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Ask HN: How *hard* is Stanford CS?

7 points by oldmanstan ↗ HN
I'm in the CS program at a university with a top-20 CS program. It's actually been quite easy, and I only have two CS classes left to graduate (along with a bunch of others).

I'm thinking hard about transferring to Stanford. And I'm worried.

How difficult is Stanford's CS curriculum, really? Will I be prepared for it with just my handful of (not so hard) C++ and Java classes? Am I smart enough?

And: if you've attended or are attending stanford, what's it like?

7 comments

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hinathan
A decade ago (sigh) I did a mix of EE and CS.

The CS program was a mix of interesting subject matter, fun and helpful TAs, and brutally long and/or theoretically complex projects. If you get in you're probably smart enough but you may not have the study habits. Most undergrads at Stanford were the big fish at their high school and have had a few years to have that beaten out of them. Sounds like you're coming from an environment where you're not working yourself too hard, and that will change. Don't expect time for electives. As a transfer you'll be proving yourself among an already-established cohort.

Most important advice I wish I'd gotten before my time there: Get to know your professors, and do what you can to be a TA for the intro courses.

RyanGWU82
Hi Nathan! You back in the US? I hope you had your phone off when you were abroad, because I set off the pager about 600 times last week...

(Nathan and I work together at PBworks. If Stanford is what made him so smart, then DROP EVERYTHING AND GO THERE RIGHT NOW. :)

mirkules
The cool thing about Stanford is that they have a lot of lectures online. I find them a great source on either refreshing on material or learning new stuff altogether. Their iOS series is really good (and current)!

http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx

Edit: What I mean is, you can probably gauge from these lectures and assignments what you're in for.

us
Unfortunately that's not very representative. The stuff Stanford have listed are pretty intro courses and do not represent all types of CS courses you'd encounter
us
With only two courses left, why bother transferring? You don't even know if all the courses will transfer correctly assuming you do get accepted. I don't get the logic behind this move?
stevie_wilks
I agree. If it's an option, go to Stanford for a masters.
RyanGWU82
I got a CS degree from Stanford in 2008, and I had the same worrys that you do. I didn't think I would be "smart enough" to keep up with the courses and the competition.

It turns out that Stanford's CS courses aren't that hard -- I was able to grasp the concepts quickly, and keep up with everything discussed in lectures and in books.

So what makes Stanford's CS program stand out? It's a lot of work. A lot of work. The intensity is what made the program so successful for me. Once I finished a class, I knew the material for life, because I spent so much time studying it. This is a huge contrast to the whole "cram for a test and forget it the next day" experience from my undergrad.

(Footnote: I was in the master's program, but I took quite a few undergrad courses to make up for my non-CS undergrad. My undergrad was in Information Systems at George Washington University. IS was a bad choice because the courses weren't very deep, neither in technology nor in business. But once I figured that out, it was easier to just finish up and graduate than to switch majors.)