<p>Mostly what chuy said.
I only have experience with ECE/CPE and CS(which I’m finally graduating in next spring).
It’s been years since I took freshman/sophomore level physics/calculus back in 2006 but my roommates took it as recently as last year and it’s pretty much unchanged. For Physics the classes are always going to be a few hundred students. However recitation was smaller. Size was never really an issue for me since it’s just a lecture, if you have questions you have to wait until office hours/recitation or after class. However all my math classes were always around high school size (25-30 students). As you get into your upper level classes engineering courses your class size will vary between 25 and 40 students on average. I had a few CS classes with maybe 50 students tops.</p>
<p>As for the teacher being accessible, it all varies on the professor/instructor/gta that you get. I always get some good professors/instructors and some bad ones each semester. One professors I had never (not kidding) responded to any of my e-mails unless it was extremely important. Another would always respond pretty quickly and answer any questions pretty thoroughly. I tend to rely on the TA’s and office hours first though. All professors and TA’s have to hold office hours. Mostly they are pretty helpful but some TA’s really suck and don’t answer any questions or have any clue.</p>
<p>A phenomenon I’ve noticed over the years with TA’s I’ve had is that a lot will try to “toy” with you and ask you a question in return to your question and try to get you to “figure it out”. While I understand that approach, it personally doesn’t work for me since I always try to “figure it out” before I even go there. Often times I don’t figure/can’t figure it out unless I’m shown at least a few examples since I’m a visual learner and learn mostly by seeing things in action. However a fair majority of TA’s are straight to the point and are pretty helpful. So yea, it all varies with the particular professor/instructor and TA’s you get. I’d suggest doing your research using sites like srefook(read backwards)/rateVTteachers/ratemyprofessor and see if there are any reviews about the particular professor your taking. I try to leave thorough reviews on those sites of professors I’ve had to help others. </p>
<p>As for oral projects and other interactive stuff. While you won’t do that in every engineering course, there are at least a few that will require group projects and several individual or group presentations. You may not have a course that does that every semester though. In particular you will usually have a “engineering professionalism” or technical writing course that does that stuff. The 2nd semester freshman engineering courses (after ENGE 1024) will do some group presentation stuff unless they’ve changed when I took them. </p>
<p>As you get to your upper level courses you will have some presentations too although they are often more serious projects/topics and more important as grades. And yes your first few engineering courses will often be busy work. It’s frustrating when I’m given work that has no relevance or realistic application in the actual field and it’s assigned just for the sake of being hard. </p>
<p>Sorry for being long, but I try to be as thorough as I can. Here’s a link to a similar thread I posted back in 2009. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/virginia-tech/817619-beware-engineering-majors-general-especially-computer-electrical-engineering.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/virginia-tech/817619-beware-engineering-majors-general-especially-computer-electrical-engineering.html</a></p>