During undergrad... at Purdue, I often found myself in classes with anywhere from 6 students to 450 students. It didn't matter what class I was in, if I wanted the professor to know my name he/she would know my name with little effort on my behalf. If I didn't want the professor to know my name, he/she didn't know my name, which was typically the case due to my spontaneous severe case of narcolepsy as soon as I entered a lecture room. I have witnesses who can attest to this medical condition though no doctor has supported my diagnosis. Control over this aspect of class was one more reason I liked the big school feel that Purdue provided (that and football, social opportunities, and not to mention a world class engineering program).
One of the biggest surprising and uncontrollable differences with MIT comes in the professors... particularly with their familiarity with your name... on the first day of class. It turns out, that several of the professors have used our LGO picture book (basically a class list with photographs) to learn our names. Some professors even go so far as to read our admission applications.
This comes as a big surprise to many students during the first few weeks of class when a professor says "Michael, tell us if your experience with the TPS reports when you worked at Initech is similar to the situation in the case under study". Post class conversation often sounds like "How does he know that I worked at Initech? I never mentioned it!".
Whether it is good or bad is up to the individual's opinion, but it's one more way that a professor has your number.
