My time at CMU comprised of some of the most memorable moments of my life (till the day I am writing this blog). It taught me about  people, deeplearning, privacy engineering and research and here are some of the nuances of the place which I wish someone told me!

NOTE: This is something that I have written of my own experience and is definitely not the most comprehensive list that you could get about CMU

This won't contain trites like "eat well, sleep well"... You can refer to any course's website for those.

1. You can find of a bunch of semester long seminars sponsored by professors where you have one or the other guest speakers from both industy and academia delivering lectures (most of them serve lunch so this is an added bonus). Some of them include the FEAT seminar by Prof Hoda and the Privacy seminar from S3D. Apart from these you can also subscribe to the SCS calendar (https://www.cs.cmu.edu/calendar/) that has almost all the events tracked!

2. There are bunch of courses where the mode of class is through paper discussions. If you find something interesting try taking these courses  (https://colinraffel.com/blog/role-playing-seminar.html).

3. SCS has a bunch of good Student led courses (StuCo's) where Phd students (mostly) are the primary instructors of a course. These are usually six credit onesand happen after the fall/spring break. Some cool courses include (https://pratyushmaini.github.io/cmu-10-799/) and (https://kellyyutonghe.github.io/10799S26/)

4. If you are lazy or have pathetic cooking skills, Schatz dining hall is your saviour. You get to eat your protein and vegetables along with unlimited soda and dessert. If you find sometime check out the Pitt eatery too (Many options for the same price coz Upitt is funded by the Commonwealth of Penn). 

5. Cannot comment on the GPU availability in the Babel cluster coz I probably would have used it twice. Your lab will definitely have their own reserved cluster or have an active AWS/ Modal/ Hyperbolic subscription. Ask your advisor for the reserved stash!

6. ANY course project has a potential of turning into a publication, if you and your ENTIRE team is dedicated enough.

7. [PERSONALLY]. Overload a  semester if you can. Want to take a stuco or really interested in a course? Just take it. You get barely 3 or 4 semster in this institution, make the best out of it.

8. Participate in  Hackthons, the worst thing that could happen is you missing a homework deadline.

9. Do not fret course exams, exams are meant to be a holistic evaluation and not test your memory, prioritize research and other stuff more.

10. Not getting a TA or an RA position is totally fine. If you don't get one that doesn't mean you stop trying and if you have one,  well.... good for you.

11. Have friends across different colleges (COE, Heinz, INI, Tepper), or wait try making a lot of friends. At best you recreate semesters that can be a season in HIMYM or at worse it would be another night at Marios.

12. Finally, Question everything, attack every problem from the first principles, almost all the courses in CMU make you do this (including the leadership one I took (will talk about in a later post). Respect academic integrity! 


TLDR :  never stop grinding, make the maximum out of it, as i mentioned you have 3-4 semesters unless you get a PhD admit.

See ya in the next one.