Fieldnotes 43 Stanford Tour

Fieldnotes 4/3 Stanford Tour Before tour, standing in groups, some large, a couple standing alone Subgroup: “OK, there are groups, we’ll meet up here afterwards."

I’m observing: HUM/STEM; Tour guides performing elite student identity, exclusivity/inclusivity toward tour members, lies

Tour guide says he’s from Richmond, asks where everyone in the tour is from 

“if you see me walking backwards into a golf cart, a small child, or a Nobel Prize winner, let me know"

• Tone change: clicks into tour mode

“For any prospective students, I want to point out Montague Hall…” “They get to take a break. They just admitted the Class of 2020. There was a crazy low acceptance rate this year, it was traumatizing to everyone."

-> joke: NY times satire of 0% acceptance rate -> joke: Stanford Daily -15% acceptance rate; Stanford actually expelling students. 

• Context: <5% acceptance rate news just broke

• avoids emphasizing exclusivity

“we’re actually named after a 15-year-old.       - folksy, approachable. everyone takes pictures of Hoover Tower

Leland had a railroad, art collection       - positions himself as an outsider too

$22b endowment “most of that going to financial aid for students” (true?) “Awkward silences—only you can stop them!"

Stanford has 7 schools; “you have access to all of the 13000 classes; you have access to the entire university.” Guide took a law school class, “which was a really bad idea in hindsight, but I did it anyway."       - emphasizes lack of boundaries

students on the quarter system take 25% more classes “I didn’t have to declare my major until the end of my sophomore year"

invites questions about school      - is it hard to change majors? “Stanford doesn’t want that to be hard"

d.school; seniors work with companies “because they trust senior undergrads with millions of dollars business decisions"

Nobody is taking any notes “[Bill Gates] was hiring so many of our graduates that he gave us a building anyway"      - joke used on last tour too

HP: Stanford-Silicon Valley link. Started with a $400 loan from engineering professor goes through a list of tech companies started at Stanford; we still maintain strong relationships with them; Zuck comes to talk to cs106a every year. the SV culture of innovation, creativity, collaboration, ideation comes from Stanford “when I first visited Google, I thought they had turned Stanford into a company" Huang engineering center: “it should be open if you want to go inside later" Q: How many students go into Engineering vs. other majors?  A: 50/50 split: 50% arts/sciences; 50% engineering (true? misleading?) Q: Is the engineering curriculum hands-on? A: Yes: many classes have labs and capstone projects.  “Engineering is kind of like magic to me" PRL, “where students, if they have an idea to build something, they can just go. You don’t have to be in a class for it, you just have to have the basic safety training" “student neighborhoods" Q: Are there many concerts on campus? Do bands come?

Main quad interdisciplinary: “The Stanfords were very particular; they wanted all the academic departments close together, so professors would know what each other were doing and they would collaborate” (never heard the history quite like that…)

“It’s not very often that we pack the church—I think the last time it was full was when Oprah was here" one of the largest organs in the US      - tour as tourism; we were dutifully interested in the curiosities; many people went inside and took pictures of the organ.       - suggests people don’t really know what they’re looking for in the tour?