<p>After asking a professor to write me a recommendation letter to transfer to Wesleyan he responded with some information about Wes that I wasn’t aware of and want to check that it’s true…</p>
<p>He said the addition of a grad school has taken some of the attention away from providing a top notch undergrad expererience (i think he was talking about the science department). </p>
<p>Also, are classes ever taught by TAs or grad students?</p>
<p>i have never heard of students complaining about their classes not being taught by professors… besides, the grad program at wes is very small. but then again, i only know this from reading websites and forums. i highly doubt it though.</p>
<p>I have a number of friends in the science departments, and none of them have ever had classes primarily taught by anyone other than a Professor. Some classs have TA sessions to give students an oppertunity to get help from older undergrads or grad students questions, but classes are all taught by Profs.</p>
<p>I’ve mainly heard positive things about the addition of the Grad program: it brings in more funding for reaserch, and becasue the number of grad students is so small, that means undergrads get LOTS of research oppertunities (we have an insanly high number of students getting work published along with profs in the sciences). </p>
<p>I’ve never heard science students complain that they weren’t getting a strong, undergrad focused liberal arts education.</p>
<p>thanks…i didn’t think it was the case. My professor said he was reluctant to write me a recommendation because he would be upset to see me leave and then went on to point some things out about wesleyan that did’t seem completely true.</p>
<p>that’s professor’s statement is unquestionably false. the presence of the small grad program makes undergrad even better. all classes are taught by professors, but you have some graduate (aka more knowledgeable) TA’s. not to mention the better facilities and more research opportunities (grad-level facilities but lots of space for undergrads to fill them)… nothing to worry about</p>
<p>Wow. Yeah, that is completely untrue. While there are some TAs that have significant parts in classes (i.e. TA sessions that help the homework), all classes are definitely taught by professors. And not only that, but the degree to which professor accessibility is so not an issue is… high. Even in the hugest classes, like my 100 person intro chem class, the prof still knew my name, and was always around and in his office hours.</p>
<p>All of my D’s courses at Wes are taught by professors and she is a freshman. She has been able to take 200 level courses as a first year student. Her one large lecture course in into to psych was taught by a professor. She did have TA teaching four- person breakout class in her Spanish course where they did intensive conversation practice. However, the course itself was taught three days a week by a professor. The profs are all very supportive and have stressed their open door policy to offer help or just chatting. Wes is a true lac and does not bait and switch TA’s for profs.</p>
<p>Dana’s Dad</p>