Thoughts on Large Class Sizes

[passerbyca]

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Hi guys!

As I chose schools, incoming class size held a lot of weight. I feel that small classes are more conducive to a collaborative atmosphere. I have an interview at a school with a traditionally large incoming class, and was hoping to hear some experiences in regards to collaboration and teamwork inside and outside of the classroom. Any thoughts/experiences are appreciated!

Best

 

[Halcyon45]

Which school are you interviewing at? And I've heard both sides and am curious about this too.

 

[just_SAIYAN]

Curious as well, maybe you should post this in the osteopathic zone to see how students like their class sizes.

 

[67552931811]

Unless the school you are considering is PBL, I have no idea why you would be collaborating and doing teamwork. Unless you mean just to study in general, then, via mathematics, you increase your chances of optimizing performance by having a larger pool of students to choose from; thus, you would actually benefit from having a larger class size. Regardless, most people just stream anyways. I haven't gone to a non-mandatory class in 3 months.

 

[Halcyon45]

Unless the school you are considering is PBL, I have no idea why you would be collaborating and doing teamwork. Unless you mean just to study in general, then, via mathematics, you increase your chances of optimizing performance by having a larger pool of students to choose from; thus, you would actually benefit from having a larger class size. Regardless, most people just stream anyways. I haven't gone to a non-mandatory class in 3 months.

Huh? All he is asking about is the collaboration that goes on when you study together and such...

 

[AlteredScale]

Hi guys!

As I chose schools, incoming class size held a lot of weight. I feel that small classes are more conducive to a collaborative atmosphere. I have an interview at a school with a traditionally large incoming class, and was hoping to hear some experiences in regards to collaboration and teamwork inside and outside of the classroom. Any thoughts/experiences are appreciated!

Best

Smaller classes def are always good. I was def happy to see Ohio University put out a medical school class within Cleveland Clinic South Pointe that was only 50 students. With KCU being a class of 270 I though it would really be detrimental to working with others but it turned out not. I have a great group of friends who I study with but the great thing is anyone in the class is willing to let you study with them as well. It's turned out to be great.

 

[osteohack10]

We have a fairly large class at about 225, and I actually like it. I've got some pretty killer classmates and you get a great mix of people with different backgrounds so there will most certainly be a group of people you connect with pretty closely. Overall, I'd say the larger class size is an advantage... for me at least.

 

[Jinxapotato]

I'm in a class of 250, and I'm liking it so far. True, you don't get to know every single one of your classmates, but you really don't need to (and prolly don't have time to). In term of "collaboration", I have a great study group of 5-6 people (and everyone in this group is very good academically), and a dozen or so of people to hang out with. To me that's really enough.

However if you are into the class councils and stuff, then yes you will need to put in a greater effort/time to impress everyone in the larger classes.

 

[67552931811]

Unless the school you are considering is PBL, I have no idea why you would be collaborating and doing teamwork. Unless you mean just to study in general, then, via mathematics, you increase your chances of optimizing performance by having a larger pool of students to choose from; thus, you would actually benefit from having a larger class size. Regardless, most people just stream anyways. I haven't gone to a non-mandatory class in 3 months.

Huh? All he is asking about is the collaboration that goes on when you study together and such...

?

 

[Seth Joo]

Hi guys!

As I chose schools, incoming class size held a lot of weight. I feel that small classes are more conducive to a collaborative atmosphere. I have an interview at a school with a traditionally large incoming class, and was hoping to hear some experiences in regards to collaboration and teamwork inside and outside of the classroom. Any thoughts/experiences are appreciated!

Best

If you go to school with a smaller class size you may experience that, my school used to only have about 125 students per class, then doubled its class size 5 years ago to 250, in addition we have students from Dentistry and Podiatry who take Basic Science course work as well. It all depends, I made friends despite the large class size, at larger schools though you tend to see student cliques develop, social circles where people remain within a particular group. You'll also see more gunners at larger schools whereas at smaller schools people tend to frown at them.

 

[Rekt]

If you go to school with a smaller class size you may experience that, my school used to only have about 125 students per class, then doubled its class size 5 years ago to 250, in addition we have students from Dentistry and Podiatry who take Basic Science course work as well. It all depends, I made friends despite the large class size, at larger schools though you tend to see student cliques develop, social circles where people remain within a particular group. You'll also see more gunners at larger schools whereas at smaller schools people tend to frown at them.

Yep. Huge cliques at my school to the point of annoyance. It's almost like high school at times. At a larger class size school, the faculty gives zero crap about you. Administration only wants you to stay because you're tuition dollars to them that they can't get back if you fail out. Class size will also increase competition between the good rotations significantly. Every school will have the good and bad rotations, but 100 students vs. 270 makes it a lot more difficult to get adequate training. There's also a multitude of other negative experiences I've had that were consequence from class size, but mostly small in scale. I've expressed this before, but my reasoning for picking a school would be 1: tuition and 2: class size.

 

[Roxas]

Yep. Huge cliques at my school to the point of annoyance. It's almost like high school at times. At a larger class size school, the faculty gives zero crap about you. Administration only wants you to stay because you're tuition dollars to them that they can't get back if you fail out. Class size will also increase competition between the good rotations significantly. Every school will have the good and bad rotations, but 100 students vs. 270 makes it a lot more difficult to get adequate training. There's also a multitude of other negative experiences I've had that were consequence from class size, but mostly small in scale. I've expressed this before, but my reasoning for picking a school would be 1: tuition and 2: class size.

