For those who love what they do.
Written: Mar 12 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: good education, unique student culture
Cons: bureaucracy, bad food, expense
The Bottom Line: Don't go to CMU unless you really love what you are doing or you will burn out. But there's nowhere else quite like it.
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| shadowcat's Full Review: Carnegie Mellon University |
As a recent alumna of CMU (May 2000), I've had five years of experience with the university. I started out in the College of Fine Arts as a design major, and two years in switched to Cognitive Science. I believe I have achieved a very good education here, thanks to the resources and the culture that CMU has to offer. It is a very intense environment! Unless you really love what you do, this is a place where it's easy to get dragged down, depressed, convinced to drop out, or endlessly transfer between departments. CMU students take pride in stress, all-nighters, and high caffeine consumption. Friends, work, sleep: choose two. (Around here, sleep is usually the one that loses.)
The downsides (from a student's perspective):
- Bureaucracy. Any large institution will have a lot of this, but CMU seems to be exceptionally steeped in red tape and administrators who don't care how difficult the students' lives are made by it. Lost checks, closed offices, rude service, and billing errors are all fairly common.
- Academia. Again, to be expected at a university, but I (and many of my friends) got tired of the constant bowing and scraping to tenure at the expense of actual teaching ability.
- Food. They're trying to fix this, and it is getting (slowly) better, but campus dining is at best bland and monotonous and at worst nauseating.
- Career help. Many companies have canceled recruiting at CMU because the Career Center screwed up. Most people I know got their jobs by going elsewhere. Unless you have over a 3.5 GPA, it's probably not worth trying with them (except for the interviewing experience). Go to the job fairs for the free toys, though!
- Expense. The tuition keeps rising (faster than inflation), and the education's not getting any better.
- Pittsburgh. The weather is horrible and there isn't much of a nightlife. Most local companies (banks, groceries, utilities, etc.) are monopolistic, which leads to problems for off-campus students.
So there are a lot of downsides. But I wouldn't have gone anywhere else. The people I met here and the things I learned here have changed me and my life - for the better.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
shadowcat
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Member: Heather Keith
Location: Chelmsford, MA
Reviews written: 28
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
Human consciousness lies somewhere between Pavlov's dog and Schrodinger's cat.
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