<p>So, I know that one's grad school experience is really dependent on their research, prof. etc. but certain schools, surely in terms of quals and the program's structure, can be worse than others.
I'm looking at the top schools for ME (Stanford, MIT, Cal, Caltech, etc.) and was wondering if anybody had direct experience or had heard anything about how "fun", or not, the programs were. </p>
<p>-Maybe fun isn't the right word, substitute "enjoyable" or "exciting". You know what I mean.</p>
<p>I know the ME program here at Caltech requires a bunch of classes, though the few people I know over on that side of campus seem to be enjoying what they do well enough.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply, RacinReaver. I see from your profile that you are MSE at Caltech. Why did you choose Caltech? (and why the “occupation: graduate student :(”)? Thanks.</p>
<p>Oh, haha, the frowny is since when I last edited that I was finishing up classes and dealing with candidacy. Generally that’s the low point of your graduate career (since then I’ve passed and am finally having some good luck with research!).</p>
<p>I picked Caltech since it had an advisor that I really like. I also liked the general feel of the student body here, which is people enjoy doing things outside of research, but everyone’s here because they love what they do. When you ask people what they work on, it’s generally not a one sentence answer, because everyone thinks what they’re doing is the coolest thing ever and is excited to talk about it.</p>