question, you can't reasonably assume it will be like any sample of 6 or 8 or 20 other public universities. I don't know the particulars of the English department at Michigan. But I wouldn't make assumptions either way based on gross characterizations about what public universities in general are like.

bluebayou

Bingo! By definition, the A's will come easier at the community college bcos the competition is less (by your own admission). And, no I don't assume if you go to class you will get an A. I just assume that to earn an A, you have to beat out ~75% of the rest of the class (assumes ~25% A's), and I submit that its easier to be a big fish in a "worse" pond......

I know nothing about community colleges in Illinois. But in California, the jucos are easier than the equivalent AP/IB course at a top HS.

mini

Nope. I taught at both UChicago and the Community College. It was easier to get an "A" in my UChicago class. And the reason for that is simple: the CC had open admission, but maintained rather strict control over grades because many students would be using them to transfer to a four-year school. As a result, the "curve" (though there really wasn't a curve) began at a much lower level. I never flunked a Chicago student (though I think some deserved it); but I did at the CC all the time.

dstark

From an earlier Stanford link....

"Roberts favors a grading system that rewards those who meet clearly delineated objectives—no matter how many students meet those objectives. "If everybody does enough work to get an A, then everybody will in fact get an A."

That's a big incentive to do well. Further, superlative work in Roberts' classes has earned A+ and even A++ marks. (The latter designates work that "exceeds all expectations," according to a jury of section leaders, teaching assistants and the professor.)"

I had never heard of a grade A++ until now. An A doesn't sound so good.

Hanna

"An LAC with many small classes offers the trade-off of fewer obscure specialized classes for a greater chance of having small classes in the non-obscure subjects that most students will study."

I think you are overlooking another very significant trade-off in the LAC: the lack of choice of professors, even in popular departments.

At my LAC, I was in a big, popular major (Psychology), and there was exactly one professor who did abnormal psychology, exactly one professor who did developmental psychology, etc. Abnormal psychology is not an obscure subject by any stretch. Suppose I don't get along well with that one professor, or I think she plays favorites, or she doesn't like my proposed thesis topic. I'm SOL in that case. I've got nowhere to go. And we're talking about a meat and potatoes subject, not Hittite Cuneiform.

Keilexandra

bclintonk - I said that "I have NEVER heard...." Emphasis on the personal pronoun. Perhaps such instances do exist, but I suspect they are rare. I've also NEVER heard of a large public university (here essentially synonymous with flagship, but including non-flagship schools like SUNY Binghamton) where English isn't one of the largest departments, and large departments at schools with graduate programs will almost certainly utilize TAs. That's simple efficiency, and due service to the grad students who need teaching experience.

You're absolutely right--that's the benefit/trade-off of LAC/U in a nutshell. As an English major who prefers small classes, I want access to "popular" topics with the best professors in a small class, and I'm willing to sacrifice breadth of coverage/choices for that benefit.

Hanna - So, learn to get along with people you don't like. You'll probably meet more students at an LAC whom you don't like than at a large university, too, since at the U you can easily avoid those people. In real life, you're stuck with your boss.

I'm not familiar with the details of various schools' thesis requirements, but IIRC, you don't have to pick a thesis advisor who specializes in your thesis topic. Indeed, if your thesis topic is rather obscure, there might not be an advisor who specializes in it. How does that change a PhD-credentialed, tenured professor's ability to advise a senior undergraduate student in writing a long essay?

Hanna

"Hanna - So, learn to get along with people you don't like."

It's not a matter of getting along with them. It's a matter of paying them $50,000 a year to teach me. If we don't communicate well -- or if they're jerks, or exclusively interested in one group of students vs. the rest, or are otherwise not effective -- I'm wasting time and money. Not every teacher-student relationship is equally fruitful. Are you really arguing that it's up to the student alone to make the course productive? Or that every single professor at a good LAC is equally effective?

I don't pay my boss $50k a year. I also didn't choose my job from among hundreds of possibilities open to me. If I had the choice of 350 employers the way I can choose from 350 colleges and universities, I wouldn't put up with a crappy boss.

And since when are all theses simply long essays? In psychology, as in many other fields, the point is to do original research. A psychology professor who specializes in putting electrodes into rats' brains has little to no expertise, and likely little to no interest, in how to conduct diagnostic interviews with middle school students. They're both psychology research, but there's no way that a professor who does one can effectively supervise the other. In my observation, it just doesn't happen -- people doing psych theses do projects that are ancillary to a professor's work, under the supervision of that professor.

Keilexandra

Of course not every professor at a good LAC is equally effective. That would be absurd. Yet anecdotally, I hear over and over again about students' superlative experiences with professors at LACs--with a few bad apples, of course, but not nearly with the frequency or impact that you imply.

You don't pay your boss $50k a year, true--however, you do earn a salary indirectly through your boss, and that might be a very good salary difficult to earn in a different position. And then maybe you also love your job, just not your supervisor. Would you still refuse to put up with a crappy boss? Maybe you would, but personally I would stick it out because the benefits far outweigh the downsides.

I can't speak for psych theses. I know that English theses are commonly called "long essays" on the department website, and that students are allowed to choose their thesis advisor. It obviously still involves original research, but by senior year you shouldn't need a professor to do research in a library with you, and there's much overlap in applicable analysis techniques.

Hanna

"personally I would stick it out because the benefits far outweigh the downsides."

Sounds like we agree that the lack of choice among professors at an LAC is a trade-off that you initially overlooked, which was the whole point of my post #95.

I agree that you don't need the kind of supervision, or specialization, in English that you do in the sciences (natural and social). That's great for English majors.

Keilexandra

Indeed, it is an overlooked minor trade-off IMO, as opposed to your "very significant trade-off." Perhaps you should ask the many psych and bio majors at LACs what they do if they don't like a professor; again, I haven't heard many complaints.

Hanna

People who view this trade-off as significant probably choose not to go to an LAC in the first place...or if they do, they transfer out, as I did. Then there are others who by happy coincidence have the same interests as the best professors in their field. That would explain why the thesis-writing LAC seniors aren't complaining to you. But on this board, we're talking to high schoolers who are making decisions from scratch. They don't know yet which option they should take. So it's best if they make that call with eyes wide open and an understanding of the importance of knowing their target LAC inside and out. If you're going to a restaurant with a shorter menu, you need to be certain that they make the dishes you want.

Keilexandra

Fair enough. (I like your analogy, though it should be "an intimate restaurant tucked in a hidden nook" or somesuch.)