I have heard and read many claims of this. Is it true? Current students, please answer! Discuss!
My son is there. I am not sure what you mean by Elitist. Do you mean, are they arrogant? If so, I am sure some are and some aren’t. Compared to students from Yale or Princeton, they don’t appear elitist to me. I get the sense they are too busy working to take time off to pat themselves on the back.
I guess what I mean is: Is it common to come across students who look at others with some sense of contempt based on department/major/classes/whatever?
Oh, good question. Well my son is a non-SCS, non drama guy, so I guess he would be subjected to that. He actually has some friends among the SCS students, and he was excited when he took a class with a whole bunch of theater students and they sang happy birthday to him (I suppose in 3 part harmony) in class. But then – there is sort of an inferiority complex at Dietrich. He doesn’t mind that, but he is sort of a self-effacing guy who exudes quiet confidence. I believe some students in the non-SCS programs do resent that attitude.
This seems a very trivial thing to be concerned about.
Per my daughter there may be some informal bragging re lack of sleep (hence perceived hard work) but it’s not a big deal – unless you’re overly sensitive, I suppose
Remember that at CMU you’re not going to last long, no matter the program, if your heart isn’t in the work. You’re not going to have much time to be concerned about what’s going on w kids in other programs.
;->
No, how can CMU be an ellitist when no one knows about CMU lol. Whenever I told people that I go to CMU, they give me blank faces. Whether or not they are arrogant, it is hard to tell. I don’t think they are as arrogant as Ivy students. In fact, that is 1 of the reason why a friend of mine went to CMU instead of Columbia.
I guess “elitists” was the wrong word. I just posted this because I’ve been told by students and visitors on campus that Engineering and CS students often talk very poorly of other students and departments. So far the comments seem to indicate that this isn’t very common, which I suppose is encouraging.
CMU has a pretty stressful environment. So it isn’t surprising that there are a lot of haters in the CMU community.
My son is in Tepper but almost all of his friends are SCS. He has never experienced that at all. They do complain about sleep! Although, my son works hard, he is actually thrilled that he gets sleep! His freshman roommate was in architecture. He rarely saw him. They are still good friends. However, his roommate transferred out and has changed majors.