The overall quality of the academics at Carnegie Mellon is quite prestigious and geared towards not only teaching the coursework but also expanding their students’ interests within their studies and well preparing them for future careers. The classroom style varies depending on the type and demand of the course, but in general even large lectures of 100+ students are broken down into smaller classroom-sized “recitations” of roughly 15-35 students (depending on the type of course) at least once a week so that students have to opportunities for group discussion and individual attention from a teacher or PHD student-teacher. The types of courses taught in large lectures are those in high demand such as general education requirements, computer/science/engineering courses, psychology courses, and more. Classroom/lecture size is made to suit the needs of the students to the best of the school’s ability. Access to teachers and counselors is fairly easy at Carnegie Mellon. All teachers, student teachers, and counselors have available office hours every week or can be contacted for an appointment via email. The faculty at CMU is very dedicated to the students’ welfare and education and is more than happy to provide help or advice for students that seek it. Teachers at CMU enjoy seeing their students approach them outside of the classroom whether it’s academic-related or just conversational. Courses at Carnegie Mellon are often very difficult so getting extra help is common and often advised if necessary. The benefits of the academics are shown to influence students outside of the classroom as well. CMU students often catch themselves talking about academics in regular conversation and beyond that even take their skills from class and apply them to extra curricular activities during their free time. However, expect to study often and have copious amounts of work if you plan on attending CMU. Possibly one of the biggest issues regarding academics on campus would be registering for classes for each semester. The severity of this issue depends very heavily on how popular/in demand your classes are. For example, it can be difficult to immediately get into some computer science courses because there are so many computer science students at CMU. Many students find themselves placed on waitlists at first until adjustments are made or people switch out of classes. If it is absolutely necessary for you to take that course immediately, contact your counselor and he/she will do the best they can to get you in. However, this difficulty is definitely not the case for all students. Higher priority goes to those who with seniority, have graduation requirements, and are declared for the major that the course applies to. As major within the English department, I’ve had very few difficulties getting into any of my courses and have been able to get into almost if not every class I’ve been waitlisted for both within and outside of the English department. Students are given times to register for classes for the upcoming semester several weeks before the current semester ends. Dates to register are based off of class seniority (Seniors first day, Juniors second day, Sophomores third day, Freshman last day), and times for students’ access to the registration page online are randomly selected and changed every semester to make it fair. There are several weeks in between when you register and when the new semester begins so that all issues can be resolved as best as they can.

Starting answering!If you like designing and building the vehicles, driving them, or racing them up hills, you may become one of the many people captivated by Buggy. Drivers and mechanics get up as early as 4am on weekends to work on this unique sport, and its one of the most popular activities on campus. The fraternities create their own Buggy teams, and some of the independent Buggy clubs are so large and active they seem like fraternities themselves. Buggy is a great way to become part of a community, and groups tend to show a lot of team spirit. Improv is another popular activity with 2 clubs on campus. One of these clubs has gotten known by offering a weekly improv class to anyone interested in dropping by and free shows every other week. I made a lot of friends through this group, which tends to hang out and get dinner after meetings. Other numerous student productions include student music groups and the musicals by the student theater group. (Although rumor has it, it’s hard to get a part if you’re not already friends with members of the theater group). The Drama school also performs free student-run productions almost every week, in addition to its larger scale productions. Booth is another CMU tradition. Fraternities, sororities, and individual clubs compete by creating one or two level wooden buildings based on a theme given to them by the judges. Each building must contain a game for the public to play and be educational in some way. The booths are displayed in the end of the year Carnival and have lured many students into all nighters. In addition to on campus activities, it’s not uncommon for students to look off-campus, be it for jobs, volunteering with health care, or kung fu lessons. In general, it’s inconvenient to go downtown, but Shadyside and Bloomfield can offer interesting events like Slam Poetry and shows.

Classes are personal, and are all taught by a professor whom you know is absolutely one of the best in his/her field. I am doubling as a Creative and Professional Writing major, a department that is rapidly emerging as one of the trademarks of CMU. As a writer, my favorite class has been Survey of Forms: Screenwriting, a course in which you are fully immersed for a semester in the craft of the screenplay. Participation in class is recommended, if not required, to receive the most out of your teacher's offerings as well as the course material. Students are extremely competitive, and exceptionally dedicated to their studies in and out of the class. As far as getting a job afterwards, I can speak from secondary experience as I had a brother recently graduate from CMU with a degree in Civil Engineering, and the opportunities he had in front of him were remarkable, as he was instantly successful in attaining a high-paying, progressive position for an expanding company in an increasingly popular industry.

Students at Carnegie Mellon are hard-working, innovative, individual, creative, and ambitious. Obviously, the different collages have different personalities (the kids in the computer science program are different from those in the art program) but everyone on campus possesses those basic characteristics. Even those not in the College of Fine Arts (CFA) are still super creative and students in CFA are just as intelligent as those in engineering. The CMU student body is very diverse. There are students from all 50 states, as well as from 40 different countries. It's about 20% African American, Hispanic and Latin American; 20% Asian-American; and 14% international. Also, the male to female ratio is about 3:2.

