<p>Somebody spoiled the fun</p>
<p>Stanford</a> Athletes Had Access To List Of 'Easy' Classes: California Watch Report</p>
<p>… via unoffical means, word of mouth, student-to-student email, etc.</p>
<p>Every school has micks, and one can count on athletes to find them, with help of course. It’s those universities that offer mick-majors that are the bad guys: OU & recreation, etc.</p>
<p>I found this quote unfortunate though:</p>
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<p>There are several unfortunate elements in this story, starting with the unreported fact that most of the quotes were obtained under false pretenses, and as it has become standard for this type of story taken out of their context. </p>
<p>Here’s a viewpoint worth reading. </p>
<p>[Perspective</a> on “The List” | Stanford Daily](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/03/09/perspective-on-the-list/]Perspective”>Perspective on "The List")</p>
<p>That’s not the opinion of the writer in your link:</p>
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<p>Drax, read the next sentence. If you knew the author of the Stanford article, you’d understand the complete message. </p>
<p>Remember his audience … people who are at Stanford.</p>
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<p>At the college I attended, back in the Dark Ages, the Greek system was a wealth of information on micks – even those Greek houses with no athletes. Word of mouth was literally word-of-mouth – no computers back then.</p>
<p>… for one, it was printed off to the side and small…but I did understand that he had to be associated with Stanford because it was an opinion piece in the school newspaper as he wrote about his days at Stanford.</p>
<p>He said himself something like, ‘as an amateur [and something about now] as a professional.’</p>
<p>The next sentence is what is echoed throughout the whole piece, xiggi.</p>
<p>I thought you were going to have something good for us when you stated:</p>
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<p>Care to share?</p>
<p>That’s funny, bluebayou, I was thinking the same thing. My sorority house had an index card file where sisters wrote comments about the classes they had taken, and one of the main reasons other sisters checked the files was to see if a class was easy or hard.</p>
<p>OK, instead of following the source provided by the OP, follow the original story by clicking here: [Stanford</a> athletes had access to list of ‘easy’ courses | Stanford Daily](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/03/09/1046687/]Stanford”>Stanford athletes had access to list of 'easy' courses)</p>
<p>From there click on the statement of California Watch, or here <a href=“[700+] California Wallpapers | Wallpapers.com”>http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/california-watch-stands-behind-stanford-class-list-story-9139</a></p>
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<p>Fwiw, Wyndam Makowsky is a staff writer at Stanford Daily and, thus, a colleague of several of the Stanford student journalists who contributed to the original article. </p>
<p>As far as the California Watch reviewing the concern, it seems that the editor will have plenty of 'splaining to do to the quoted Professor:</p>
<p>[Misquoted</a> Professor Has Sharp Words for Student Reporters | The Unofficial Stanford Blog](<a href=“http://tusb.stanford.edu/2011/03/misquoted-professor-has-sharp-words-for-student-reporters.html]Misquoted”>http://tusb.stanford.edu/2011/03/misquoted-professor-has-sharp-words-for-student-reporters.html)</p>
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<p>Nuff?</p>
<p>what i don’t understand is why this even merits a ‘story’ in the Stanford paper. It’s a Duh! moment. Are the student journalists that naive (or just plain stupid?) to know that student athletes receive course recommendations which: a) fit their training schedule; b) will enable them to stay eligible; c) will help them graduate on time. But more importantly, such classes are open to anyone in the Stanford community.</p>
<p>With all the online sources available, selecting ‘easier’ courses is open to everyone, everywhere, even in the (gasp!) Ivies. When Cornell started posting median course grades online a couple of years back - in an effort to stem grade inflation – they were “shocked, shocked” to find that students flocked to courses where the mean grade is an A. Same thing happens at Dartmouth. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that hume/lit courses have much higher grades than intro sciences.</p>
<p>X is so cute when he gets his panties in wad. Big bad reporters were mean and maybe lied a little to trick them. Oh my. The horror.</p>
<p>When you said:</p>
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<p>I thought by reading the piece which you recommended, that there would a separate point of view. I don’t know Makowsky from anyone else in the story. I thought the opinion piece you linked would show ‘that most of the quotes were obtained under false pretenses,’ so when I read the piece I was disappointed.</p>
<p>In other words, next time, get to the point, and quit wasting people’s time. If you’re going to make accusations, link to prove.</p>
<p>Makowsky didn’t say anything enlightening or different from the Chronc article. We know not all the classes on The List were micks because the Chronc article STATED this. So I don’t know what your intentions were in linking the Makowsky piece.</p>
<p>I don’t really care if Makowsky was an amateur journalist and now professional or that he was referring to his fellow journalists from the Stanford paper as amateurs and the Chronc and Merc people as professionals. </p>
