<p>Most schools will have some students who are serious about school. My daughter goes to a large State U and has found a large mixture ranging from students who hardly bother to show up for class to others like her who have certain goals (she is pre med also) and take it seriously. She has been a bit frustrated occasionally like her 1st semester when she was assigned to a lab group of 4 people and she was the only one who gave a damn about grades (2 eventually dropped out of the class and the remaining one rarely came to class). Her science classes are large classes but so far (she is just a sophomore) she has managed to find like minded students in all her harder classes and has formed study groups with those students. Her approach so far is to sit at the front when possible and to go to the professors help and review sessions right from the start of the semester (even when she does not need help). There seems to be a tendency for the more serious students to bother to go to the help/review sessions (often not the ones who are actually failing).</p>