Elective enrollment rises and falls with each new semester, and some electives underway are offering students a smaller, close-knit classroom environment. Among them are Principles of Game Design and East Asian Pop Culture, both of which have fewer than six students.
Registrar Ava Petrash said that class sizes vary every year and depend on several factors: course interest, grade size and whether or not the course is new. According to Petrash, these classes reflect the variations in enrollment that comes with the wide variety of courses, new course offerings and special circumstances, such as the Catalyst program. She also noted that while the average grade size is 160 students for the freshmen and sophomores, the electives available only to juniors and seniors are relatively smaller due to the size of each grade being between 140 and 150 students.
According to Petrash, Menlo’s upper school offers a vast selection of more than 60 electives, compared to some other similar schools which only have around half of that amount. As a result, unique electives often end up with smaller class sizes.
“I think it’s one of the strengths of the school. One of the reasons parents want to send their kids to Menlo is because of the wide variety of course offerings,” Petrash said.
Petrash also attributed the few classes with smaller sizes to the Catalyst program. Catalyst is a semester-long environmental and project-based program launched this year, which has resulted in 16 fewer juniors taking regular electives in both the fall and spring semesters.
Principles of Game Design, a new course taught by Computer Science teacher Douglass Kiang, currently has three students enrolled. The course was only added to the schedule recently, announced in mid-August after previous scheduling changes.
Junior Jonah Block, a student in Game Design, enjoys the stronger student-teacher relationships that he can form due to the small class size. He also finds that there is less academic pressure compared to his larger classes. “It’s really nice getting to have a conversation with the teacher rather than having the teacher [lecture]. It feels more like a dialogue than a monologue,” Block said.
While Kiang likes that he is able to give more attention to each individual student, he said that there are limitations in group activities during class. He had to change the curriculum, since the original plan was to compare strategies for one four player game session to another, something he isn’t able to do with fewer than eight students.
“Personally, my preference would be eight or 16 students. If we had 16 kids, you’d have four groups playing four player games. With some games […] you can play with eight people and it’s awesome,” Kiang said.
East Asian Pop Culture, an English class taught by Oscar King IV, is another elective that has a handful of students this year. Senior Zoe Zdrodowski is one of five students in the class and enjoys the smaller and more intimate environment. She said that she and her classmates sit in a circle and are able to engage in close discussions every class, similar to a socratic discussion, which Zdrodowski believes strengthens her bonds with her fellow students, as well as her teacher.
“I think the biggest benefit is definitely [that it] makes it way easier to reach out and ask for help,” Zdrodowski said.
On the other hand, Zdrodowski acknowledged that there is a lack of perspectives at times in their respective classes. “Sometimes it can feel, […] especially if you have a different opinion or idea, a little scarier to voice it,” Zdrodowski said.
Block expressed similar views on the drawbacks of a smaller class. “We’d like to have someone who’s played other games, who could give us a different input. […] We could probably have more constructive discussions in class,” he said.
King finds that all his students contribute a decent amount to class discussions. As a result, he believes the class’ smaller size isn’t restrictive. “The class is phenomenally dynamic and engag[ing] so far even with five students,” King said.
Upper School Director John Schafer said that while smaller class sizes can be a less efficient use of school resources, the administration still encourages the addition of new courses. Schafer acknowledged that electives will eventually be phased out if sign ups remain low for several years. “The first year usually doesn’t get that many sign ups, but we want to give it a chance, and it’ll grow,” Schafer said.
