Not saying you can’t manage just fine with large classes (I had them back in the 80s at state U and have done just fine in life). However, can’t understand the argument that it’s not necessarily better to have smaller classes taught by a professor (who might be a leader in his/her field depending on the university). Why wouldn’t it be better to have smaller classes, opportunity for discussion (learn to express and defend opinion in a civil manner) , opportunity to build relationship with professor, etc? In what circumstance would that be worse? The whole idea of anonymity in large lectures is odd. Why is it good to be anonymous? I get the whole deal with missing a class because you stayed out to late or couldn’t focus because you were hungover. Been there done that. When kids talk about missing classes like it’s a badge of honor, I have to ask myself why are they there? That happens less when there is a small intimate setting involved. People actually care if you show up. That’s part of the maturing process in college. Making good decisions. Perhaps for the first time in many students lives, their actions actually have consequences.
My S tells me of several occasions professor interaction and approachability has helped him his first semester. Studying for tests or researching papers, he frequently met with profs to resolve some struggle and performed much better for doing so. They also saw the effort and were very willing to help.
Again,not saying one must have that to succeed. I didn’t. But you’re kidding yourself, unless it’s the rarest situation, that you’re better off having large impersonal lectures with virtually no student / prof interaction. What’s the difference between that and taking the class online?