Big v. Small- The Reality of Class Sizes

Math 100, one of the biggest lecture halls on campus.

When I first came to CU, one of the things I was most curious about was how big my classes were going to be. Registering, I could see that I was in classes of 200, 300 people and definitely wondering how that would feel in comparison the the comfortable 20-30 people of high school. Admittedly, it was shocking the first few times I walked in, but as I developed tactics to make getting in and out of lectures as fast as possible, life in a big lecture hall definitely got much easier!

Some important things to keep in mind coming into larger classes:

Your class is only as big as the number of people sitting in front of you. This helped me more than I could even imagine when I first got to school! Let's put it this way... in the classes where I sat up front, I did well. In classes where I sat in the back... I'll let you guess.

Go to your professor's office hours. Even if you just ask a quick question, you are that much more memorable in a sea of faces. Not to mention office hours help TONS when you don't understand something- an issue that takes hours outside of class can be resolved in 10 minutes of one-on-one time with a professor.

Get a tutor. If you really struggle in a subject, tutors around CU are usually cheap or free and provided by the university. The extra help goes a long way when exams come around and you can have someone there to help you with your homework every week.

Attend recitation. Recitations sometimes don't take attendance, but in many they take attendance and you may have a weekly quiz. Those points add up, so it's extremely important to go. T.A.s also sometimes cover more information that your professor won't in class, so if you don't go you could miss information for the final or midterm.

Form a study group. Having friends in a class make it easy to get notes when you miss a lecture and make studying for finals easier because you can bounce questions off other people.