Ask a Student - Academics

<p>With decisions about to come out, some of you will undoubtedly have some questions for us current students pretty soon. Feel free to ask any academic questions you have here, and we'll answer them as best we can. For questions related to other aspects of student life, there's another thread.</p>

<p>How hard are classes? Are there people who are admitted and give a lot of effort but still don’t do well? I’m asking because I know I am not as qualified as the majority of other admits and I am a bit worried that I won’t be able to handle the material, especially outside the science and math realm.</p>

<p>How are introductory foreign language classes? Are they very hard? I’ve been taking Spanish in high school, but I kind of want to try a different foreign language.</p>

<p>Does grade inflation (outside of the math/science/engineering realm) exist at Stanford? Does grade deflation exist? How bad are the curves?</p>

<p>Can undergrads double major?</p>

<p>Senior0991: Are you sure you’re not as qualified as other admits? I think you underestimate yourself. You’ll do fine.</p>

<p>shayonsaleh: I don’t know about difficulty, but they are a lot of work. You’ll have class every day and homework every day.</p>

<p>gregh313: As a math student, I can’t help you much. My English-major friends have told me that English classes are extremely easy to get A’s in, but that’s about all I know.</p>

<p>dpattzlover: Yes, but some double majors are (logistically) harder to do than others. What did you have in mind?</p>

<p>gragh313: yes there definitely is grade inflation even in the techie classes. I would guess that the average grade of a class is usually ~ a B+ or an A- and only a few Cs are given out in most (not all just most) classes.</p>

<p>I’m not totally sure yet, but I was thinking of combing something related to health services (perhaps pre-med) with international relations, but I don’t know if those are too unrelated to combine… is it easier to minor in something that’s a bit more random like that?</p>

<p>You can combine premed with anything. In fact, “pre-med” is not a major at Stanford. You major in something else (Human Biology is popular) while satisfying all premed requirements.</p>

<p>^^Yeah, I think I knew that. What if you are in the school of engineering? Is it easy to major in the college of arts and science as well? I heard it’s kind of difficult to do, but I’m not sure.</p>

<p>Being Premed and engineering is definitely not easy. I know quite a few ChemEs who are also premed so it is doable but its definitely not as easy as majoring in say humbio or bio and being premed.</p>

<p>What if you choose a major as BME … can you have a major or minor in the CAS?</p>

<p>Is it possible to major in human bio (premed) and art history? Should I just try to minor in art history instead?</p>

<p>neuschwanstein: yes it’s possible, but talk to your advisor about this first when you come to stanford. try out double majoring, and see if you can handle it. i think the deadline to declare majors is end of sophomore year/beginning of junior year. freshman year and sophomore year is experimentation time!</p>

<p>dpattz: Don’t worry about which major is in which college. It doesn’t matter at all. Most of us will never even notice that there exist multiple “colleges”.</p>

<p>Hows the workload for Computer Science? I know that Stanford is one of the best colleges for the major, but would it be possible to do another major with CS?</p>

<p>^curious about this as well.</p>

<p>^interested as well.</p>

<p>I was thinking Computer Science, but then Stanford also has Computer Systems Engineering, which I believe mixes in some Electrical Engineering - pretty cool. But then I was also thinking along the business side of things, so I was looking into Management Science and Engineering. Does anyone have experience with any of these majors?</p>

<p>I got into Princeton as well and am confused about which to choose. i want to study psych. which is best for me and WHY?</p>

<p>Just out of curiosity, generally, do classes at Stanford give a lot of homework? I have friends in other uni’s that tell me they barely have any homework at all - you just need to study and get ready for the inevitable finals.</p>

<p>Also, are there any particular courses or professors we should watch out for :D? You know, classes that assign an inhumane amount of work, or the wicked professors that grade people a D or C no matter what you do.</p>