From 2008-2022 I wrote quite a few answers on Quora. Over the coming months, I’ll be moving some of my most-upvoted answers over to my personal blog. Here’s one from 2010.

Q: Why do so many Carnegie Mellon Grads Have an Inferiority Complex?

A: This is an interesting question. I’m a CMU CS alumnus (undergrad), and attended Stanford for an MS in Computer Science, and for what it’s worth, Harvard for an MBA, where I graduated top of my class — a fact I only mention to help readers calibrate the next statement: Of the three schools, I’ve never worked harder than I did at CMU, and I learned a ton in the CS program. CMU’s Comp Sci program was technically called “Applied Math: Computer Science” when I was there; I double-majored in Applied Math:CS and Industrial Management.

While each person’s experience is subjective by definition, I tend to agree that in general, CMU grads seem to have an inferiority complex. Like the Avis saying, if you’re #2 (or in this case #4 or #5?), you try harder. From the outside, CMU doesn’t seem to carry quite the same immediate cachet as, say, Harvard or Stanford, but it should.

CMU excels, like a focused laser beam, at CS, EE, Robotics, Drama, Materials Science, Architecture and Art/Design programs. Its excellence is certainly present and powerful, but it’s spotty. On campus, there is a general perception that other departments, particularly in traditional liberal arts, don’t quite pull their weight.

Stanford, on the other hand, excels at virtually every field it touches, including Computer Science. It feels like a much more well-rounded school. Its assets are tremendous. Its locale and sports teams add a balance to life that Pittsburgh and Division 3 sports just can’t match. This manifests itself fairly quickly — for instance, Pittsburgh and Pittsburghers invest a huge amount of time telling you why it’s a great place to live. Palo Alto and Bay Area residents don’t need to.

An underlying inferiority complex is reinforced by geography, sports teams, national renown, surroundings… even weather. As you trapse through the winter slush in Pittsburgh, off to Wean Hall or the CS labs, breathing the sulfur-heavy air wafting from steel mills shut down long-ago, you’re dead-certain that your counterparts at Stanford are probably cycling the sunny hills of Woodside or Palo Alto past the hallowed grounds of Xerox PARC or SLAC, or meeting at The Creamery or Bucks Diner to pitch their startup idea with local VC’s. I’m here to tell you — they probably are. And it stings.

Stanford of course benefits from prime location, great weather, access to legendary entrepreneurs and tech companies, ready venture-funding near by, and an incredibly vibrant tech scene. It’s a superb, innovative, excellent school. But, very much unlike CMU, it was my constant observation that students at Stanford definitely don’t have to work very hard if they don’t want to, and very often, they don’t. There’s a lot more frisbee throwing, pub-crawling and general goofing off at Stanford, and a lot more buckling down and studying at CMU. Stanford is a very individually-driven school — you can audit courses, drop out and not have it hurt your grades, sit anonymously in the back of lectures — etc. Dare I say it — it’s just plain easier. CMU, for lack of a better term, is more “hard ass” and demanding, where the professors and RA’s very much know each student, with a very high bar, all of which causes students to burn the midnight oil, and sweat every challenging exam.

CMU, being of smaller size and more variation in worldwide renown from department-to-department, felt far more competitive, intimate and driven. Stanford, as phenomenal as it is (I loved my time there), often felt much more like a beautiful, dreamy, exclusive and amazing country club, with an outstanding educational facility on the side. It is certainly the case that some of it is due to grad school vs. undergrad, but I got pretty good exposure to each at both schools. Some of this is due to the balmy weather, some of it due to the wealthy student-base (the year I was there it almost seemed as though incoming freshmen were issued BMW convertible 320i’s, they were so abundant). And some of it is the general unstated impression that with Stanford already on your diploma, you’re somewhat set, whereas CMU students’ matriculation into six-figure salaries was far less assured.

Bottom line — the quality of education at both schools is pretty comparable (in CS and math, at least); CMU deserves every bit the reputation as Stanford or Harvard in selected departments, probably even more-so. However, the quality of life is most definitely not comparable; it’s my view that CMU is a far harder and more demanding school in selected departments, and Stanford has a far-better balance of student work and life.

Returning to the question at hand, given the above, I’d encourage CMU CS grads to put a check on that inferiority complex — it’s my view that they might just have accomplished significantly more, at least academically, in those four years than students at even higher-prestige schools. But perhaps these academic accomplishments were at the expense of a more rich social life that would help soften negative personality traits… like inferiority complexes.