[saryant]

My alma mater has begun doing this with their intro CS courses. It's a small school of only 2400 students and only 8 CS professors but demand is so high for CS right now that they simply can't staff up and maintain the university's cap of 30 students per course (21 in this case given the size of the CS labs).

They're teaching as many intro sections as they can without depriving majors of electives.

Fortunately they haven't gotten dickish about it but it's a tough spot to be in.

[derefr]

It sounds like a good time to be a CS professor looking for work, then?

[saryant]

This is after hiring two last year.

Problem is, the university was burned by that after the dotcom bubble crashed. They'd hired a bunch during the boom and then had far more than needed up until ~2010.

My freshman CS class in 2008 only had 3 students. The university doesn't want to repeat that.