<p>Makowsky begins the article stating when he first saw the list as seemingly long, long ago as a frosh (say seven years ago, but in reality three). He continues distancing himself form the journalistic crew from Stanford, which I thought was a displacement of time, in which case I thought he was a professional journalist now. Anyway, I don’t care, and I agree it’s really a non-issue. </p>
<p>Therefore the story doesn’t need your hypersensitive support of Stanford to prove that the school didn’t do anything wrong. It didn’t. Any list the school puts forth wouldn’t have all micks because that would be complete school administrative backing of easier courses for athletes. But now you know when students pass this list on among themselves, the harder courses will be taken out. </p>
<p>As for those supposedly misquoted, obviously you’re going to support the professor who made the supposed/alleged remark. This in your eyes would do less damage to Stanford by placing the blame on the student journalists and two papers involved. But again, in truth, there’s no damage, no harm, other than what we already knew: all schools including The Farm have mick courses and athletes tend to find them.</p>
<p>Is Xiggi “pom pom waving” his support for one of his favorite schools again?</p>
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<p>Drax, isn’t that where your problem starts? </p>
<p>You make incorrect assumptions based on a faulty reading of simple and direct statements, jump to erroneous conclusions, and then ask people to “care to share” or “provide links.”</p>
<p>Berkeley has its share…look at majors most football players are in… it’s something called “American Studies”.</p>
<p>^^as a general rule, any [fill-in-the-blank] Studies major has extremely high grade distribution. One just has to remember to regurgitate the professors’ biases and nod in agreement.</p>
<p>As many students have noted, a lot of the courses in “the list” are not easy by any means (like econ 1A) but instead fit into a time frame. The list was more useful before Stanford had online course systems. Anyone can browse Stanford’s course listings and filter by time, department, GER, etc.</p>
<p>[Stanford</a> University Explore Courses](<a href=“http://explorecourses.stanford.edu%5DStanford”>http://explorecourses.stanford.edu)</p>
<p>Students also have access to course evaluations, as well as grade distributions via CourseRank. They can use syllabus.stanford.edu to see the requirements/demands of courses they might want to take. Plus students already know what courses help to “pad units” if needed–activity courses (like dance or golf), most introductory seminars, 1 or 2 unit classes, etc. For those “in the know,” graduate seminars are often easy–mostly just reading papers, and you get an A (though normally you have to present at least once a quarter, or write a final paper). The list is/was just another resource that Stanford’s over-staffed offices provide to students (look at ual.stanford.edu and you’ll see what I mean by resources provided by over-staffed offices–really helpful, of course, but lord there’s a lot).</p>
<p>Here is Ramona Shelburne’s blog:</p>
<p>[College</a> softball: Life of a Stanford Cardinal athlete - ESPN](<a href=“http://espn.go.com/ncaa/blog/_/name/college_sports/id/6206094/no-free-passes-stanford-athletes]College”>College softball: Life of a Stanford Cardinal athlete - ESPN)</p>
<p>“^^as a general rule, any [fill-in-the-blank] Studies major has extremely high grade distribution. One just has to remember to regurgitate the professors’ biases and nod in agreement.”</p>
<p>So… what exactly is the bias that an American studies major should nod in agreement about? </p>
<p>Since this field is basically a hodgepodge of American History & American Literature, should one just regurgitate the professor’s biases in these English & History classes, whereas the 'pure" history and english majors taking the identical classes with you, sitting next to you, don’t have to nod in agreement, since they are majoring in English/ History and not American Studies ??</p>
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<p>Meh…</p>
<p>I scanned the article because I knew once I clicked on your link it wasn’t what I was looking for. It was pure drudgery even scanning that piece you linked. You essentially baited, by stating “quotes obtained under false pretenses,” and then switched by linking an opinion piece that stated essentially the same things as the Chronc article, including persons making the same defense that The List isn’t all mick-related…but the one you linked had a decidedly Stanford bias, to fit your agenda.</p>
<p>I think in particular, you wanted us to note that (approximately) “a lot of intro classes at Stanford are harder than upper-division at other schools” from this writer. </p>
<p>A lot of intro science classes probably tend to be harder than upper division, so I guess what he’s saying would definitely have some truth. This is probably true in CS, Chem, etc. At UCLA the English 10 series is the set of weed out courses for the major, and once one gains upperclassman standing the classes supposedly get “easier.” Yeah, we know about the geniuses that attend classes at Stanford would make any class seem easy, which I’m sure you pointed out so many times before in your 50K posts.</p>
<p>I’m not clicking on your links anymore. Lesson learned. Besides your idea of significance in academia is probably most people’s cure for insomnia.</p>