Carnegie Mellon University

Responses from the Student Interview

From a student  who identifies as Major: Neuroscience with a concentration in Computational Neuroscience. I’m on the pre-med track.
Minor: Biomedical Engineering
Student Self Identifies as: Asian Straight Female

Summary

I work [on the leadership team] for Spring Carnival, I’m in a community service fraternity, I dance with a K-Pop dance group, and I’m on the Neuroscience Student Association Council.

Background

Gender Identity: Female
Race/Ethnicity: Asian
Sexual Orientation: Straight

High School Experience: Public school in Rockville, MD with a graduating class of about 530 students. There was a culture of going to college
First Generation College Student: Yes
Major: Neuroscience with a concentration in Computational Neuroscience. I’m on the pre-med track.
Minor: Biomedical Engineering

Extracurricular Activities: I work [on the leadership team] for Spring Carnival, I’m in a community service fraternity, I dance with a K-Pop dance group, and I’m on the Neuroscience Student Association Council.
Have any of your extracurricular activities had a particularly big impact on your experience?
Greek life has because it’s a way to meet a variety of people from other majors. Our school can be pretty divided between the six big departments, so being in Greek life allowed me to meet more people beyond Biology and Math. I have friends from all of the departments now.

Academic Experience

Can you describe your weekly coursework for your major?
Since I’m pre-med, I had to take a lot of lab classes during my first two years. It’s a lot of staying late for labs because you’d have three-hour labs twice a week. Classes tend to give homework assignments that are usually every other week and then around three exams a semester and a final. A lot of the classes that have four exams have a policy where only three of them will count towards your final grade. Homework-wise it’s not too bad, it’s more about understanding the content and attending class. But, Math and Physics are definitely more homework-based classes.
Our unit system is different where each unit counts for one hour of class time. So, this year I’m taking 54 units, which means I spend 54 hours per week on my education.
Is there anything that you feel your major’s department does especially well or especially poorly?
In terms of poorly, my major is relatively new to our department. It is very interdisciplinary. I personally haven’t taken any courses that are directly related to my major, it’s been a lot of background. I’m a junior, so it’s kind of shocking that my first class that directly ties into my major will be in the spring of my junior year.
One thing they do really well is making sure that the students within the same major are connected. Neuroscience itself is pretty broad and we have three concentrations. There is a very small number of people in Computational Neuroscience, but they make sure that we all stay connected. Our advising team is good in that regard.
How would you describe the learning environment? Do you think it’s particularly competitive or collaborative?
I think it’s designed to be competitive. We have a very bad stress culture at CMU, which is sad to say, but because of that people work more collaboratively. Rarely do people just stay in their rooms, there are a lot of open spaces and rooms we have access to that will be filled with students working together on the same assignment.
How accessible are your professors?
You can find them very easily. Their office doors are open, they respond pretty quickly to emails, and are very willing to meet up at a separate time beyond their office hours. A lot of professors also let their students vote on when their office hours will be rather than just setting them.
Why did you choose your major? Are you happy with your choice?
I chose specifically Computational Neuroscience because I didn’t want to do general biology. Usually, when you’re pre-med you do that because it has the most overlapping courses, but since I’ll be studying the body in the future, I wanted to do something a little bit outside of that. In the event that being a doctor isn’t the right fit for me, I have a pretty good fallback plan that’s not just biology. I chose [to minor in] Biomedical Engineering because a lot of my coursework overlapped with it anyway, so I took one or two extra classes to get the minor and it’s nice to have some biomedical engineering knowledge going into a medical field.
How was transitioning as a first-generation college student? Were there any systems in place to help you adapt?
They have a lot of resources. In general, they have a lot of counseling and psychological services. They also offer stress management classes. Academic Development hosts a lot of workshops for freshmen to get used to academic life. There’s also orientation week where we get time to get to know the campus and stuff. In general, the transition to CMU was fine.

Reasons to Attend

1) The opportunities in Pittsburgh are enormous. If you’re looking for an internship, CMU has the opportunities to find something for you there.
2) The community at CMU is great. If you don’t mesh with one group it’s so easy to go to another. It’s also nice to be with people on campus who share the same struggles, so it’s easy to find people to relate to.
3) Besides the weather, Pittsburgh is fun to explore. There are a lot of things you can do and you can travel to other cities like Philadelphia or go to Ohio.

Reasons Not to Attend

1) If you worried about stress and have had mental health problems with testing and anxiety, this school might be a lot to handle. It takes a lot out of you to go here.
2) The weather. For someone who very much enjoys the sun and being outside, it definitely rains on your parade.

Around Campus

Where have you lived on campus?
Freshman: Mudge House in a suite-style dorm with four people. I had one direct roommate.
Sophomore: The school overenrolled and had to relocate us to an apartment off-campus that was about a 35-minute walk away. But, the bus system in Pittsburgh is great, it comes so often, so that wasn’t a problem. I had one roommate again.
Junior: Apartment that’s about a 15-minute walk from campus. I’m sharing a room with one persona and there’s also somebody living in a single bedroom.
What was your favorite living situation?
Definitely my sophomore year because I liked that once I was off-campus I would stop doing work. It was also closer to the food areas. We were also pretty close to downtown so it was easy for us to escape school?
How was transitioning from Rockville, MD to Pittsburgh, PA?
Since I’m from Maryland, it was easy. My parents just drove everything up. I live in the suburbs and Carnegie Mellon is more in a suburbs-ish area. Once you transition over to UPitt, it becomes more city-like. It was a pretty smooth transition.
Can you describe the level of safety you’ve experienced on and around campus?
The campus itself is really safe. There have been some issues with the Tree of Life shooting that happened recently. Our police alerts can be weird from time to time. There are definitely some creepy people in the city, but there are escort services so students don’t go home super late at night by themselves. So, personal safety is fine but the city itself definitely has some unsafe places.
What is your favorite off-campus restaurant?
It’s a taco stand called Las Palmas. It’s down in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh where the rest of the food we like to go to. People go get tacos there and then after go get bubble tea at Fuku Tea, which is a popular bubble tea place.
What is your favorite place to get away from campus?
My big brother in my fraternity’s off-campus apartment. I highly suggest people look into One on Centre, it’s a new apartment building that was just built.

