[Mick]

The wisdom of GK3's comment really hit home for me. And I'll echo the thoughts of others earlier in the thread that hoped she would mature with age and use her incredible talents and platform to help make the world a better place. But I remain struck by the fact that she is, by any measure, an incredibly accomplished and impressive young woman. 

The article says she is currently a straight-A student and is studying quantum mechanics, which strikes me as pretty darn impressive. That a single person can hold a combination of a mind like that, athletic skill like that, style like that, and business acumen like that is, well, mind-boggling. 

I have some doubts as to how well the story was reported, however, since they say that Stanford requires students to take 48 units a year. But you need 180 units to graduate, so across four years, that's an average of 45 a year, or 15 per quarter, which is what Stanford suggests that students take. The minimum for full-time status remains 12 units per quarter, suggesting that Yahoo News understood quarter in the literal sense, not the academic, more-like-a-trimester sense in which Stanford uses it. 

That said, 72 in her freshman year?? That's 18 a quarter including summer quarter? Wowza. That's a heckuva load. As she anticipates wanting to take some time off, she's setting herself up to take a couple quarters off to train for and compete in the 2026 Winter Olympics--so, probably Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 and then she'll still be on track to come back for a victory lap quarter on campus and graduate on time with her class.

I knew, or rather had met, an individual who took one extra class per trimester AND during the summer, and graduated in less than three years. For her, it was a tuition issue...taking an extra class wasn't any more expensive.

[Mick]

The wisdom of GK3's comment really hit home for me. And I'll echo the thoughts of others earlier in the thread that hoped she would mature with age and use her incredible talents and platform to help make the world a better place. But I remain struck by the fact that she is, by any measure, an incredibly accomplished and impressive young woman. 

The article says she is currently a straight-A student and is studying quantum mechanics, which strikes me as pretty darn impressive. That a single person can hold a combination of a mind like that, athletic skill like that, style like that, and business acumen like that is, well, mind-boggling. 

I have some doubts as to how well the story was reported, however, since they say that Stanford requires students to take 48 units a year. But you need 180 units to graduate, so across four years, that's an average of 45 a year, or 15 per quarter, which is what Stanford suggests that students take. The minimum for full-time status remains 12 units per quarter, suggesting that Yahoo News understood quarter in the literal sense, not the academic, more-like-a-trimester sense in which Stanford uses it. 

That said, 72 in her freshman year?? That's 18 a quarter including summer quarter? Wowza. That's a heckuva load. As she anticipates wanting to take some time off, she's setting herself up to take a couple quarters off to train for and compete in the 2026 Winter Olympics--so, probably Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 and then she'll still be on track to come back for a victory lap quarter on campus and graduate on time with her class.

I knew, or rather had met, an individual who took one extra class per trimester AND during the summer, and graduated in less than three years. For her, it was a tuition issue...taking an extra class wasn't any more expensive.