Small classes, big impact: Building meaningful connections

Jan 10, 2025

By Juliana, 1st-year Corpus Christi College student

“Students are a name and not a number” isn’t just a saying here. It’s really true. Each one of my professors knows my name and this is something not every post-secondary student gets to say. The smaller classes have helped my education and relationship-building with classmates and professors much more than I could have ever anticipated.

The power of personalized attention in small classes

It is much easier for a professor to get to know a student and their learning needs in a small class than in a class of hundreds of students. Some of my courses, such as my ENGL 100 class, have a maximum of only 25 students per class—on purpose. Our professor can take the time to thoroughly mark essays and papers and give constructive feedback for the sections we need to work on much more personally than a professor who marks an assignment and has no idea who the student is.

As a semester is usually around four months and sometimes less, there is barely any time for professors to learn what each student already knows and needs to know further.

In my three classes of 25 students, I feel like I have the close relationship I had with my high school teachers with my professors, as each of them knows what I need.

Enhanced student-professor interactions

As a first-year student, it is truly a gift to talk to my professors so easily. Comparing my experiences to my friends who go to UBC or SFU, it isn’t always easy to ask specific questions in class when there are 200+ students. In a class of fifty or fewer, it is so much simpler to interact with professors, and they are more lenient with questions because there are so few of us. We sometimes even get called on!

With professors knowing our names, I would have thought being called on in high school was scary, but in college, it shows they know me as a person and they want to hear what I have to say.

Sometimes the students speak more than the professors. My philosophy and psychology classes have been great doors to discussions about terms or topics we don’t understand. I understand the information clearly because I can participate in a dialogue with my small number of classmates and professor.

Building stronger connections with classmates

I am not exaggerating when I say I made about 15 friends the first two weeks of school. Even better, I’ve gotten to know them really well and we have gotten so close in our classes that we hung out outside of school within the first month.

This experience, sadly, many first-year students do not get to relate to. Some students are able to make close relationships still in bigger classes but it’s not always easy for everyone. It’s really hard to make friends and connect to classmates on a deep level when there are hundreds in a room and even more if the whole campus has thousands of students.

As Corpus Christi is only a first and second-year school, students are usually quite close in age. That added to the fact that classes are so small makes it very easy to get to know people well within such a short span of time.

The best of both worlds

Even though Corpus Christi is its own school, we still are on the UBC Campus. We have the benefit of smaller classes but are still able to go to and from UBC whenever we don’t have class and explore the restaurants, recreation buildings, study areas, etc.

I honestly feel that I could not have chosen a better school to transition from high school to university. A tight-knit, caring, community is what everyone needs in a first-year university.

Wherever one finds it, I feel fortunate that mine is at the core of my whole institution.