Stanford’s Department of Management Science and Engineering • Hacker News Board

Re: Stanford’s Department of Management Science and Engineering

#31

Post by cschmidt » Tue, Jul 29, 2025, 11:40 PM UTC

cschmidt wrote: post #28

TexanFeller wrote: post #27

> 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

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.

I’m not sure about this masters program, but the undergrad program seems to be proper ORMS.

Re: Stanford’s Department of Management Science and Engineering

#32

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 29, 2025, 11:56 PM UTC

TexanFeller wrote: post #27

> 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

[deleted]

Re: Stanford’s Department of Management Science and Engineering

#33

Post by fernirello » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 7:46 AM UTC

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.

Re: Stanford’s Department of Management Science and Engineering

#34

Post by kj4211cash » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 1:18 PM UTC

constantcrying wrote: post #21

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.

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.