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Ask HN: Personal Advice on joining Stanford's Summer Program

2 points by loopr ↗ HN
Personally, I believe HN people are quite intelligent and I'm quite sure highly populated with entrepreneurs who successfully run their startups.

Me, a computer engineer, went to Stanford in Summer 2012. Amazing experience, met with tons of great people. Took the course MS&E Technology Entrepreneur ship by great Tom Kosnik. However instead of seizing the opportunities, I took them for granted and ended up returning to my country.

This time I want to make a difference. I'm developing my startup (currently at tech development phase). I had quite a hard time deciding what to do, due to having limited money. I definitely want to make it to Silicon Valley but limited money allows me to stay there for a maximum of three months.

In terms of my situation, I would like to speak to investors and after asking many questions on Quora, I understood that the network is required and cold emails won't get me anywhere.

Now, my question is: Should I apply to Stanford's Summer school, even though I've went there before? The reason for this question is, I thought, instead of spending 3 months, paying money to rent and all to other expenses, what about paying to Stanford and take advantage of their network and benefits?

I seriously would love to have all of the comments (whether it says that it is a great idea or total bullshit).

6 comments

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tostitos1979
Are you talking about the undergrad summer school program or something else?
loopr
I am actually talking about the International Student program. I was an undergrad back in 2012 but now I'm a grad and I believe that only makes difference in terms of the fee you pay.
gautamnarula
I also went to Stanford Summer School in 2012 (I didn't take your same class, but maybe we walked by each other or something!), and honestly I thought it was a waste of money. Not that there was no value in it, but the price was exhorbitant and that definitely could have been applied to all sorts of cool things. Fortunately I was funded via an outside source, but I still wish I had put that money towards something else. It really seems like a way the university makes money of the Stanford brand name.

The other thing is that a large portion of the Summer School students are people (like me) who don't normally go to Stanford. So if you're trying to network with them, it may not be ideal.

I don't know what the best way to meet investors is, but I don't think it is Stanford Summer School is it.

loopr
Thanks a lot for your comment. I'll definitely keep that in mind. The reason why I've become so obsessed with this idea is that maybe the events organized within the school, or all the other smart people around could provide me a network. But again, thanks for taking your time to write this.
rajacombinator
Not sure what program you're talking about but you won't meet investors by taking classes at Stanford, you meet investors by meeting investors.
loopr
In MS&E class for your project they assign you a mentor, ours was someone from Stanford Graduate School of Business, so it was fair to say he was really cool. But other than that, we've also went to a meeting with an investor which was also assigned by the class. So I know "a single investor" may not be the key factor here but I am planning to present my own startup, instead of like a homework project which what we did in 2012, in order to actually make something. That's where "meeting the investors" come from.

I was wondering maybe talking to Professor's after class, try to make best of their networks could help me get through the "where do I meet investors?" phase.

And of course, I thank you for your comment