Carnegie Mellon University Top Questions

They don't apply to everyone

there are some nerds and socially awkward people, plenty of them, but there are also plenty of awesome people that are a lot of fun to hang out with. the greek system gets looked down upon, as is the usual case, but we aren't as bad as most other school's systems, and we bring alot to the campus.

These are accurate for about 25{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the student body. However, most of the students are much more than that.

As a student body we are very smart, but we do seem to have more than your average number of ugly people among us. I believe that this is the result of two things. First, as a school renowned for engineering and computer science, we attract a certain breed of people: the geeks and the nerds of the world. They are called such not because of their intelligence, but because of social oddities. There are a LOT of weird people here, we're a collection of crazies, and some of those crazies just don't try to look good, and just don't care. The second reason, we are known for being such an ugly group of young people is because we work really really hard. Every professor assigns work as though theirs is the only class you are taking that semester. Because of this we don't sleep as much as we would like and we look tired, (not in a recipe for attractiveness) and we stop trying to look good. It just isn't the most important thing here, and I save a lot of money on make up. We also have a sense of humor about it. For a while T-shirts that read: SEX KILLS on the front and COME TO CMU AND LIVE FOREVER on the back were sold out side of the bookstore. (

We are definitely dorky, but not in a bad way. Everyone here is a dork about something: drama, computer science, politics, art, psychology, engineering, science, anime, music, whatever. You will never find people as passionate about their interests as they are here at CMU (and that's what makes us "dorks"). We are far from boring. This community is very diverse and there are always the most random things going on that will peak your interest. There are some ugly kids... I won't lie. But it is definitely exaggerated. A psychological study done on our campus showed that people were likely their opinion of attractiveness of a person based on whether they were told the student went to CMU (instead of Pitt). You can't be a dork about all these different things without knowing a lot about them. Students here know so much about some of the most tangential things that they put Ken Jennings to shame.

To a degree, the stereotypes are true becuase everyone has to be a hard-worker and at least a nerd to get into CMU and do well in their subjects, but as far as no social life, the people really are fabulous, and one has the ability to make quality, "once-in-a-lifetime" friends.

yes

Yes in some regards, however, there are definitely people who break this mold. In a sense we pride ourselves in our "nerdyness", and have fun with it.

Absolutley.

Most CMU students study a lot, but they do not study 24/7, and people do go out and have fun in their own way, shape or form. Partying isn't extremely popular here (if you want to go to a party, you can find one, but if you don't like parties you won't be pressed to go to any). CMU does have a very good engineering program, but there are other great programs on campus too, such as the drama and computer science departments. There are other programs with great reputations as well.