Social Opportunities

What kind of weekend activities or nightlife do you like to participate in?
I normally just like hanging out with my friends. We’ll go out, get a meal, and come back and watch movies on campus because during the weekend they show very big movies on campus. That’s really it. A lot of people like to get with their groups and hang out or go to frat parties. I more so like to just hang out with friends.
Where do you and your friends like to go hang out?
A lot of it happens in Squirrel Hill. There are a lot of places to go like the Kebab House and Bangkok Balcony. We also like to go places downtown. The weekends for us are more about exploring food places and then coming back and chilling.
What are some of your favorite on-campus events?
The dance club I’m in hosts a showcase every semester. It’s free and a lot of fun to see people dance. There’s also the Dancer’s Symposium, which is a way bigger dance event. That’s a lot of fun to watch and support your friends. During the spring, we have Spring Carnival which is a huge campus-wide event. All the organizations who choose to participate build booths that are one to two stories. Classes are canceled Thursday and Friday and it’s a big party on campus.
How happy are you with the weekend options at Carnegie Mellon? Is there anything you would change if you could?
I think it’s fine. We have access to all the buildings so a lot of clubs still meet. There are also events throughout Pittsburgh that you can go to. There are lots of museums you can go to and Pittsburgh is so big that there’s a lot to explore. I know people who will go to Cedar Point [amusement park] during breaks because Ohio’s pretty close. There’s an abundance of weekend options, it’s just up to you to take advantage of them.

Campus Culture

How did you meet your closest friends?
My freshman dorm kind of forced people to hang out with each other during orientation week. We have a group of about eight of us who are very close. We decided to do block housing together so we lived really close our sophomore year. Then this year a lot of the people who I hang out with are through my community service fraternity since we spend so much time doing service together and going to chapter meetings.
How would you describe the overall social scene?
It depends on who you are. Those in Greek life get around more socially because Greek life does a lot of intermingling events with other Greek life organizations. I don’t really know of people who spend time by themselves a lot. Because of the stress culture on campus, we require the social aspect to get away from it, so the social scene is good. There are a lot of people doing things together.
In what ways to the Greek life organizations intermingle?
The service and professional fraternities do things together, so it’s not just the social fraternities. We have a big event called Greek Sing where Greek organizations will partner up with another Greek organization and raise money for Camp Kesem by putting on a show. It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional, social, or service fraternity, they’ll team up together to create a performance.
To what extent do you feel people of different races and sexual orientation mix socially?
I don’t know that much about sexual orientations. In terms of races, we have a lot of race-based clubs and they tend to hang out more together. The people who take part in those clubs like to stick together. In general, everyone hangs out together because a lot of the fraternities and clubs have a lot of interracial mingling. Your social scene can be very diverse depending on what organizations you join.
How would you describe the Asian community? How strong is it?
It’s very strong and very prevalent. You know when Taiwanese Students Association or Asian Students Association are doing something because pretty much every Asian at some point has joined either of those clubs. [About 22% of students are international, about 29% are Asian, and about 25% are White.]
How would you describe the student body?
The student body is passive. We know what we want from the education and will do their own thing to get it done. Not many people will do things to make a change to things going on around them.
Do you think people are generally happy with their choice of Carnegie Mellon by senior year? Do you think people leave loving Carnegie Mellon?
I think it’s a 50/50 mix. There is a joke at CMU that the school is constantly trying to get donations but the reason why no alumni are donating is because of how stressed they were during college. I do feel that I’ll reflect and think that I liked my time there, but I wouldn’t say that I liked it enough where I would give them money. The school is worth coming to if you feel ready to put a lot of time and hours and maybe a little bit of your mental health for the sake of your education because it’s a great university academically. I’ve gotten so many opportunities just by being here, especially with tech companies because CMU is very tech-based. I’ve gotten to work with technology even though I’m a Neuroscience major. I think if you meet good people, you’ll leave CMU happy.

Careers

Has the alumni network helps you find internships or jobs?
Our alumni network I feel like is very poor. They are trying to develop it more, but I think the issue is the alumni themselves don’t want to reach out that much. [See The Tartan article, “Loyal Scot program has good intent, poor execution.” Learn more about the Loyal Scot program here.]
To what extent have you used the career office? How helpful have they been?
We have the career development department, the CPDC, and they help you with resumes, cover letters, and doing interviews. For me, I get my resumes and cover letters reviewed by the Global Communication Center (GCC), which is more English-based. I know a lot of people who go through CPDC, but I don’t use them.
What computer programs have you learned through your coursework that will be helpful to you professionally?
I’ll be learning more next semester, but I’ve learned Python, C, and have used a lot of MATLAB. I’ve taken a lot of CAD-based classes where we learned Fusion 360 and SolidWorks. I’ve learned how to 3D print using Cura and laser printing using CorelDRAW. There’s a program called IDeATe, which is kind of an interdisciplinary major and is available to anyone who wants to take it. It’s a half-semester of courses where you can learn a bunch of different things, like this semester I learned how to 3D print and laser cut and for the rest of my time at CMU I have access to the printers and laser cutters.

Financial Aid

Have you used financial aid? If so, how easy is the office to work with?
I use financial aid and they gave me a decent amount, but when they mess up it takes a long time to get them to fix it.