Undergraduate Opportunities: Frequently asked questions

What are the opportunities for summer internships?

Stanford will not set up any summer internships for you, but Stanford does provide a lot of resources to help you find opportunities, get through the interview process, and decide on an internship. In terms of finding opportunities, the Career Development Center (CDC) has a Cardinal Recruiting Program which includes a large database of open positions at various companies. There are also quarterly all-major career fairs hosted by the CDC, quarterly Computer Forum Career Fairs for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science majors, an annual Opportunity Job Fair (usually in Winter Quarter) for all engineering majors, and a Startup Career Fair hosted by the BASES student group. The CDC also provides resume and interview workshops and offers general appointments with career counselors. More information can be found on the CDC website at www.cdc.stanford.edu.

You are not limited to the companies that show up to Stanford’s career fairs or are in the Cardinal Recruiting database, however. If there is a particular company that you are interested in, you can always look up information about jobs and internships on the company website or reach out to the company directly.

What are the opportunities for research?

The best way to get into research is probably through a summer research program that almost every department has. For instance, the Electrical Engineering department has REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) and the Computer Science department has CURIS (Undergraduate Research in Computer Science). More information about those can be found on department websites. Depending on your professor or project, many of these summer research opportunities can be continued during the school year.

Alternatively, there is always the classic way of reaching out to a professor that you would be interested in working with through email. It helps if you can explain what aspects of their research you are interested in and why.

When can students start working in a lab?

Students can start working in a lab as soon as they would like and as soon as they find a professor that they can work with (see “What are the opportunities for research?” above). It may not be recommended to start research the first quarter of your Stanford career, however, because you still want some time to adjust to college life, college classes, and to just enjoy meeting a lot of awesome people.

What are the sizes of classes?

The size of classes range from 700 students for the introductory Computer Science class to 10 for a more specialized, upper-level engineering course. It is common for introductory courses to be much larger in size than upper-level courses and for courses in more popular majors to also be larger than courses in less popular majors. The size of the course staff is usually proportional to the size of the class, however, so you should not have to worry about not getting any help that you need.

Is there a lot of student interaction and discussion with professors?

The amount of interaction that you have with professors is really dependent on you. Professors hold office hours for the classes they are teaching, but it is up to you to go to them if you want to interact with the professor.

What introductory classes are there?

One of the requirements for any major in the School of Engineering is to complete three Engineering Fundamentals. These classes are usually the introductory classes to the various engineering majors and are a great way to get a better idea of what the major is like and whether you would enjoy it. Certain majors also require you to complete certain Engineering Fundamentals. For instance Mechanical Engineering requires both ENGR14: Statics and ENGR15: Dynamics. You can review the list of engineering fundamentals as well as the requirements for each major in the Undergraduate Engineering Handbook.

What math and sciences do you have to take?

The School of Engineering requires a minimum number of units of math and science, but each major varies in their specific requirements. For example, it is not required to take Chemistry for Electrical Engineering but it is required for Chemical Engineering. More information about requirements can be found in the Undergraduate Engineering Handbook.