College admissions is competitive,

CMU is a smaller school, about 1,300 students per year. When mentioned in conversation, the people either know the school's great reputation immediately (locals and technology based professionals) or they have no idea that it even exists. For me, as a design student, my time is spent in studio and in general most students find that they spend most of their time on campus. It sometimes takes a lot of determination to leave campus because of the heavy work load and ongoing demands from professors. There is school pride but it is not shown through athletics. The people who attend sports events are the players, parents (if in town) and close friends of the athletes.

In most classes, the professors do know your name. Most classes are small, approx. 30 students. Some are larger, between 60-100 and only very large introduction classes or widely taken classes are lecture sizes, 300-350 students. There are a hand full of classes that are required by each department and many of those liberal arts requriements over lap. Students are semi competitive but it varies from school to school. We currently have a grading system in which only a flat letter grade can be received (A, B, C, etc.).

In freshman housing, there is a greater sense of community than in upper classmen dorms. Extracurriculars exist on campus however, academics take such a focus that student tend to limit their envolvement. Athletics are available at all different levels (varsity, club, intermural). If I am awake at 2am on a Tuesday I am either studying, writing a paper, finishin the last bit of my homework or in studio, working on a project.

Every year we have Carnival in the spring which is our extended weekend equivalent to thanksgiving in the fall semester. We get Thurs - Sun off and there are special activities planned like a concert, a comedian, etc. Also there is booth which consumes many people's free time throughout spring semester as greek and other organizations each build themed 2 story structures that are later exhibited and toured by the student body and other visitors in the area.

When people party on the weekends (Fri and Sat) there is often an excessive amount of drinking because the students cannot participate at any other point in the week like many other schools do. Therefore, many students decide to party "harder" on the weekends.

We're all nerds and we all love computers.

Some... I think that for the most part, everyone here is extremely dedicated to what they do and extremely dedicated to learning... so in a way we are nerds of our specific majors... as for computers, no not everyone loves them but technology definitely has a strong presence on campus