> Your ego either inflates to infinity because you're a big fish in a small pond, or you get depressed being around really incompetent people.

Neither was the case with me. If you want intellectual stimulation, just go talk to the professors!

> Is it easy and low stress? Probably. But I feel like I'm being driven into mediocrity.

Quoting another comment of mine:

"Yes, you need the motivation to do well. In my experience, and of those I've asked who were in a similar situation: If you are aiming high and go to such a school, you believe you're getting an inferior education (mostly false), and you compensate by studying more than what is assigned. Then you go to a top grad school and find you know more than your peers who went to a top university."

> Neither was the case with me. If you want intellectual stimulation, just go talk to the professors!

Many of the professors don't make their own slides. They just read stuff someone else wrote and pretend to understand it. Then they proceed to buy a test bank and grade us on content they don't fully grasp.

I don't even care about the education; it's just wanting to meet like-minded people and not being able to.

Really, the only thing that's motivating me is the job I'm going to after graduation. I did a 16-month internship, and I don't think I've ever been happier/more emotionally fulfilled in my life.