<p>Hi everyone. First of all, I’d like to thank everyone for being incredibly helpful on this thread. I can’t tell you how valuable it is to anyone interested in Stanford.</p>
<p>My question is, what course of study do people looking to go into business usually undertake? How difficult is their general load?</p>
<p>shayonsaleh, I am thinking of going the pre-med route and your post is so useful! I took honors chem my sophomore year with a bad teacher and was wondering if I should try study for the chem placement test and hopefully pass to get into 31x. I was planning on just doing chem 31a/b but if they are horrible classes I don’t know if I want to take them…</p>
<p>I second the business question! If I don’t go premed then I think I will go prebusiness. Can anyone speak about the econ or management science & engineering department?</p>
<p>For business-oriented students, outside of econ, the most common major is [management</a> science & engineering<a href=“MS&E”>/url</a>. It’s a really neat major that combines business and engineering/technology in a way that lends itself well to entrepreneurship, venture capital, investment banking, etc. As you probably know, Stanford’s responsible for much of the development of Silicon Valley, and the only way it was able to accomplish that is by conducting basic research (engineering/tech) and spinning it out (business). So MS&E is supposed to reflect that combination, although they intentionally made it general enough so that you can take it in any of several directions - you’re required to do a track in something like entrepreneurship or policy. </p>
<p>[url=<a href=“Management Science and Engineering”>Management Science and Engineering]Department</a> of Management Science and Engineering - Academics](<a href=“Management Science and Engineering”>Management Science and Engineering)</p>
<p>What’s great about MS&E is that you don’t leave without getting solid knowledge of engineering. I think that’s the problem with undergrad business at most schools - the students don’t actually learn a subject and apply it to their business curriculum (this isn’t so important for MBAs, who usually have experience beforehand). At Stanford you can also take classes at the Graduate School of Business - they usually offer a bunch just for undergrads or undergrads/MBA mix. MS&E students benefit from some classes at the law school as well.</p>
<p>MS&E is a tough major relative to most majors at Stanford, but it’s probably the easiest of the engineering majors.</p>
<p>What are the most popular/most selective introsems?</p>
<p>I just found out that the PWR course I got conflicts with my IHUM discussion section. Does anyone have experience with appealing their IHUM section or know how difficult it is to appeal? Thanks.</p>
<p>I think phantasmagoric nailed it when talking about paths to business. I would definitely say for non-techies, the majority go towards Econ while the techies do go towards MS&E. I do want to point out that you can practically do any major and still go on to a great Business school and Business career. If Econ is not your thing, I hear Political Science and International Relations are also popular choices for Pre-Business.</p>
<p>Introductory Seminars change drastically from year to year, so it’s hard to say which ones are consistently good. When looking at Intro Sems, the ones which full general requirements (GERs) definitely get more applications than others. As far as selectivity goes, it’s all about how many applicants. Some Intro Sems have 50+ applications for 15 spots. Others have openings after the deadline, and you can join them without even ever writing an application (students can freely join any intro sem if there is free space after the application period).</p>
<p>It is super easy to appeal to change IHUM sections, IHUM courses, PWR courses, or even which quarter you want to take PWR in. Sophomore year, I appealed once in Fall to move PWR to Winter, then I appealed again in Winter to move PWR to Spring, and I had no trouble either time. It’s actually a pretty common thing. If you say you have a conflict (for moving sections) or you say you have a overloaded quarter (for moving PWR to a different quarter) generally your request will be granted.</p>
<p>And I think this review from a course review site for Stanford (courserank.com) really describes Chem 31A well:
</p>
<p>Other guidelines for telling which ones are the most popular introsems: the professor (if he/she is a well-known big-time professor, like a Nobel Laureate, you can bet it’s a popular course), the department (ones in, say, french literature or classics tend to be far less popular than chemistry or international relations), the requirements (the ones that satisfy PWR or PWR2 are always very popular), and the uniqueness of the class (one class works with real human cadavers and is always popular among pre-meds). Also, keep in mind that if entry into the class is by lottery rather than by application, it often means that the professor routinely gets too many applications to care enough to read them (and probably has found that the quality of the students is unaffected by lottery).</p>
<p>First quarter my freshman year, I applied to two introsems and got into both, not because I’m awesome, but because they were in a rather unpopular department (fortunately, that’s what my interests are). On the other hand, there are students who apply to 3 every quarter and end up getting into none of them; this is mostly because they tend to apply to the most popular ones. IIRC the introsems site has mitigated this by giving preference to those who haven’t take an introsem before.</p>
<p>From what I understand Stanford’s Econ department is exclusive and second to none. So how difficult is this major, in comparison to MS&E? Also what makes this Econ major so different from other schools?</p>
<p>Entry to introsems is no longer offered by lottery - check the new booklet.</p>
<p>@Dungareedoll: Comparing Econ and MS&E is pretty difficult. Econ may be seen as easy in terms of number of units and that the first intro courses are not too bad. However, it starts to quickly ramp up in the second part of the core (the so-called Econ 50 series). Furthermore, Econ has a wide breadth of courses that range in difficulty and allow Econ students to focus in more on their interests whether that be finance or theory or something else.</p>
