Current Student...ask Away

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
41

<p>how big are your classes?
--well, my chem class was 200ish for lecture and 13 for section. ihum was 100somethingish for lecture and 15 for section. math was about 40 for lecture and since section wasn't mandatory, it'd fluctuate from 30 to 15. the only reason they are big is b/c IHUM is required, and chem and math are intro classes most freshman take.</p>

<p>Does stanford do "hacks"?
--not that i know of. but give us time, give us time.</p>

<p>When do we get SUNet IDs?
--i believe its after you have enrolled for admission. if i remember correctly we got them after may 1 when we told them we were going or not.</p>

42

<p>i know that at berkeley they monitor your downloads, does stanford do that? if so, does anybody still download music from things like bearshare or bittorrent?</p>

43

<p>well, here's what they told us. stanford itself doesn't moniter what we download, but you can get caught and sued by any company that finds you downloading over stanford's network. there are people that have been cuaght this year. they (the people that catch you) give you three warnings. first is you must erase the songs they found you had downloaded and software. second is you do the same thing again and they give you a more serious warning. then the third they sue you for money. some dude got sued for $12,000. </p>

<p>the way they catch you is they make a song available to dowload and then if you download it they track you down. </p>

<p>i didn't use any software to download b/c i wasn't risking getting sued. sooommmeee people wait until break to get there music. sooooo not what i did.</p>

<p>oh yeah, and this year Yahoo!Music actually gave anyone with a stanford email FREE, yes, FREE Yahoo!Music for a year. so you can download as many songs as you want and play them on your comp. the bad thing is you still have to buy the for 79cents if you want to put them on a CD or want the tracks you dowloaded to keep working after the year is up. BUT, you are still allowed to put them on you mp3 in the meantime and they'll work until the year is up. i have like 2000 songs i downloaded from yahoo that will all be gone in a year. i wonder if there a program that can convert them to "legal" files. hmmm.</p>

44

<p>Who teaches the small discussion sections?</p>

<p>The problem I have with big universities is that the graduate students usually teach the sections where the students actually get interaction.</p>

<p>Do actual faculty ever conduct these sections which facilitate close discussion? Since i go to an elite boarding school with classes under 13 students, it will be weird adjusting to the big classes at college.</p>

45

<p>ihum discussions are led by Teaching Fellows (TFs)
I'm not 100% on their positions, whether its faculty or post-doc stuff or what. anyway they are pretty competent at leading discussions. ihum sections are pretty small (well to my perspective atleast, coming from a large public hs in NJ). my fall ihum section was about 16-18 people I think...
the other class i had sections for was general chem, which was led by a grad student. going to section didn't factor into your grade, so people didn't really show up that much. i'd say about 6 of us were there every week. i LOVED my ta, and i thought he was a good teacher so i always went.
pwr is a small class, about 15 people, taught by either a english grad student or a pwr teacher. my teacher KICKED ASS, unfortunatly he was not asked back next quarter :(</p>

46

<p>so how friendly are the professors when you're shelling out 50 k a year? do they remember your name, or even try when the lecture hall's got 300 in there?
are people religious? all these pics of churches are freaking me out. any athiests?</p>

47

<p>thx for the long post current_student</p>

48

<p>Purplerain- I'm a serious atheist. Any "elite" or "intellectual" population generally has a higher than average number of atheists, even though Stanford is supposed to be more conservative than most elite schools. Although Yale's dean of admissions handled things this year and Yale's supposed to be liberal, so we might even be the first class that's not so conservative.
I just realized that, that's kind of an interesting thought.</p>

49

<p>no prob jazam</p>

<p>some prof's care about you and make an effort to help students and build some good rapports. others not so much, but for the most part, if you talk to them and go to their office hours, you can def build a good relationship with them.</p>

<p>as far as religion goes, there are religious people here, but i'd say there are more athiests than hard core, or even conservative, religious people. maybe its just what i've experienced, but i've met A LOT of athiests and agnostics. and even those who claim to be this or that say it very loosely and with an air of little concern. but then again there are those who are religious and follow it closely. i would say for the most part, whether someone is religious or not, they rarely let it affect everyday actions and conversations. its usually the conservative fanatics that make it known and let religion jade them and take over their lives...but i haven't met any of those...yet. but overall, if i had to say whether stanford students are more religious than most elite school, i would def say no. i would actually think we are one of the more liberal and not so religious ones. but whatever. </p>

<p>to give an example, during Gaities, one of the lines was "Testimony should die" or something along those lines, and everyone cheered. not to be mean, but they do kind of suck...</p>

<p>...and for those of you who aren't familiar w/ stanford vocab...
Gaities=parody/play/musical before BIG GAME
Big Game=football game against Cal ie stanford reject school ie berkeley
Testimony=stanford christian acappella group
everyone cheered=i cheered. jp. but i'd say 75% of the audience cheered.</p>

50

<p>thanks current_student, that's different from what I've been hearing about Stanford, and I'm glad to hear it.</p>

51

<p>yeah no problem. i mean, besides the gorgeous Memorial Church, i can't think of many more "religious" buildings on campus or any important/obvious religious statues and stuff. tryin to think...nope nothin.</p>