The clinical aspect you mentioned of a larger class size is one that gets frequently overlooked. At 220 our class is pretty big but doesn't feel that bad due to reasonably sized lab groups and adequate facilities. However, trying to spread that many students out to get a decent clinical education is where I fear it may start to go sour. Just hope we get good preceptors I guess.

 

[Mad Jack]

We've got a pretty big class size, but we're split into two major groups, so it's almost like we've got two classes instead of one. We've even got a half-joking rivalry between the A groupers and the B groupers. But having more students in your class is nice, as there's enough people around that everyone can find a good place to fit in and a good group of people to study and have fun with. I'm glad we've got as big of a class as we do.

 

[just_SAIYAN]

We've got a pretty big class size, but we're split into two major groups, so it's almost like we've got two classes instead of one. We've even got a half-joking rivalry between the A groupers and the B groupers. But having more students in your class is nice, as there's enough people around that everyone can find a good place to fit in and a good group of people to study and have fun with. I'm glad we've got as big of a class as we do.

Mad jack you're at UNECOM right? What's the class size there, over 200?

 

[Mad Jack]

Mad jack you're at UNECOM right? What's the class size there, over 200?

175.

 

[Jinxapotato]

If you go to school with a smaller class size you may experience that, my school used to only have about 125 students per class, then doubled its class size 5 years ago to 250, in addition we have students from Dentistry and Podiatry who take Basic Science course work as well. It all depends, I made friends despite the large class size, at larger schools though you tend to see student cliques develop, social circles where people remain within a particular group. You'll also see more gunners at larger schools whereas at smaller schools people tend to frown at them.

I think we are in the same school...lol

 

[readingrl]

I'm in a class of 250 and its not bad at all. Contrary to what some of the other people have said, our professors still take the time to meet with us individually if we need and have office hours daily the week beofre exams. Some have even come in on weekends if we asked. They also routinely answer emails on teh weekends. Its awesome! We cycle through partners in OMM, so you are will someone new every week, so its nice to always meet new people.

You do tend to see people form groups, but I havent felt as is there are any real cliques in my classs. Everyone is really friendly and more than willing to help everyone else. Also, even with the large class size, we actively discourage gunners.

 

[lossycompression]

I'm only a first year here, but I haven't noticed any major problems with our class size of 220 (as others have said, this may change when it's time for rotations). We're also broken into Group A and B for everything other than lecture, and especially thanks to the TAs, I really haven't felt like I've been "overlooked" or that I haven't been getting enough one-on-one education when I need it. I have a group of 5-6 people who I study with regularly, and although there are certainly people in my class whom I have never met before (or, at times, don't even know are in my class), I have at least had a brief conversation with many of my classmates.

 

[costales]

Class pictures can be problematic, but a larger pool gives you more potential dating material.

 

[Oh_Gee]

Class pictures can be problematic, but a larger pool gives you more potential dating material.

this person is a "glass half full" kinda guy

 

[Seth Joo]

Yep. Huge cliques at my school to the point of annoyance. It's almost like high school at times. At a larger class size school, the faculty gives zero crap about you. Administration only wants you to stay because you're tuition dollars to them that they can't get back if you fail out. Class size will also increase competition between the good rotations significantly. Every school will have the good and bad rotations, but 100 students vs. 270 makes it a lot more difficult to get adequate training. There's also a multitude of other negative experiences I've had that were consequence from class size, but mostly small in scale. I've expressed this before, but my reasoning for picking a school would be 1: tuition and 2: class size.

My school is definitely full of gunners, and most schools with larger class sizes tend to have gunners, schools with small class sizes tend to have few gunners and look down on them. I think something about being in a smaller environment changes behavior.

 

[W19]

Less than 25% of us attend lectures... Go figure!

 

[BobaBoba]

Less than 25% of us attend lectures... Go figure!

What school?

 

[W19]

@juice31 It's MD... and we don't even have a large class size like most DO schools

 

[yanks26dmb]

I'm in a class of 135 and I definitely like the smaller feel. everyone is very collaborative and the vast majority of us interact and know each other fairly well. it creates for a good atmosphere.

 

[Putkernerinthehall]

The clinical aspect you mentioned of a larger class size is one that gets frequently overlooked. At 220 our class is pretty big but doesn't feel that bad due to reasonably sized lab groups and adequate facilities. However, trying to spread that many students out to get a decent clinical education is where I fear it may start to go sour. Just hope we get good preceptors I guess.

Responding to an old post of yours. Curious how your clinical rotations turned out with that large class size. If you remember 😉

 

[Roxas]

Responding to an old post of yours. Curious how your clinical rotations turned out with that large class size. If you remember 😉

It turned out as well as it could for me. I got a spot at one of the big hospitals in town with residency programs for 3rd year. About half of the class went to places with some sort of gme, albeit many in smaller hospitals that were lucky to have a FM program. The other half the class ended up doing predominantly preceptor based rotations and some never saw an inpatient service as a 3rd year, which is tragic.

For all of 4th year our school basically says "**** you, set up your own rotations." So most people end up with a random assortment of sub-i's and rotations at home or around our school.

I was lucky and happy with how things turned out. Many were not.

 

[Sleepingdoc]

Hi guys!

As I chose schools, incoming class size held a lot of weight. I feel that small classes are more conducive to a collaborative atmosphere. I have an interview at a school with a traditionally large incoming class, and was hoping to hear some experiences in regards to collaboration and teamwork inside and outside of the classroom. Any thoughts/experiences are appreciated!

Best

I went to a school with 200+ students in a class, they usually have small groups for other activities, it really depends on the type of learner you are. I loved the atmosphere of a large class, however over the time period of 4 years, you will find friends that you fit in with and are very close to you and spend time studying with them.