Professors typically do not know your name, as many of the classes have 100+ students. In order for a professor to know your name, you have to put in a strong effort to participate in class and meet with the professor during office hours. There are some classes at Stony Brook which are smaller, I think I just happened to take many of the classes that are bigger. Another good way to let a professor know who you are is by doing research for them or being a teacher's assistant. That's probably a wise move for your academic future anyway, because those are great ways to get a letter of recommendation for grad school.
My favorite class so far has been CFS 308: Violence in the Family. I loved that class because Rachel Kalish, the instructor of the course, had a way of making each class engaging. The class always went by so quickly because the material covered was actually interesting.
My least favorite class has to be one I took for a DEC, which was AAS 220: China: Language and Culture. My friends and I all took it together, thinking it would be fairly easy. It ended up being really annoying. The teacher wanted everyone to do group presentations (the class was probably about 100/110 people). These presentations were originally to be 5 minutes long, but of course the first group to present went on for 10 minutes, which set the bar for everyone trying to out-do each other to look like they were better informed. It got to a point where some groups had to be presenting for at least 20 minutes, and I'm sorry to say, but the Hunan Province can only be entertaining for so long. The teacher kept changing the syllabus, and in the end, I have no clue how I got my grade since my teacher never handed anything back.
Some students study a lot, some never crack open a book. I think it just depends on the individual. There are dorms on campus where it is quiet 24 hours a day. I have no idea who would elect to live in such a place, but to each their own.
Class participation depends on the type of class. Some professors never make it part of the class, whereas other professors encourage it, even if the class is large. Often, it is the same few people who participate in class. Sometimes the people who participate aren't very helpful to the flow of the class, and ask questions that are pretty much irrelevant.
I think students do engage in intellectual conversations outside of class, I know I do.
Some students are competitive, but I'm sure it depends on what major you are.
The most unique class I've taken so far is PSY 346 Health Psychology. The class is a lecture sized class, and yet the teacher has the class split up into discussion groups and minicourses on certain days, run by the UTAs. The students get to sign up for whichever group they are interested in, and participation and attendance to these groups are actually part of your grade. It's confusing at first, but it's really a great way to learn. I took a discussion group on stress management, so I got credit towards my grade for learning about something that is beneficial to me anyway.
I am a psychology major, and my department is heavily research oriented. There are plenty opportunities to become a research assistant, and in the Honors College for Psych, you can even create your own project. I personally find my department advisor to be unhelpful, as anytime I have visited her office in the past, I was treated as if I was inconveniencing her. I remember when I was looking into internships and I went to the psych dept for help. My advisor gave me one reference, and it turns out the person she told me to contact no longer worked for the agency. I have spoken to other students who also have had bad experiences with the advisor. It just seems like she doesn't want to advise students at all. Lucky for me I know how to read my course bulletin, or else I'd be completely lost as to what I need to do to complete my major.
I do not spend time with professors outside of class, I don't think I ever have, except for office hours. I think there are too many students on campus for professors to try and fraternize with.
Stony Brook requires each student complete a set of classes known as DECS. They are labeled A-K, and certain ones require two courses in order to satisfy the req. I understand the reasoning behind DECs, but I find them to be annoying, and just one more thing to worry about completing in order to graduate on time. There has been one DEC, which is on european traditions, that I finally took this semester. It has been haunting me for the past four years and I just never found one I could tolerate until now.
I think Stony Brook's education is geared towards both getting a job and learning for it's own sake. Stony Brook provides plenty of internships on campus, and linkages to ones offcampus. Stony Brook has pretty much everything you can want in an education. There are so many classes to choose from, you can certainly seek out whatever you are looking for in the college experience here at SBU.