Stanford’s Department of Management Science and Engineering

[apparent]

Of the famous founders, over half were Stanford undergrads and therefore likely were "coterm" students. That means they just added a year to their degree and got this degree tacked on. That saves lots of time and money compared to going to Stanford as a master's student. There are a lot of things that are "worth it" if you don't have to move apartments/cities and get it for half the price — but which are not nearly as worth it if you're paying double and add the friction of moving to the area in order to enroll.

[m-ee]

I’m not sure how it factors into the overall admission statistics but getting accepted for a coterm is, or at least was, significantly easier and more straightforward. In my time it just meant a GPA above a certain cutoff, a letter of rec from a professor, and non embarrassing GRE scores. A very good letter of recommendation could make up for deficiencies in the other two. It’s not exactly a super selective elite club like the article implies if you’re already there for undergrad.

[TMWNN]

Can Stanford undergrads coterm in MS&E with any undergraduate major?

[mathattack]

I've met several of these students. It's like an MBA, but less social networking and more math. (And can be done co-term or in a year)

So does it add some value to someone who is already getting a bachelors in EE, CS or similar? Sure.

Would I put a history major with an MS&E degree in charge of anything significant? Probably not.

I suspect that the admissions rate of 7% is independent of coterms.

[MADEinPARIS]

I met a guy who raised $250MM, and dropped out of the program. Spoiled.

[coupdejarnac]

I've taken a few graduate courses at Stanford MS&E through their non degree program, and I give the experience three thumbs up.

[curioustock]

Yes some people actually go NDO->part-time-> full-time. It's rare but possible.

[fernirello]

Has anyone seen publicly accessible content from the startup-ish MS&E courses? I think Coursera had a MOOCified version of “Startup engineering”, but that was over a decade ago and it didn’t last long anyway. It was great back then.

[constantcrying]

Maybe it is because I am not from the US and from a country with a very different work culture, but this whole thing seems ridiculously narcissistic. A person with such a degree becoming my coworker or my boss seems like a nightmare. Even talking to someone who "made it through" such a degree is something I would rather avoid.

[kj4211cash]

It's not as bad as the article makes it sound. It is an operations research program with some startup-y courses tacked on. The post is just LinkedIn style cringe mixed with the hubris of Stanford alumni. The authors seem narcissistic but most graduates of the program are great.

[mocmoc]

this industry is rotten

[TexanFeller]

> Management Science

It’s jarring and galling to see management and science put together in a way that’s suggestive of management being a science. It reeks of stolen valor.

Obligatory Feynman on “sciences”: https://youtu.be/tWr39Q9vBgo?si=SYTZSNA0G-RZDguA

[cschmidt]

I think in this context Management Science is an older term that was synonymous with operations research. The flagship journal of Informs (the institute for operations research and management science) has the same name. Studying how to optimize thing, lots of statistics and math. Stanford was at the forefront of the field from George Danzig onwards. So not trying to make management a “science” in this case.

[lisper]

This particular clickbait title formula -- The X No One Has Heard About -- drives me nuts because it is so manifestly self-defeating. Obviously someone has heard about it. At the very least, the author of the piece has heard about it, and now all of their readers have heard about it too.

[tomhow]

We've de-baited the title now.

[alankarmisra]

It's like the secret beaches in every south-east asian nook and crany. They're so secret there's signs pointing to them every where and they are overrun with tourists.

[junar]

Pretty sure any Stanford student would have heard about it. For students graduating in 2023-2024 year, Management Science and Engineering was the 9th most popular bachelor's degree and 7th most popular master's degree.

https://irds.stanford.edu/data-findings/degrees-conferred

[cadamsdotcom]

Ah, the classic “no one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded” :)

HN titles generally shouldn’t be clickbait.. what would you suggest instead?