(UT.opinion() || Carnegie.opinion())

KrazyKow
Thu, 29 Mar 2007 22:39:30 +0000

UT is a really, really big school- over 50,000 students (including grad students), while CMU is under 1/5 of that. At UT, you will have gigantic lecture classes, and if you fall behind, it is unlikely that someone will be looking out for you. At CMU, you’re likely to get an email from an advisor something to see what they can do to help you out. Remember that in individual departments, rankings are often tied much more closely to graduate programs than undergrads, and at a large state school (like UT), the graduate program is far more intimate than the undergrad- at CMU, the difference is not so large.

UT will have more parties, more football loving, and more Aggie hating. CMU really doesn’t do sports, at least not to the extent of a school like UT, (ultimate frisbee and AIBO soccer, anyone?), and doesn’t have any big rivalries. While you can find people of all types at UT, and there certainly exists your niche, you may have trouble finding it- one of my friends’ main complaints about UT is that they usually don’t see the same person twice, so it’s hard to develop friendships with people outside of their network of friends from high school (tons of people from my high school go there), and their dorm floors. At CMU, at least you will recognize a decent number of people as “that guy who was in my intro chem class” or something. I have some friends that love the size of UT and the fact that there is always something going on.

When you take money out of the equation, it’s really a matter of deciding what the right fit is for you. On average, though, if you don’t mind the heavier workload, as far as learning goes, you might be better off at CMU. If you’re in one of the smaller honors programs at UT, though, the situtation changes quite a bit.