<p>How good is the CS department as Stanford for a Undergraduate? </p>
<p>How rigorous is the curriculum for CS?</p>
<p>Getting straight "A's" as easy to come-by as Harvard?</p>
<p>Any other info on the CS department would be well appreciated :)</p>
<p>How cut-throat is Stanford?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<ol>
<li>Excellent
2-3. Very rigorous. It is difficult.</li>
<li>You should really talk to some CS majors. Unfortunately not many come on here</li>
</ol>
<p>Shucks, I could visit the campus and have a chat with some of them and get a feel for it.</p>
<p>also
stanford is not very cutthroat
there are a lot of motivated people who want to do well, but among most people, they dont feel the need to do well at the expense of others.
it is really a collaborative environment in most places</p>
<p>but in the CS department, there are comparatively a lot of students who bow down to pressure and cheat (aka copy other people’s programming codes). not because it’s cutthroat but because its difficult. the judicial affairs does not investigate a huge amount of students, but of the students they do investigate, CS is disproportionately represented</p>
<p>[Stanford</a> School of Engineering - Stanford Engineering Everywhere](<a href=“http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx]Stanford”>http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx)</p>
<p>Watch the online lecture series and check it out for yourself :)</p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses, and especially freezingpoint I now have an idea of what to expect if I am admitted.</p>
<p>The CS department is the best for undergraduates. But remember, as at all other top CS schools, your classes will be large. CS is one of the most popular majors at Stanford, and the introductory classes are going to be especially big.</p>
<p>The curriculum’s very rigorous–for example within the first three weeks of the introductory programming class, you’ll be creating the game Breakout 100% from scratch. CS 107, the last of the introductory series, is known to be a very difficult class. Pretty much all the classes after that are pretty rigorous. A’s are not easy. Don’t expect to maintain the same GPA you had in high school. At the same time, Stanford doesn’t want to punish its CS majors just for being smart and diligent, so A’s and B’s are the most common (B’s probably more so).</p>
<p>Stanford isn’t competitive at all and definitely not in CS–people have to collaborate if they want to do well. In fact, Stanford’s CS philosophy is project-based, and you can expect to be required to work with other students in completing projects (e.g. in CS 108, which is project-based).</p>
<p>CS at Stanford is great, but it’s because of that that the students majoring in it can be extremely arrogant. That’s not to say they all are; but if you asked me which major thinks that they’re superior to all other undergraduates, it’s CS, easy. (I’m not a CS major but I’m in a related department and know tons of CS majors. I can name 10 people off the bat who I’d say think they are the **** for majoring in CS.)</p>
<p>
So true. So true.</p>
<p>I think there’s a lot of broiness in CS, which probably contributes to it. Also a lot of money. And a lot of hype. If we are to believe Courserank reviews, every CS professor is a god and every assignment is uber-rewarding. But eavesdrop on a “CS-only” conversation and you’ll hear them b****ing about their profs and psets/projects just like every other Stanford student. Only difference is that they’re not willing to publicize this info. </p>
<p>It’s probably the money though. Money corrupts people, especially poorer students who have never seen it before.</p>