<p>My d has been waitlisted to UVA. She is an IB student and does extremely well in smaller, socratic seminar type classes. She loves the interaction and give and take of this format. Most likely, she is going to major in communications or psychology or that type of major. In reading lots of reviews of UVA, it seems that there are many classes that are fairly large, lecture based, with only break out groups that are smaller discussion type. Should we even be thinking about “what if” she gets an invite to come, based on this issue? Also, how accessible are the professors? Will she get a more personalized education, or more of an “on your own” type?</p>
<p>No offense, but UVA doesn’t offer fluffy non-academic majors like communications. I’m pretty sure that Virginia Tech does though. If she likes “socratic” discussions, why would she want to major in psychology? Psychology doesn’t lend itself to those small discussion classes…she’ll build a close relationship to her book (in general, psychology majors across universities require their students to memorize tons of information). She should major in philosophy, literature or history (what I majored in at UVA and never had a TA and my classes 3rd and 4th year ranged from 2 to 15 students). Remember, that even in a large lecture class at UVA, she’ll be surrounded by very smart peers…and just because, for example, Queens University of Charlotte is private and tiny, doesn’t mean that she’ll get a first-rate education at a fourth-tier, non-selective university.</p>
<p>wahoomb- your condescending, off the cuff answer is disturbing to me. Perhaps your major is not considered “fluff”, but that does not mean that those who are interested in communications or psychology should be relegated to “private, tiny, fourth tier, non- selective” university. Not all brilliant minds are science and math nerds. I am quite offended by your answer. Perhaps UVA isn’t the place for her, but you certainly are not the person I will take my advice from!</p>
<p>BTW- who are you to tell her what she “should” major in??</p>
<p>It does not sound like UVA is for your daughter, based on the fact that you did not know it does not offer her intended major, and also because UVA is definitely an “on-your-own” large lecture type university. As stated, this gets a bit smaller as your education goes on, but this does not sound like what you daughter wants so you should not waste your time hoping for an invitation, and it’s probably a waste of the time you already put into the application because, like I said, it is not a good fit at all.</p>
<p>In my first year here I’ve only taken 2 classes with more than 100 kids in, and they were both classes I was really really interested in, rather than being related to my major. I’ve never taken a psych class, so can’t help there, but the English department has mainly seminars except their “required” 3 lectures for the major. Similarly if she were to take language classes, or drama classes etc, she would find herself in seminars.</p>
<p>However, she seems to be set on psychology or something. If you google the psychology major at UVA, EVERY required course is a big lecture…</p>
<p>Class sizes vary from school to school and department to department. Your daughter is probably looking at the College of Arts & Sciences, so she will have some lectures in her schedule. Wahoomb does make a good point about these classes…she’ll be surrounded by bright, hard working students and is likely to feel as though she is among her academic peers. </p>
<p>The use of Socratic Method would depend on the professor, not necessarily the size of the class. I experienced it myself in a very large law class in graduate school. By the way, you might be interested in the book Becoming Gentlemen by Lani Guinier. It’s about gender and the use of Socratic Method in the classroom.</p>
<p>Your daughter might be interested in the Media Studies department at UVa…</p>
<p>[University</a> of Virginia | Media Studies](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/mediastudies/]University”>http://www.virginia.edu/mediastudies/)</p>
<p>In some depts., the intro level large lecture classes are not required. If you feel comfortable with the material and are willing to work harder, you may be able to start with the next level class, which is often smaller. Also, many students have AP credit, which often allows them to skip over the large intro level class in a department.</p>
<p>As I understand it, the 1st year language and writing classes are relatively small. There also are a range of small seminars on various topics that are restricted to first year students.</p>
<p>Thank you Dean J and dreaming92 for your respectful responses- I was truly put off by both Wahoombs and Hazelorbs offhanded and negative responses to a simple set of questions and assumed the queries I posed were not controversial ones, but perhaps I was wrong. I hope that with the highly intellectual UVA student body does not come an intollerence for others who do not fit THEIR criteria of what a UVA student should be. I know that at UVA, as well as her other school choices, she will be surrounded by peers with the kind of intellectual curiosity as she (I don’t really believe that was wahoomb’s point), and that the intensity of the work will be commensurate with her abilities. I am simply concerned that the “fit” be right for the kind of scholastic work she enjoys. As I stated previously, my daughter THINKS she would be interested in a psychology/ communications (ie. media studies, journalism, rhetorical studies) and I am SURE that there are some majors at UVA that deal with those concentrations. Or, she could very possibly be interested in majoring or minoring in English, theater, history. She has not decided on a major as of yet, but knows she would prefer not to major in Math or Science areas. As far as Socratic method, I simply put it in there to give a flavor of the kinds of classes she enjoys in High School.
Hazelorb, being on the waitlist is not "“waiting for an invitation” or a “waste of time” simply because I included some options that might not fit the “perfect major”. I was under the impression that these things are flexible, both in the creation of a concentrated area of study and also in terms of an eventual choice of major.I am sure many students go in with one plan of action and come out with a very different result.
