<p>Haha Chandi: A similar thing happens (with Pchem) at Emory (and the dinner thing has happened to me 3-4 times between frosh and sophomore year alone). However, admittedly what's different is the experience of intro. and sophomore level courses. A surprising amount of professors learn all names in 50-200 person classes. For example, one organic chem. prof. w/90-100 in each of 2 sections, learns all the names. The other good prof. learns the names in his frosh section (50-70), the section he co-teaches w/a famous prof. (about 35-45), and any sophomore (he dislikes teaching sophomores and upperclassmen and makes it easier than the frosh class, but still cares for them I guess) section he teaches (75-90). General biology sections (50-92) also learn most names. Same happened in my psychobiology class (hard as hell) w/about 110 students. I have no idea how they do it. So glad they try so hard though to make a larger lecture more personal. Now most of the profs. in the math and physics dept. Even though they have smaller classes than the "pre-medish" subjects, they don't even give a crap whatsoever (which probably explains why they don't get many majors). They seriously have grad. students teach calc. 1/2 (except life sciences which is where pre-meds as normal, get special privilege), something generally deemed as unacceptable here. </p>
<p>Anyway, I'm doing a BS in both chem and biology (something most pre-meds dare not do), but I'm not pre-med. I took biophysics (this was a funny experience, within the first week, 1/2 of the class, all pre-med, was gone. We were left w/5 graduate students and 5 undergraduates) already which seems way worse than the crap I'll experience in Pchem and then I also took a grad. level bio-organic course, so I've been through my share of hell.</p>