Carnegie Mellon offers a wide variety of activities and organizations for students. Trust me, when you walk into the Activities Fair at the beginning of each semester, you will know there is something for everyone. Academic groups and activities are very popular; these range from The Tartan (our newspaper) to organizations that support probably every engineering and mathematics program. Artistic groups are probably the most popular, and CMU offers a wide assortment of these fun and interactive clubs and groups. Scotch n' Soda (non-major theatre group), Dancer's Symposium, Lunar Gala (fashion show), and various vocal groups are all fantastic student activities, some of them even achieving national recognition. Last, but definitely not least, are social groups and sports groups. Around 20% of the student population participates in Greek life, and a large majority of the population participates in sports (for non-athletic people like myself, fun intramural sports are offered). Cross-country, rowing, tennis, and swimming are some of the most popular on campus. Outside of clubs and organizations, CMU hosts many fantastic events and guest speakers. Just this year, Mark Zuckerburg (CEO of Facebook) chose Carnegie Mellon as one of only three campus to speak to. Outside of school, the social life is also at a great high. The city offers great venues for eating, music, film, and shopping for some fun on the weekend. And if you're looking for the 'classic college experience', there is almost always a party somewhere near campus that all are 'free' to attend (sometimes there is an entrance fee, especially for guys). No matter what your particular interests are, the school offers great opportunities to meet new people and develop great friendships.

The stereotypical student of my school is the nerd. Not the fashionable nerd-chic cliche that's been permeating our culture, but the hard-core computer science kind of nerd. The kind of nerd that revels in Starcraft, D&D, and writing operating systems for fun. Needless to say, the stereotype is not accurate. We have so many other hobbies as well.

The dorms create a great sense of community for those who are into that kind of thing, and are easily escapable for those who aren't. We have several strictly freshman dorms and a few for upperclassmen. Mudge House is a repurposed mansion. Donner House looks like its covered with bathroom tiles to me, and the inside is kind of a maze, but the students who dorm there love it. The Residence on Fifth has small theatre room and a game room, and the actual bedrooms have kitchens. Hammerschlag House is an all-male dorm with lots of traditions like Schlagmare, a haunted house type of thing during Hilloween (a Halloween celebration by the three or four dorms on "The Hill"), and Sausage Fest, where they grill up sausages and burgers for the campus. All the dorms have community events to allow students to socialize with each other and relax a bit between studies. Most of the dorms are pretty old, so they all have their own kind of personality and traditions. These tend to be pretty fun though, not stodgy, and where people dormed their freshman year tends to create a kind a of bond between them.

You can find any type of person at CMU - any race, any religion, any ethnicity, any political affiliation, any sexual orientation, any socio-economic status. With that being said, students with similar backgrounds and interests tend to cling together. For instance, Koreans mostly hang out with Koreans, and drama students mostly hang out with drama students, and football guys mostly hang out with football guys, etc. Your major may very well determine who your friends are because you'll be spending all your time with the same people in the same classes, labs, and studios. The majority of students here come from middle class/upper-middle class families (probably because tuition is so high). But regardless, whatever your interests are, you'll find other people with the same interests here. There is a club for almost everything, from anime-watching to ballroom dancing to death-metal-listening.

Without a doubt, the biggest complaint students have at CMU is the academic workload. Regardless of your major, the amount of time, energy, and effort students apply towards their craft is borderline nauseating. Students are almost in a perpetual state of sleep deprivation due to perfectionist tendencies, and the actual amount of schoolwork and studying associated with receiving their desired grade.

I'm pretty sure everyone loves the student taught courses (StuCo). They're pretty fun.

This school is very, very diverse on all fields. Different types of students interact, but there are a few ethnic groups that "stick to themselves"

So most people wouldn't think of CMU as a place that would have a strong writing program. This simply isn't true. One of my professors last semester is an editor who pretty much discovered pulitzer prize winners. By the time you get to advanced writing workshops you're expected to have a large amount of high quality work and depending on the genre it may even be expected that you'll be sending some of that work to literary journals.

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.

CMU is the perfect size. It's small enough to make it easy to get to know many people on a personal level. Whether they are in your major, live in your building, or just go to the same parties as you, seeing people frequently and not getting lost in the crowd allows making friends with similar interests easy. At the same time, it's big enough that it doesn't get boring. There are always new people to meet, various clubs, organizations, and events to participate in, and is located in the middle of a huge college town.

There are places for everyone at CMU. The really nerdy people have tons of friends and the really social people have a lot of friends. Design kids, greeks, and cultural groups are all places for people to get together. People are either really impressed that I go to CMU or just smile and say "oh that's good" but they really don't know that it is a really good school. The people are really good. Everyone is driven and smart. You can learn from everyone around you since everyone is working on such great things.

Well, most of the CS students are single and stinky, but we have tons of cool Purnell school of Drama cats, some hella tight artists, and the mech e's throw great parties...not to mention the archies and design cats.

CMU is a nerdy school. There is no doubt in my mind about that. If that's not for you, that's ok-there's no need to be part of the absurdity to fit in. However, if you make some joke referencing De Moivre's Theorem or a bug in your code, you can be reasonably certain that someone will get it and may even laugh.

I like almost all Maths and Science classes. I do not like writing class. Most of humanity classes require active participation.

LOTS and LOTS of Asians. There are more people here from Seoul, Korea than there are from West of the Mississippi.

This is an extremely diverse campus. A lot of international students... mostly asian. Although it's so diverse though, these groups are definitley seperated. It's hard to think of a specific type of student that might feel out of place. Probably valley girls from the west coast with daddy's check card and bleach blonde hair wouldn't fit in great. Everyone here really fights for their own, and even the jocks are still pulling good grades in physics. This is definitley a college for extreme types of people: extreme geeks, extreme jocks, extreme artists, extremely cultured, etc. Anyone who's just average would probably want to go somewhere else.