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I specifically attended a small private liberal arts class in large part due to its average of a 12:1 student-professor ratio.
The school, and its classes, comprised a small, tightly knit community. People were active participants. It was impossible to "hide out" in class, or to skip a class without it being noticed. In-depth discourse was the norm.
It's not for everyone. Those who found they didn't like that aspect typically transferred to the nearest large state university. It mostly attracted the sorts of personalities who really like class discussion.
I went to a large public university for the anonymity of it. My high school was about 1,400 kids BUT a lot of my classes especially my last 2 years were AP courses of 15 kids or less. My dad was an admin and I had known several of my teachers since I was in elem. I played sports and was very active in the school. Point is even in a school of over 1,000 kids I still felt like a big fish in a small pond. Going to a university of 15,000 kids and having classes of 300+ kids was amazing for me personally. I finally felt like a nobody :-) As sad as that sounds it was a great break from being under the microscope 24/7. My last 2 years of undergrad once I got into my major then you were talking classes of 20-25 kids with less lecture and way more discourse. By that time I had tired of my anonymous environment and was ready to be reborn haha.
I went to a large public university, and because of my off-the-wall interests, I had a lot of classes that had 10-15 students. I don't remember any reluctance to speak in class on the part of the other students. We were all there because we wanted to be, we were into the subject matter. I think it's when classes get larger that you end up with students who are just taking the class for some kind of general distribution requirement, and they're not all that into the subject matter, so they're more passive.
OP, I don't get why you'd avoid the profs who appreciated you as a student. ...? I had profs take me under their wing, and include me in activities outside of class. One even took me on a road trip with his wife to attend some radical political rallies out-of-state, lol. Very cool. Those are the profs who would give you great recommendations for grad school or for jobs. You don't know what you could be missing out on if you go around avoiding them.
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