Carnegie Mellon University Top Questions

Academic Life Some suggested topics: Do professors know your name? · Tell us about your favorite class. Least favorite? · How often do students study? · Is class participation common? · Do Carnegie students have intellectual conversations outside of class? · Are students competitive? · What's the most unique class you've taken? · Tell us about your major / department. · Do you spend time with professors outside of class? · How do you feel about Carnegie's academic requirements? · Is the education at Carnegie geared toward getting a job, or learning for its own sake?

I know all of my design professors extremely well. They know my name, and I can email them about projects or questions whenever. The students in design are very talented and dedicated, but we aren't a cutthroat class. We don't sabotage each other's work or anything extreme like that. We all critique each others work and help each other succeed. We are actually all best friends which is the best.

In upper level classes, professors know your name. My favorite classes were Behavioral Decision Making and Acting for Non-Majors. My least favorite was freshman Calculus. The most unique class was Decision Analysis and Decision Support Systems where the exam answers are weighted by probability on a logarithmic scale, which means that saying the right answer was 0{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} likely can get you a score of negative infinity on the question and thus the exam. The professors in my department were literally pioneers in the field. The two university (most senior) professors in my department both invited my to their homes to talk and give me advice. Students definitely get great jobs, but I think most of them learn for it's own sake. We are nerds, after all.

LOTS of work compared to high school, but definitely manageable if you stay on top of it. Just dont expect to party on weekdays too often or join 4 clubs. Classes are great. Lectures are amazing, teachers are brilliant, homework is interesting (but challenging), tons of resources to help you out like office hours and even tutoring. My best strategy is just make a friend in the class. Also, teachers really DO take the time to get to know you. I know all school's say this, but it's true here. Everytime I pass a teacher I had since freshman year we say hi and usually stop to talk for a little. It's really cool that they make such close relationships with all the students.

Academics are hard; really, really hard. Don't let this scare you though; if you're a cmu'er at heart, you'll be kind of excited about this. We will challenge you to dig deeper, try harder, work faster, work better -- in every possible way. In particular, the Biology and Chemistry departments are know for their laboratory instruction, which consistently places us as some of the best trained undergraduates available to graduate schools and industry. You WILL have the opportunity to preform significant research, and you should. It will both cement your place in the academic culture of CMU and make you extremely competitive for the future. As for accessibility of professors and personal attention, I believe CMU can rival small liberal arts colleges. Professors are ALWAYS available, advising is superb, and you will never want for more support.

# Academics at CMU Here you'll learn how to program faster, better, more efficiently, and get a hot date, all with the same code. Leave CMU with the knowledge that your code will be better written, more well understood, and more compact than most others. Professors will largely ignore you for the first few years. Inevitably, your brilliance will outshine them. Then, you will be suggested by your advisor to move past the intro classes. Spending time with professors out of class is purely nobody else's concerns. Wink wink.

The only reason why professors don't know my name is because I don't go to office hours that much; otherwise, I'm sure they would. My favorite class this past year was Calculus I because the teacher was funny and engaging. My least favorite class was Engineering Materials of the Future (27-100) because the teacher in the spring semester for that class, though very nice, is a horrible teacher. He talks very softly, so he's hard to hear, and he never gave us a very good idea of what we should study for exams. Some students study a great deal (over achievers), others are naturally very gifted, don't care terribly much about their GPAs, and get by without doing much work. Some students are competitive with themselves, but I have never felt that someone was competing with me.

I like almost all Maths and Science classes. I do not like writing class. Most of humanity classes require active participation.

As far as academics, you can't ask for much more than CMU. The professors are amazing, very friendly and helpful. You will also probably end up doing research and working for your favorite professor in your major, which is an opportunity I don't think anyone should pass up. Learning inside the classroom is one thing, but actually seeing scientific phenomena occur in real life and using it in real life applications gives you a whole different kind of knowledge.

The first day of orientation I met a business professor named Dr.Cofield who has not only taught me a class but has served as an advisor as well. He knows my name. He has met my parents and my boyfriend (a Maryland Terp) and sat down with a friend of mine from high school friend to talk about college. He tells me about his trips to Louisiana and I tell him about my spring break. He's more than a professor. This is what I love about CMU, especially the Tepper School of Business. I'm not just a number, not just one of thousands of students. I'm one of only 100 business students in my class year. It's a really unique program. A lot of work, but well worth it in the long run.