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I don't think they're like CMU, which has a separate school of Computer Science you have to be admitted to in order to be a CS major. If Stanford is like the Un
by larsberg 16y ago
I don't think they're like CMU, which has a separate school of Computer Science you have to be admitted to in order to be a CS major. If Stanford is like the University of Chicago, the only thing stopping students from majoring in CS are the registrar-imposed limits on the number of students physically enrolled.
- natrius 16y agoYou are correct.
- RyanGWU82 16y agoStanford doesn't even have those "registrar-imposed limits." Classes almost never fill up; they just get larger rooms or add TAs. Students don't usually register for classes until after the term has started! I was an undergrad at a more traditional school where we registered for classes months in advance. I was amazed that the Stanford system was so informal, but in practice it worked just fine. It's wonderful to be able to audit a few classes before deciding on exactly what you're going to take; you may learn that you can't stand a professor, or love a surprising subject.
- schwap 16y agoWow, as an undergrad who has endured years of stressful schedule twiddling followed by a 2-week sprint to figure out how I'm going to replace all the crap courses I naively selected months ago, that sounds like paradise.
- cbcase 16y agoIt's not exactly paradise. Because classes are only ten weeks total (slightly less in spring), you can't exactly spend the first week or two shopping around without doing non-trivial work for every single class you're shopping --- an approach which doesn't scale, to say the least. There's still a sprint the first few days. But still, it's nice.