Carnegie Mellon University Top Questions

While it is okay to be undecided going into CMU, almost all first-year students have a clear idea of what they want to study and achieve career-wise. Most departments have their students taking classes directly involved with their major starting the first semester of freshman year, so sometimes it is a bit difficult to change majors within CMU without getting behind. But if you do decide to change majors, the faculty and advisors are extremely supportive and will do whatever it takes to help you out. Many general education classes are large lectures 2-3 times per week, broken down into smaller groups that meet with a teaching assistant 1-2 times per week. Once you have completed general education requirements, the classes get much smaller and you are able to develop more personal relationships with your professor. If you are struggling academically, CMU offers free tutoring and other helpful services at its Academic Learning Center to help you succeed. Students study on a daily basis, including weekends. The CMU education is a healthy balance of learning for its own sake and preparing students for getting a job.

Here is CMU's selling point. Academics. They are great. You can learn as much as you want, almost any professor is willing to meet with you and discuss anything. You will learn useful skills that will help you get a job. They tend to focus on getting all students the hands on experience you would need to get "paid" as they say. If you want to really grow academically, this is the place to do it. The people teaching are not regular professors that have wanted to teach their whole lives. They have worked for Google, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Goldman Sachs, etc. These guys know whats up.

there is a great deal of academic competitiveness at cmu. people feel the need to prove that they stayed up all night studying as if that somehow makes them smarter than you. its easy to get to know your teachers if you make an effort, but they dont impose on you if they know you dont want them to. one thing i like about cmu is that its very common to have intellectual conversations outside of class, people are actually interested in what they are studying and thus are eager to talk about it.

You have to make an effort to get to know professors. However, once you do, they really make an effort to help you succeed. If you're struggling in a class, I've found that professors really appreciate it if you take the time to see them outside of class. In the humanities, class participation is usually dominated by a few students, but those students have lively, informed, and interesting discussions. Students, as a whole, study A LOT. However, students in H&SS tend to study a bit less than students in other majors. There isn't a lot of intellectual discourse outside of the classroom, probably because everyone has spent most of their time on their schoolwork. However, there is a lot of group studying and collaboration. The academic requirements for H&SS are fair and definitely manageable, with an array of subjects and classes to choose from. And even if a class isn't listed as fulfilling a requirement, the academic advisors try to work with you to find a compromise. My eduation in the humanities was definitely geared towards learning for its own sake, but I've heard students in other colleges say that their courses are geared towards finding a job.

Do professors know your name? - If you take the time to meet them, then they will. This is really important and most people don't bother. GET TO KNOW YOUR PROFESSORS! They are some of the smartest people in the US, if not the world, and if they think you are smart or hard working you can get letters of recommendation or the chance to do research with them. There's a reason you pay top dollar to go to CMU and this is the big one. Tell us about your favorite class. Least favorite? - Don't really have a favorite class. I guess I learned a lot in my intro to computer systems class, 15-213 (which is not really an "intro" course, you learn how to hack - buffer overflows, writing C's memory allocator, malloc, and writing a unix shell and proxy are some of the labs). Least favorite class is 15-251, Great Theoretical Ideas of Computer Science, it was a ton of work and I didn't even get a good grade in it. How often do students study? - Depends on the student. Is class participation common? - Depends on the professor. Some like discussion and others just lecture. Do CMU students have intellectual conversations outside of class? - Oh yes, trust me they do. Are students competitive? - Some are, but it will not be a problem to ask any student for help. Anyone I've ever asked for help has given it to me, and I hear at other schools this is not the case. The competition comes from the fact that pretty much everyone is smart. What's the most unique class you've taken? - Nothing that extraordinary. Tell us about your major / department. - Electrical and Computer Engineering (1 department) and Computer Science (another department) are both challenging majors and some of the best programs in the country. Thus, like I said earlier there are a lot of really smart students here, and you'll have to compete with them to get the A (It's possible though, while I'm smart I'm not genius smart and I've pulled off an A in my last 3 engineering classes. A lot of times professors award A's to the top 10-20{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the class.) Do you spend time with professors outside of class? - I don't, I'm sure others do. How do you feel about CMU 's academic requirements? - You have to be smart. If you were in the top 5{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of your high school would most likely be good. I mean this depends on how smart everyone is in your class, so take it with a grain of salt. Is the education at CMU geared toward getting a job, or learning for its own sake? - It's geared to make you learn to critically think, so I guess both. If you can critically think then work at a job is trivial.

Very strong academically, but also very challenging, alot of work.

The professors and teacher's assistants are very available to help. Intellectual conversations do take place outside of class all of the time. The education at CMU is geared towards both getting a job and learning.

Some of your early classes will be huge lectures, but by the time you are into your major you have primarily smaller classes where your professors know your name and keep a pretty friendly atmosphere. Some professors actually let you address them by their first name in an effort to keep the atmosphere light and friendly.

Academics are hard, and classes range from 300-person lectures to 10 person classes and studios. Intimacy and class participation ranges with them and with the nature of the course. Classes like Dif-Eq and Dynamics Systems and Controls don't have much participation, because there's not much to discuss. It's about learning the math. Courses of other types have more participation. It's very easy to find yourself immersed in the classes and talking about them outside of class. After one trippy-engineering course my friends and I spent a few hours analyzing the vagina in 4 dimensions... yes, we are that cool. CMU=job (at least at first, don't work for start-ups, don't sub-contract with google)

Academics will own your life. Andrew Carnegie said in his letter to found this university, "My heart is in the work." Let me tell you the professors have made it their goal to live up to that notion. At the same time most of the professors aren't mean or anything. You can hang out with them out of class talking about things that irrelevant to the class you're in. I've actually attended a party at my professor's place of residence.