<p>I’ve heard that the duck mentality is just superficial, and when you delve into the university, Stanford is actually pretty competitive and filled with quite a bit of work.</p>
<p>Is this true?</p>
<p>A lot of work, yes. Competitive, no.</p>
<p>Well, it depends on what the class is. I’ve heard more than a few students complain endlessly about the difficulty and competition in the class. Students can sometimes be a bit too competitive, and that’d go along with the whole duck mentality bit and such.</p>
<p>But overall, people generally say that Stanford’s environment is rather cooperative.</p>
<p>What is duck mentality?</p>
<p>[Sink</a>, swim or paddle like a duck? - The Stanford Daily Online](<a href=“http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2005/3/9/sinkSwimOrPaddleLikeADuck]Sink”>http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2005/3/9/sinkSwimOrPaddleLikeADuck)</p>
<p>That is probably Stanford’s worst problem.</p>
<p>Oh, that’s interesting. Thanks for the link.</p>
<p>Sly Si had it right. Students aren’t competitive with each other, we just try to do our personal best. It is a lot of work though.</p>
<p>lol wow we have the duck syndrome at my high school</p>
<p>I see…</p>
<p>Any other Stanford students who’d like to comment?</p>
<p>I did my MS at Stanford and my roomate was a duck. He was a co-term, doing MS in CS while trying to get a startup going with a few of his classmates. That was 1999/2000, after the dot.com bust. I could see he looked pretty stress but he never really talk about it.</p>
<p>Obviously Stanford can be a lot of work - especially if you do HumBio or MSE or Computer Science or MechE…for all of which you need to start early to complete. But I’d say that its definitely quite cooperative. As with all schools of a similar caliber, you feel pressure to do lots of ECs simply because other people are doing lots of ECs and taking lots of classes, etc. But it’s mostly self-applied pressure and people don’t shake their heads or smile in satisfaction if they are doing more ECs or taking more advanced classes than you. Most classes are quite cooperative, lots of study groups and such…The only time I’ve been in a competitive class was in a seminar with a well-known professor, and we were all competing to impress him (so that we could get him to be our advisor, write recs, etc.). Even though, we were a remarkably cooperative group, recognized what we were all doing, and encouraged each other. Most people I know are honest about the amount of work they put into classes, and I think the “laid-back facade” is more reflective of students’ need to just let go, chill, and not think about school for awhile… I’ve never been in an uber-competitive or viciously competitive class, partially because most everyone I know is quite secure and recognizes that everyone has their own merits and expertise…</p>
<p>By MSE, do you mean Management Science and Engineering…cause I was under the impression that MSE does give you time to explore.(as opposed to other engineering majors)</p>
<p>I believe MSE is materials science and engineering, whereas management science and engineering is MS&E. It’s confusing.</p>