<p>MS&E on the other hand is largely engineering courses. Students have to take 45 units of Math, about 10 units of natural science (Chem or Physics), basic engineering courses (CS, Electronics, etc.), engineering electives, and a concentration in a certain area of MS&E (financial and decision engineering; operations research; organization, technology, and leadership; policy and strategy; production and operations management) which involve mostly MS&E courses and a smattering of Econ and Math (with a few oddities depending on the concentration like Psychology and Sociology). </p>
<p>An Econ major requires at least 80 units of work towards the major, whereas MS&E requires, I believe, over 120 units. This doesn’t mean those units are hard; you just have to take more classes toward your major. In comparing difficulty, it basically comes down to whether you have a proclivity towards Econ or Engineering.</p>
<p>I don’t really know how Econ is different from other schools. However, I do know the Econ major requires undergrads to take a number of field courses, which I assume gets them more real-life applications of Economics. There are a lot of outstanding professors in the department like [Professor</a> John Taylor](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Taylor]Professor”>John B. Taylor - Wikipedia).</p>
<p>Thank you Shayonsaleh! Appreciate all your help.</p>
<p>Having some move-in day thoughts as well as academic choice thoughts:</p>
<p>Move-in day thoughts: We are flying in. Are there any hand-carts or dollies available? Are the rooms really clean and well-vacuumed? Can a vacuum usually be borrowed during the year from an RA? Where is the best place to buy a refrigerator last minute like this (since you’re only meeting the roommate on move-in day and couldn’t coordinate ahead of time)? How good is the tap water to drink? Are there ice machines in the dorms? Kitchens?</p>
<p>Questions about Public Policy as a major: It requires 6 econ courses and math51. If my D did fine in math but really doesn’t like it (she’s drawn to other aspects of public policy), will she really hate the upper level multivariate-calculus based econ courses? She knows understanding economics is important in public policy and will slog through them but wants a heads-up. Are they interesting at all?</p>
<p>Are there any hand-carts or dollies available?
-I think there are some. Dorm staff will also help carry things.</p>
<p>Are the rooms really clean and well-vacuumed?
-Yes.</p>
<p>Can a vacuum usually be borrowed during the year from an RA?
-Yes.</p>
<p>Where is the best place to buy a refrigerator last minute like this?
-Anywhere close that sells reasonably priced mini-fridges. Bookstore is probably a bit overpriced, plus it will be packed and you’d have to manuever your car around the back.</p>
<p>How good is the tap water to drink? Are there ice machines in the dorms? Kitchens?
-Tap water is pretty good in my opinion. No ice machines in the dorms, but there are in the dining halls. Kitchens have freezers, but if people are abusing the kitchenettes the dorm staff may lock it up for a week. </p>
<p>Questions about Public Policy as a major: It requires 6 econ courses and math51. If my D did fine in math but really doesn’t like it (she’s drawn to other aspects of public policy), will she really hate the upper level multivariate-calculus based econ courses?
-My sister was kind of in this boat. She was pursuing an econ major, but stopped because she didn’t like the math focus. I would advise your daughter to find what aspects of public policy she likes, then maybe focus on those areas in another major like political science. It still may be wise to have her go through the econ 50 series to see if she likes it. That’s where the math starts to come into play. And it’s only a few classes, which should give her a fairly good introductory understanding of economics to build off of, if not necessarily in her undergraduate career then later on (I’m guessing?).</p>
<p>Thank-you, senior0991, for your timely and thoughtful reply! It is very helpful. Yes, DD, will give Econ 50/51 a go and see if she likes them.</p>
<p>1) What’s Roble Hall like in terms of its environment? I’ve heard many great things about it, but I’m still having some doubts.
2) I’m taking the Technological Visions of Utopia IHum. Has someone taken that and if so, what are your thoughts on it in terms of workload?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>^I lived in Roble! What do you mean by environment?</p>
<p>Like does it has the same excitement that the all-frosh dorms do?</p>
<p>
Probably not. It’s not the upperclassmen as much as the layout in my opinion. That said, of all the four-class dorms I think it comes the closest to all-frosh dorms in terms of energy and social-scene. </p>
<p>BTW, from my experiences, not all frosh dorms have a ton of excitement. There are some pretty lame ones, and some that are more chill than anything else.</p>
<p>I took tech visions last year. It was pretty reasonable in terms of workload. There isn’t much reading at the beginning, just short stories from the course reader, but then about halfway through the quarter it picks up and you’ll be expected to read about a book per week. I wouldn’t worry about it much though, as the books are really interesting (1984 and Brave New World are both a lot of fun to read). Other than that, we had the standard two papers and a project. I had John Corbally as my TF, who I would definitely recommend. He does a really good job of explaining the historical context of the works so that we had a good background on the experiences of the authors and where they’re coming from. He also led good discussions and didn’t give us extraneous assignments that I’ve heard other TF’s give. </p>
<p>I didn’t live in Roble, but of all the people I know who did, they seemed to really like it. I lived in FroSoCo last year, so if anyone has any questions about the Fro then ask away.</p>