3 ms·

When you say "much smarter and more comfortable with theory", what do you mean exactly? Smarter how? Also, how are you more comfortable with theory and what d

by aik 16y ago

When you say "much smarter and more comfortable with theory", what do you mean exactly? Smarter how? Also, how are you more comfortable with theory and what does that comfort do for you? What type of role in society/IT would you say the education prepared you for? I hope you don't mind my curiosity.

endtime 16y ago
>Smarter how? I've really learned what people mean when they say that the mind is a muscle. You know when you first start working out, you can't lift that much and everything hurts, but after, say, two years you've built up some muscle and maybe you can bench your bodyweight? Well, it was a bit like that. Stanford was a very challenging environment for me at first. I feel like I get things more quickly, have more ideas, and think faster in general now than I did two years ago...to a greater degree than I could reasonably expect just from aging two years. >how are you more comfortable with theory I did my undergrad at Georgetown...fine school, and not totally devoid of theory classes, but the philosophy there is that you learn by implementing (which I did). But I never did a CS problem set in four years there. I could still understand theory and reproduce it on exams etc, but if you asked me to read an academic paper it would have been pretty painful. That's no longer the case, despite the fact that I've only read 1-2 papers here. If you want something more concrete - I took 224M and 225B my first quarter, and they were waaay harder for me then that taking a similar class would be now (especially 224M - http://cs224m.stanford.edu http://cs224m.stanford.edu). >what does that comfort do for you? Hmmm, good question. I don't know if there's any direct, tangible benefit that I can point to. >What type of role in society/IT would you say the education prepared you for? Just about anything. I'm CTO of a NY startup, and will finally be full time on it once I graduate, but I could have gone on to be a PM or dev at pretty much any company of my choice, or gone to Wall St, or just about anything else you can think of. Oh, that reminds me of another benefit of being here...you'll regularly get Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. emailing you and asking you to interview. Plus, Stanford is ridiculous for credibility...if you play the S-card, as some call it, people are often more conducive to your requests. That can even just mean sending an email from your @cs.stanford.edu address instead of GMail. Not sure how that is at other schools but it's a nice change from Gtown, whose CS dept is so small most people never think of it.

by aik 16y ago

endtime 16y ago

>Smarter how? I've really learned what people mean when they say that the mind is a muscle. You know when you first start working out, you can't lift that much and everything hurts, but after, say, two years you've built up some muscle and maybe you can bench your bodyweight? Well, it was a bit like that. Stanford was a very challenging environment for me at first. I feel like I get things more quickly, have more ideas, and think faster in general now than I did two years ago...to a greater degree than I could reasonably expect just from aging two years. >how are you more comfortable with theory I did my undergrad at Georgetown...fine school, and not totally devoid of theory classes, but the philosophy there is that you learn by implementing (which I did). But I never did a CS problem set in four years there. I could still understand theory and reproduce it on exams etc, but if you asked me to read an academic paper it would have been pretty painful. That's no longer the case, despite the fact that I've only read 1-2 papers here. If you want something more concrete - I took 224M and 225B my first quarter, and they were waaay harder for me then that taking a similar class would be now (especially 224M - http://cs224m.stanford.edu http://cs224m.stanford.edu). >what does that comfort do for you? Hmmm, good question. I don't know if there's any direct, tangible benefit that I can point to. >What type of role in society/IT would you say the education prepared you for? Just about anything. I'm CTO of a NY startup, and will finally be full time on it once I graduate, but I could have gone on to be a PM or dev at pretty much any company of my choice, or gone to Wall St, or just about anything else you can think of. Oh, that reminds me of another benefit of being here...you'll regularly get Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. emailing you and asking you to interview. Plus, Stanford is ridiculous for credibility...if you play the S-card, as some call it, people are often more conducive to your requests. That can even just mean sending an email from your @cs.stanford.edu address instead of GMail. Not sure how that is at other schools but it's a nice change from Gtown, whose CS dept is so small most people never think of it.