Malformed University Name, Uncategorized Surveys

Carnegie Mellon is a school that accepts a lot of students initially, and then kicks a lot of them out. They believe in hard work and yelling at you, over and over, "Produce! Produce! Produce, you lazy bastards!" This has the advantage of yielding a small number of very efficient, very bright graduates, and has the additional advantage that it works well for many different departments -- I think CMU Drama, Art, Architecture, Engineering and Computer Science grads will all back me up on them using this approach, and the quality of the alumni in each of those departments is telling. I'm dual-degree Math and Comp Sci, myself. The other good thing about this approach is the attitude that it creates within each of the colleges -- we all feel we're oppressed by the school, and so there's a lot of in-college solidarity.

While students of individual colleges can be inbred and clannish, rarely talking to people outside their own major, you can cross those boundaries with a little effort. For instance, if you're a CS major I highly recommend talking to art students, both for their attitude and for that major's male/female ratio. Besides, they're as overworked and obsessed as you are, which helps relationship dynamics. And it's not that students of other colleges don't *want* to talk to people outside their major, they just rarely do it without prompting.

CMU graduates tend to get together again easily, and you'll find a lot of them in high-tech areas such as Austin or the San Francisco Bay Area. It's surprising how much of a support system you can find on short notice in areas that attract CMU grads, since they all know you've been through the same thing they have, and they respect you for it. And since they often clump together, finding a couple of them can find you a whole nest.

Would I recommend that you, the reader, go to CMU? Well, maybe. The most important thing is to already know what you want to be. You'll find that the required focus and intensity is, well, intense. It's hard to do something you're not sure you like, and it's harder to do it to CMU's minimum standards. Make sure that whatever you're doing, you really want to do it. If you don't know, then CMU is very likely the wrong school. And if you do, and you're willing to gamble on burning out, breaking down early and winding up out on your ass... Hey, we need more people that work hour after hour while grinning madly at adversity. Get yourself an application form already and start practicing your all-night work sessions. You'll need it.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000