My daughter has applied from out of state, which makes her chances of making the first cut to UVA much slimmer than in-state students. She obviously has all the qualifications she needs to be accepted, just not a slot. She has gotten acceptances from quite a few very rigorous (but smaller) universities and has narrowed it down. We did want to re-explore UVA’s offerings in case it comes up after she has sent in her deposit to her college of choice. UVA is has a bigger student body, and seemed ( according to much that I have read) to have more lecture type classes. Obviously, it very much depends on the areas of study- which is why I asked specifically about the more liberal arts type majors. If anyone else has any enlightening information about how she might fit or what areas lend themselves to more intimate type classes, I would love to hear from you. If you need to tell me that she doesnt belong or that we are wasting our time, dont bother to respond. Thank you.</p>
<p>Look, I’m not meaning to be offhand, but you are asking if your daughter would appreciate the style of academics here and you are dismissing any “no” answer as condescending. UVA is not a perfect fit for everyone, it is large public state school. I am just being honest, in the same way that a small liberal arts school would not be a good fit for everyone. I had a friend who thought she wanted a small school, but she hated it. She transfered to Temple and loved it there. It goes both ways. I just think you are spending a lot of time on something that will not matter in the long run - if she even gets admitted, it seems unlikely that UVA would be a better fit than the other schools that she has already been admitted to, for the reasons I already stated, but I suppose you are free to spend your time doing whatever you like. I just think it might be more beneficial, emotionally, to get psyched about the school she actually has chosen and help her choose good options there.</p>
<p>“As I stated previously, my daughter THINKS she would be interested in a psychology/ communications (ie. media studies, journalism, rhetorical studies) and I am SURE that there are some majors at UVA that deal with those concentrations.”</p>
<p>Actually, of your list, only psychology and media studies are majors offered at UVA. If accepted, perhaps your daughter would do better to pursue an Echols Interdisciplinary Major? I do worry about your apparent lack of research, though. If your daughter were to attend UVA considering, say, a possible switch of major to journalism, she would be absolutely unable to pursue it. Which would leave her in a pretty crappy situation…</p>
<p>Someone enjoys the Socratic method??? Much different from what my law school friends would say! </p>
<p>I would agree with some of the comments above, that the style of teaching will vary greatly based on the department/subject, the professor teaching and the size of the class. Psych. is generally a very popular department with larger classes. Professors are accessible and often very willing to meet with students out of class though to continue discussing things. And as long as they haven’t changed this in the past couple of years, there is a “Take your professor to lunch” program, so while this on its own is not engaging in the Socratic method, it would enable your daughter a chance to interact more in depth with her professors. </p>
<p>Recitations for large classes and generally small/seminar type classes are still usually great for engaging in thoughtful and highly intellectual conversations though. I would say that I did not really experience any “Socratic” style teaching in my depts. (Soc. and Gov’t), but student led discussion was highly encouraged and I still found it to be highly rewarding to my intellectual development. </p>
<p>My advice would be to look less at a certain teaching style (that will be difficult to generalize for a single department let alone an entire school) and instead look at some of the related issues - courses/programs available, class size, whether large classes have related recitation/discussion sections and examine “fit” from that angle. To me, it sounds like a liberal arts school might be a better “fit” based on your daughter’s educational wish list (at least, this has been the case for many of my friends who went the LAC route). However, and this is a big HOWEVER, also balance this with the resources and opportunities available at research universities like UVA. While UVA may be more “on your own” in many ways, I found this to be incredibly helpful when transitioning from undergrad to work, and even from employment to graduate school.</p>
<p>Students should also take advantage of faculty office hours. I remember when I went to UVa, professors complained that they had to keep office hours, but students never came to them - except right before finals.</p>
<p>^^ As a graduate student (who teaches), this is often the case to be true. The only exception was after a test when students came to complain/argue for a better grade. I don’t know if/how much that happens at UVA though…it is certainly rampant where I am at presently.</p>
<p>Caroleehut – my son considered options similar to your daughter’s, and in the end chose UVa. He wishes the school offered a communications major (used to, but was discontinued several years back, in part I gather because it became the major of choice for athletes . . . .) He attended a large, public high school, so the prospect of a large university was appealing to him. Since his area of interest is sportscasting, he also wanted a school with large sports programs. </p>
<p>While the introductory classes are heavily weighted toward large lectures, the big name teachers seem to teach them. One thing I have observed about UVa is that the faculty members there, for the most part, are there because they actually like to teach and to interact with students; they are not just there to do research. They seem to be very approachable, but it IS up to the students to approach the professors. If that is not a challenge for your daughter, she should be fine and able to make many good connections with her teachers, even in her early years.</p>
<p>My son loves the school, and does not second guess his decision to turn down major journalism/communications schools to attend, but the jury is still out on whether UVa was the best place for him academically. He has struggled to find classes of interest. The media studies program is a mish-mash of courses on the effect of media on society and film studies. Not much there for an aspiring journalist. He will major in history, because one has to major in something, he likes history, and there is truly an outstanding array of courses offered in that area. (FWIW, he has had TA’s in two history classes so far, one of which is a 3000 level course – so take Wahoomb’s comments here with a huge grain of salt . . . ) My son came in with a fair number of AP credits, so he takes lighter loads and spends his extra time interning with various sports media opportunities at the University. </p>
