Life in the College Classroom
By Dr. Pat Spirou
Chair Marketing Department, Southern New Hampshire University

Classroom experiences change over time. In elementary school, students typically stay in one classroom, with the same teacher, and the same group of students. When entering middle school or junior high school, students typically change classes, have different teachers and different students in each of these classes. Upon entering high school, a larger body of students attend many different classes that meet everyday (usually under an hour unless it’s a double block class).

How does this compare to taking classes in college? Students meet with professors twice a week for approximately one and half hours in the classroom setting. Sometimes there may be ‘labs’ attached to these classes in which students must attend additional classes each week for an hour. The students take five classes in the fall semester and five different classes in the spring semester, with approximately 3-4 weeks off between.

The classrooms are usually wireless in college, thus students bring laptops for taking notes and viewing the professor's lecture. Technology is a standard method used in the college classroom, and students quickly adapt to this type of lecturing and learning.

Some classes offer the students ‘real world’ experience. This means that students are working with actual companies and assist them in several areas. It could be a public relations campaign, an advertising campaign, a strategic plan, a new logo or web page design, to name a few.

Class sizes vary depending on how large the college or university is. Small and medium size colleges generally have around 20 – 30 students in each class. Large colleges and universities can have as many as 100-200 in each class.