UIC splits its classes into lecture, discussion, quiz and other things and you end up with 3 different class parts, sometimes with different professors for the same course and going 5 days a week for one class. I find this incredibly ridiculous when you could just go once or twice a week and stay an extra hour instead of taking a bus an hr there and an hr back just for an hr long course every single day. Are there any colleges out there especially near Chicago that still use the other format of having everything in one or two longer sessions per week?
Community college. You’ll see many four year schools that does lecture, discussion and labs.
The idea of discussion/quiz/lab sections is to break a large class into smaller groups to do things that you can’t do with the whole class at once. My world history class in college, for example, had about 200 people in the lecture. If the professor tried to answer questions or do a discussion of anything, you’d get through about forty years of history during the semester. And in a chem lab of that size, people would die. :))
The format you describe applies primarily in large universities, where the lecture is delivered by the professor to 100+ students, and then there is a discussion section, led by a Ph.D. candidate (T.A) with about 20 students, to discuss the lecture and readings in more detail. Small liberal arts colleges, which typically do not offer those large lecture formats, have classes of 20-30 students, and so don’t have the discussion section as a separate part of the course because the class is small enough to foster discussion and answer questions.
In the sciences, you will have separate labs no matter what the size of the “main” class.
If you are looking for smaller classes, without discussion sections, look for liberal arts colleges. Beloit is just across the Wisconsin border, so maybe 90 minutes from Chicago. Lake Forest or North Park may offer small class sizes as well, I’m not as familiar with their course offerings.
Check out the University of Chicago’s online course schedules. I’d expect few if any courses to follow exactly the format you describe (although some are split into discussion and lecture elements with a total of 2-3 sessions per week). Virtually all classes would be within walking distance (no bus trips required).
No need to go all the way to Beloit! North Central College is in Naperville. I know that lecture and lab are 2 different courses, but don’t know if it’s possible to schedule them back to back. You could call them and ask.
https://www.northcentralcollege.edu/
Look at Elmhurst or Lake Forest if you wish to commute.
If you’re a senior in highschool applying for fall 2017, apply to Drake, Luther, Millikin, umn Morris, Gustavus Adolphus, Beloit.