"Easy" classes at Stanford? - Printable Version

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Re: "Easy" classes at Stanford? - Pastor - 03-10-2011

That there are easier profs than others (it really isn\'t about courses...it is about instructors) is not a surprise.  Every school has them and every school has lists of them.  BUT such courses should be considered within the context of a student\'s entire program.  To have 18 easy course credits out of 125 doesn\'t seem to me especially horrible.

Something else has been overlooked.  At Stanford with so many of the students involved in athletics and the courses open to everyone, I don\'t see what the complaint is.  Assume that the frats and sororities have their own lists and \'advice\' given in dorms by RAs, it seems more logical to assume that such lists are available to everyone.  We faculty have long known about test files and similar things (and the best are usually with ROTC type groups).  Of greater fear are things like the \'power V\' in which students in a large course fan out in a V shape and copy from each other (I once taught a course with 800-1200 students). Nearly every faculty member would likely tell you that the worst part of teaching is the testing.   I have always imposed on myself a standard normal curve (albeit a little skewed toward the A side) because I want to be consistent from term to term and to signal who are the better students.

But let\'s not kid ourselves as to what grades really are - usually one person\'s opinion of work which is supposed to reflect internal intellectual growth.  There\'s a lot of room in there for a less than accurate judgment.

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