[Q] Any Carnegie Mellon Students?

On December 12 2010 14:21 Crunchums wrote:
You're gonna have to be more specific than "outside of the classroom", there's basically everything here. I don't really know how to explain anything because it is all I know so I don't know how it is different from anything else, but if you have specific questions I can answer them.

On December 12 2010 14:27 Archaic wrote:


Do you guys do any random student-organized projects. Something similar to school pranks, random creations or competitions, etc. I'm sorry I can't be more specific. I don't really know exactly what I'm looking for, hehe.

On December 19 2010 11:04 Archaic wrote:
I'm planning on majoring in ECE... Does the same thing go for that?

On December 19 2010 07:35 teh leet newb wrote:
DON'T COME TO CMU! At least not for CS.

I'm a third year CS student, and I already hate it. It was great at first, but as time went by, I found myself increasing dissatisfied. Here's why:

1. Academics - Lots of theory, very focused on research. Fine if you're into that stuff, but very hard and time-consuming. I'd say the biggest example is the effort:result ratio. In most majors, if you put in X amount of hours, you'll expect Y amount of return (like actually finishing an assignment). In CS (maybe ECE too, not sure), you can put in like 100 hours and still not understand the material => you fail. This mostly isn't the case for intro classes, but once you start taking higher level classes, you'll understand.
2. Social life - You can join as many clubs as you want; your social life will still blow in comparison to places like Duke, Stanford, state schools, Harvard, hell my friends at MIT are much happier.
3. Campus - Ugly, small, boring, parking is absolutely terrible, no dining halls.
4. No $$$ - CMU is hella poor, since our alumni giving rate is abysmally low. This directly translates into worse facilities and fewer opportunities.
5. Girls - There are definitely some attractive girls here, but overall, the stereotypes about CMU are true. Rating: D-

Some cool things that aren't actually that cool:
1. Booth/buggy - Having participated in both of these events as a fraternity member, I can say that they're basically a huge black hole of money and time. Although they're very unique to CMU, people waste thousands of dollars and countless man-hours every year to make it happen.

If you DO come to CMU though, major in IS (Information Systems). It's super easy compared to CS or engineering, you learn real-life skills, and you still get great jobs after graduating. Basically, only do CS if you really want to go get a Master's or PhD after and continue to do research/academia for your entire life.

On December 19 2010 17:34 Empyrean wrote:


You just ruined a lot of dreams here.

On December 19 2010 07:35 teh leet newb wrote:
DON'T COME TO CMU! At least not for CS.

I'm a third year CS student, and I already hate it. It was great at first, but as time went by, I found myself increasing dissatisfied. Here's why:

1. Academics - Lots of theory, very focused on research. Fine if you're into that stuff, but very hard and time-consuming. I'd say the biggest example is the effort:result ratio. In most majors, if you put in X amount of hours, you'll expect Y amount of return (like actually finishing an assignment). In CS (maybe ECE too, not sure), you can put in like 100 hours and still not understand the material => you fail. This mostly isn't the case for intro classes, but once you start taking higher level classes, you'll understand.
2. Social life - You can join as many clubs as you want; your social life will still blow in comparison to places like Duke, Stanford, state schools, Harvard, hell my friends at MIT are much happier.
3. Campus - Ugly, small, boring, parking is absolutely terrible, no dining halls.
4. No $$$ - CMU is hella poor, since our alumni giving rate is abysmally low. This directly translates into worse facilities and fewer opportunities.
5. Girls - There are definitely some attractive girls here, but overall, the stereotypes about CMU are true. Rating: D-

Some cool things that aren't actually that cool:
1. Booth/buggy - Having participated in both of these events as a fraternity member, I can say that they're basically a huge black hole of money and time. Although they're very unique to CMU, people waste thousands of dollars and countless man-hours every year to make it happen.

If you DO come to CMU though, major in IS (Information Systems). It's super easy compared to CS or engineering, you learn real-life skills, and you still get great jobs after graduating. Basically, only do CS if you really want to go get a Master's or PhD after and continue to do research/academia for your entire life.

On December 20 2010 12:47 Empyrean wrote:
Wait, did you honestly just say ECE isn't as tied to math as CS is? It's different math, to be sure, but there's still a ton of math in ECE.

And yeah, that long post sums up CMU pretty well, from what I've heard from other people.

On December 20 2010 13:09 Snipinpanda wrote:


What, not really. To graduate in ECE at CMU you literally need to take the basic calc courses that all engineers need to take, and then like one basic proof related course, and then one really poorly taught math course that deals with diff eq/matrix algebra/simple complex stuff.

There really isn't a terrible amount of math in ECE, and if it is it's mostly for the analog part and signals. For digital, it's not math at all, aside from like boolean algebra stuff, which is ez. Trust me, CS has a lot more to deal with math, and it's not even funny how closely they are tied together. You still need to think logically to do well in ECE, but CS definitely has more proof based math and algorithmic related things.