Roughly how many hours do you spend a day? How much more difficult are the courses in comparison to your high school APs? Do you get 8 hours of sleep? Do you have any free time for extracurriculars? I heard something about laidback-ness at Stanford but I’m not sure if this only applies to social attitude.
You may get a few selected answers on this, but I’m sure you basically realize that it’s a big school with thousands of students and classes and what you are asking can vary widely from student to student and course to course.
And major to major—and year to year. For instance, my son is a freshman and still adjusting to being at Stanford, so I’m sure his experiences are different from those of, say, a junior. Nonetheless, so far he isn’t finding the courses more difficult than his high school APs (which were especially rigorous in math and science), but they are time consuming. He isn’t getting eight hours of sleep per night anymore, but that’s not because he couldn’t—there’s just a lot going on, and his roommate goes to bed late. He does have free time for extracurriculars but feels pressure to work and keep up with everything. So far he isn’t finding Stanford particularly laid back—my impression as a parent is that there’s a constant stream of e-mails announcing all sorts of amazing activities and opportunities, which is great but which can also be a bit overwhelming. I get the feeling that Stanford is sort of a go-go-go atmosphere—work hard and play hard, 24-7. But everyone deals with this in their own way—Stanford is big on students creating their “own” Stanford, so if you want a more laid-back atmosphere, I’m sure it’s possible to make that happen, if only by not checking e-mail as often!
JustOneDad, yes I already realize this, but I am still asking to get some very rough idea. I would plan a Computer Science major, and I assume at least 20% of the people are going into that because one of the areas Stanford is famous for its technology and engineering.
Planner, ah I see. What major is your son planning in, or I guess it doesn’t matter right now because he’s doing the General Education requirements?
There’s as much homework as you want to do based on your interests, the speed with which you learn that particular kind of info, your desire to attain certain grades, the number and kind of classes you decide to take, the extent to which you have ECs you want to maintain, the amount of sleep you want/need and number of friendships you are trying to maintain - in short, this is such a personal question that it really can’t be answered.
I don’t know…the answer is, “It’s university.” Then, “It’s Stanford.”
You will study. Often.
You will squeeze in time to decompress during the busy work week.
You will find a place you call yours to study, away from friends and those who gather to “study,” but just make noise.
You will find that you forgot to wash your tees and jeans, and never realize how much time that takes out of a day once you (gleefully) get it done.
You will study some more.
Lots of kids do it. If you are a scholar, so will you be.
@CreativiTimothy He’s planning to major in Computer Science, and it sort of does matter, even in your freshman year, because some majors have courses you need to take early on so you’ll be ready to take others later. For example, I think Econ has six courses (which works out to one each quarter of the freshman and sophomore years) that students ideally take before their junior year.