Dartmouth has always prided itself on its reputation of a small liberal arts college, so it is therefore surprising to find many courses with more than 100 enrolled students. Even more surprising, though, are students' high opinions of the large classes.
For instance, many students say they love the largest class which is offered this term -- Psychology 1: Introductory Psychology, with an enrollment of 204.
Scott Burns '97 said Psychology 1 "is the only good big class that I have had at Dartmouth."
The reason he said he enjoys the class is the quality of professors, who Burns calls well prepared, knowledgeable, and willing to make an "extraordinary effort to make the class interesting for everyone."
Julie Hernandez '99, who is enrolled in Astronomy 3 with 125 other students, agreed that the quality of the class has far more to do with the professor than the size of the class.
"You can have a really horrible professor in a small class and you won't learn anything," Hernandez said, but she added a great professor can overcome the pitfalls of a large class.
Biology Professor Roger Sloboda, who teaches "Biology 15: Introduction to Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology" to 183 students, said it was difficult to get to know students in a large class.
The class "is just a big sea of faces," he said, adding that despite having the class also meet in smaller lab sessions, he would have to spend "half [his] life trying to visit them all and get to know each student."
Sloboda said he knows the College does try to keep the introductory classes from getting too large. He said his class used to have an enrollment of 350 students but was recently divided into two sections.
Upper-level courses traditionally have much smaller enrollments and focus more intensely on a specific topic than introductory survey courses such as Psychology 1.
Registrar Thomas Bickel wrote in an e-mail message that breaking up large introductory classes into smaller sections would leave far fewer faculty members available to teach the upper level courses.
The only alternative would be a tuition increase to cover the cost of hiring additional personnel, Bickel wrote.
Government Professor Mlada Bukovansky -- who teaches "Government 5: International Politics" to 118 students -- said the recent increase in student enrollment in her class was a factor in her redesigning the course syllabus and her lectures.
"Having that many students forces you to make sure you are using the lecture time to the best advantage," she said.
She added that once students get pass the "hump" of introductory courses there is a lot of opportunity for smaller upper-level classes and one-on-one attention from professors.
Adam Weinstein '98, who is enrolled in Engineering Sciences 4 -- the second-largest class offered this term, with 193 students -- said all the introductory science classes are "pretty large." Science classes typically do not have an enrollment of under 50 students until the upper-level classes, he said.
Weinstein's statement is supported by the high enrollment numbers for this term's introductory biology classes. Biology 15 and 16, which are required courses for students in the pre-medicine program, have 183 and 118 students, respectively.
Some professors said large enrollments can stifle class discussion.
Psychology Professor Jay Hull said large class size can inhibit students from asking questions. "If [the class] were smaller more students would feel comfortable interrupting the professor which is oftentimes useful," he said.
Some ways to try to overcome student hesitation, Hull said, are to try to make eye contact with the students, roam around the room and use personal examples to engage the students.
Sloboda said he did not think it was possible "to engage the class in any kind of meaningful discussion" because of students' natural hesitancy to speak in front of 175 peers in Cook Auditorium.
Weinstein said he does not find it intimidating to speak in class but students "definitely do not get to know the professor as well as you would in a small class."
Astronomy Professor Robert Fesen, who teaches 126 students in his Astronomy 3 class, said his class would have been set up the same way whether 60 or 125 students were enrolled.
Students would obviously interact more if there were only 20 students in the class, according to Fesen, but he added he did not think students are losing out because of the large class size.
