Pre-med students, engineers and anyone who has classes in huge lecture halls on a regular basis: you are missing out. On what? Tiny classes, intimate class discussions and daily opportunities to bond with professors and other students.

I know that most departments have discussion sections, labs and the like, but it’s just not the same. For example, I’ve never had a class in the music department with more than 20 people in it. Sure, music is different to explain and learn than chemistry or physics, but the point is that no matter what your field of study is, it’s nice to have a class in which you can call everyone by name.

Lots of my friends are in the engineering department and they know most of the other engineers. They do homework together, study for exams together and plan events for their fellow engineers. But do they hold class outdoors on sunny days, take hour-long field trips during class time or get their whole class taken to lunch by their professors? I’m going to hazard a guess that they don’t.

There’s nothing wrong with huge lecture classes; most of my anthropology classes have had 100 or more students. It’s nice to feel anonymous sometimes. It’s nice to sit and listen to a lecture without having to contribute to the discussion by synthesizing information on the spot or reading a passage of your own work. It’s also nice to know that there are a couple hundred people struggling with the same topics and problems that you are. I much preferred studying for calculus exams, when I could walk down the hall and find eight people working on the same problem, than for music theory exams which required trekking all over campus to find one of the eight total people who could help me.

I’m addicted to small classes, though. The best thing about them is the community that is created and cultivated throughout the semester or year. You can guess which questions your professor will ask which students; you can guess how the girl next to you is going to respond. You know the names of your professor’s children, the name of his or her dog, the way he or she feels about any of a number of issues-and, more importantly, he or she also knows these types of things about every member of the class.

If touchy-feely stuff isn’t your cup of tea, that’s fine, but for all of you who still need to fulfill some LA or TH clusters and don’t know what to add to your schedule, think about a small, discussion-based class instead of one during which you can check your e-mail and change your Facebook profile. You might have a chance to discuss politics or philosophy, find out about an unfamiliar culture, read music and sing in class or speak a new language (or at least find out how to say “please open the window”). I know, I know-no matter what class you’re taking, you can only get out of it as much as you put in. But for the time and energy you put into a discussion-sized class, you will reap an entirely different and intriguing new set of rewards.

Katie is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected]

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