<p>I can’t say much about the psychology dept. other than it seems to be heavily weighted toward cognitive studies rather than traditional psychology courses (or maybe the area has just changed drastically since I was in school). </p>
<p>I don’t know what Wake offers in these areas (although I do have one friend wondering what her soon to be Wake grad in psych is going to do with her degree), but I have only great things to say about Elon’s communications program. Great facilities and fabulous internships/job placement for those students. My son just wanted a bigger school.</p>
<p>Best of luck to your daughter, where ever she attends!</p>
<p>The intro psych classes tend to be large, with break-out discussion groups; the lower-level English classes tend to be 25 or so. Introductory language courses are also fairly small. Higher-level psych courses are smaller and more specialized. If your daughter majors in English here she will have three required large lecture courses, which most people take in their second and third year; these break out for discussion groups twice weekly. All her other English classes can be pretty small if she prefers. There is a special series of seminars on interdisciplinary subjects for first-years and underclass students called USEMs, designed to get kids into smaller, discussion-format classes early in their time at UVA.</p>
<p>What that means is that if your daughter is planning to major in a non-science subject, and she has a typical first/second year schedule, she would likely have one large lecture class a semester, and the rest smaller classes. Lecture classes are not the kiss of death! Although, at the end of high school, I thought I much preferred seminar discussion, I actually loved the lecture format as an undergraduate because I got to follow an extended, well-organized train of thought, rather than having it constantly interrupted by somebody’s random interjection. Lecture classes also allowed me exposure to really major people outside my field at my undergraduate university (Cornell), whom I probably wouldn’t have had the chance to meet otherwise. At UVA, in the departments I know about, lecture courses are typically assigned to experienced senior faculty, not to beginners. That’s partly because a lecture class is harder to do well, and partly because the lecturer is generally in a supervisory role over the discussion section leaders: running staff meetings, making sure grading is fair across sections, writing final teaching evaluations of the discussion leaders at the end of term, and so on. </p>
<p>UVA faculty are accessible if the student wants them to be. Everybody must post office hours and most faculty are flexible about meeting with students at other times as well. Each student has a faculty academic adviser and can change this adviser, if he or she wishes, to somebody more compatible or knowledgeable about his/her prospective major. If a student or group of students wishes to take a faculty member to lunch, the dean will pay; in my department, faculty can get partial reimbursement for food if they plan social events with students. Some students really leap at these opportunities for interaction, and others don’t. My S, a current first-year at UVA, is on quite friendly terms with his academic advisor, with a couple of the professors in his prospective major, and with the professor in his foreign language class (same person both fall and spring). He violently disliked one of his professors in the fall semester, so obviously didn’t seek this guy out; another one–apparently an intimidatingly smart mathematician–he admired from a distance but didn’t really get to know. He lives in a residential college and has also gotten acquainted with some faculty members outside his fields of interest from the college programs.</p>
<p>Since UVA doesn’t offer a communications major, kids who are interested in journalism here generally major in English or media studies and get heavily involved with the Cav Daily or other student-run periodicals. Some volunteer for WTJU, the radio station.</p>
<p>Thank you for all the interesting and insightful comments. I do appreciate your thoughtful responses. It does ease my mind about the lecture type classes. I went to a very large university and the memories of sitting in a lecture hall with 300 other students and the prof. having no idea who was there ( or caring) sends chills down my spine. That is so not her style. But certainly she could handle some of that. My d is the type who would probably seek out the professors and that sounds like it is quite doable ( and fun at times)at UVA . She will have to look at the course offerings to see if the focus is something she might be interested in. Thanks again.</p>
<p>The large lecture halls at UVA are about 150 students…only econ 201 is larger.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Wahoomb: Is that true? I thought for example that intro chem classes were larger.</p></li>
<li><p>I had a socratic method class in grad school. It was stressful, particularly because the material was difficult. As a first year during first semester at UVa, I actually liked the low-stress nature of a couple of my large lecture classes.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Caroleehut: I’ll first start off by saying that I am a first-year at UVA. It has been a great year, both academically and socially, but… I realized that I want to study journalism, and I prefer more class interaction/discussion (UVA provides very little of this, besides through seminars). As a result, I am transferring.</p>
<p>Honestly, if your daughter wants to study communications/journalism/film, UVA is not the school for her. First, UVA does not even offer such majors, except for Media Studies. And the Media Studies site clearly states: “Students seeking traditional training in journalism (print, broadcast, or digital), public relations, advertising, marketing, and other areas association with Mass Communications programs should seek another major.” [University</a> of Virginia | Media Studies | Academics | Media Studies Major](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/mediastudies/academics/major.html]University”>http://www.virginia.edu/mediastudies/academics/major.html)</p>
<p>Us wannabe journalists/filmographers/writers/professional speakers prefer a different learning environment that UVA just does not provide. We prefer a more hands-on approach.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, though. UVA’s academics are top-notch, the professors actually want to teach students (and are almost always available/reachable), and the students here are bright—a bit sheltered, though.</p>
<p>If you have any more questions for me, just shoot me a message in my inbox.</p>