52

<p>Ok, enough about this atheist/agnostic stuff.</p>

<p>What does partying at Stanford entail? How is the party scene set up, where are they held, and all that stuff?</p>

53

<p>I heard some of The bigger school parties are sponsored, lol. Realnetworks and something else sponsored one...</p>

54

<p>ok, now i feel like a total paranoid nerd for asking this, but based on what you've seen, are the premed people going crazy and pulling all nighters in the library everyday? what's your average number of cram hours per week, including weekends. thx</p>

<p>and also, is it true that there are conservative groups that have meetings next to the hoover tower? eek</p>

55

<p>parties...
parties entail what parties usually entail...dancing, drinking, grinding. not everyone drinks, not everyone dances. its what you make of it. many parties are at frats, or sponsored by them. some are held in other buildings. a lot of them have themes, but theres no pressure to keep in line with them. some themes are pirates, 007, cavemen, and the "traffic" party where wearing red means taken, yellow means proceed with caution, and green mean free...but even then it doesn't matter what color you wear, if any at all. </p>

<p>moonshine was a pretty big deal because the complany Creative was there giving away some free crap. it might have been in calaboration with Real networks...don't remember. there was a part at a dorm that had an ice luge. basically, shot were poured down the luge into you. there was a mud fight party. um...several others. i didn't go to ALL of them, so i might be forgetting some.</p>

<p>PREMEDs...
ok, first, let me say the term "premed" is just that, a term. it just refers to a "track" you take for med school. it just mean you have certain required courses to take, and nothing more. i mean, yeah you have mcats and stuff, but that comes later. there are many premeds here, including me, and i don't find its any more or less stressful than nonpremeds. but i'll get back to you come junior year. so far, its not bad at all, honestly. i'm no genius or conceited person thats going to be like, "oh, its easy" when i'm studying 15 hours a day in the library. i'm going to give it to ya straight, like a shot of tequila. it's not that bad. chill. everyone "crams" no matter what major they are. there's not secret premed course premeds have to take at 3am in the basement of an undisclosed location. you take the same IHUM as every other person, the same chem classes as any other person, and the same whatever other classes as any other person. premed is just a name to describe the fact that you are planning to go to med school. that's it.</p>

<p>CONSERVATIVE GROUPS...
yeah, never heard of any meeting next to hoover tower. but who cares if they do? seriously, why are people scared of conservatives? if they meet, they meet. its not like they are planning to kill all the liberals and take over the world...actually, i take that back. but still, who gives a rats tush what the conservatives are doing at stanford. if you are not a conservative, don't worry about it. if you are not religious, don't worry about the obsessed religious people. you'll find those kind of folks no matter where you go. don't let a group of 15 crackpots determine where you go to college. rise up and let us unite against....uummm...oops, haha, got a little carried away...</p>

56

<p>Do students have to pay to go to sporting events??
Are classes only on the weekdays??
Is it worth it to try to fill 20 credits each semester??
If you finish in about 3.5 years, can you start taking classes from the grad school?</p>

57

<p>Do students have to pay to go to sporting events??
--depends which ones, but for the main sports, yes. the "all axess" pass is $105 and will get you in to all the sporting events, including football and basketball. there are many events that are free, but they aren't the main ones people go to.</p>

<p>Are classes only on the weekdays??
--yes. there may be a really random and weird class on a saturday or sunday, but i have yet to hear of any absurdity.</p>

<p>Is it worth it to try to fill 20 credits each semester??
--uh, depends on your major. if you have a major that requires a lot of credits, then i'd say yes. it all depends on what you want to do, how busy you want to be, and other commitments. also, it depends on what classes outside of your major and GER's you want to take. i've vowed never to do 20 b/c it sounds like death, but if you want, go ahead. stanford has a shopping period in which you can drop or add classes without any consequences, so you could get a feel for how much work load 20 credits would be.</p>

<p>If you finish in about 3.5 years, can you start taking classes from the grad school?
--i don't know. i would guess no, b/c you have to apply to the grad school to take classes there. i'm not sure though.</p>

58

<p>Are classes only on the weekdays??
-- Many classes are either MWF or TuTh. I've never heard of classes on the weekends, and there are bound to be religious conflicts anyway. Besides, what professor wants to teach on the weekend?</p>

<p>Is it worth it to try to fill 20 credits each semester??
-- Depends on your major and how easy the classes are. It'll be much easier to take four 5-credit classes as a foreign language major than to take six 3-credit EE classes, for example.</p>

<p>If you finish in about 3.5 years, can you start taking classes from the grad school?
-- Like most universities, undergraduates are allowed to take almost any graduate class (but rarely professional ones), as long as you meet the prerequisites or have the professor's approval. Actually, it's really left up to you to decide if you're ready for the class, since the registration computer doesn't check prerequisites like they do at some public schools to limit enrollment. Many majors offer a co-term, which is a 5-year program in which you also get your master's degree.</p>

59

<p>oh yeah, forgot about co-term. thanks im_blue.</p>

60

<p>How competetive is admissions into coterm?</p>