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A n I n d e p e n d e n t P u b l i c a t i o nwww.stanforddaily.comWEDNESDAY Volume 241

February 1, 2012 Issue 1The Stanford Daily

NEWS BRIEFS

Debate continues for PAUSD

GSB tops MBA rankings

By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF

The Stanford Graduate School of Busi-

ness (GSB) has topped the FinancialTimes (FT) Global MBA rankings for thefirst time.

In achieving this ranking, Stanford be-came only the fourth institution to top theFTs tables since the competitions inceptionin 1999.The GSBs rise came at the expenseof the London Business School and theWharton School at the University of Penn-sylvania, which were joint winners in 2011.

The FT rankings combine assessmentsof MBA programs spanning 20 categories,but Stanfords MBA program was primari-ly differentiated from rivals by alumniearning power. The average salaries earnedby alumni three years after graduationhave increasingly distinguished Stanford:GSB alumni have reported the highestpost-MBA salaries of any comparable pro-gram for the past six years.

For the 2012 rankings, Stanford alumnisalaries three years after graduation aver-aged $191,657 almost $14,000 morethan the GSBs closest rival, Harvard Busi-ness School, which came in first in 1999 and2000. Higher salaries after graduation con-tinue, however, to be accompanied by thesteep cost of attaining an MBA, with theaverage total cost of studying for an MBAin the United States cited at $99,000 by theFinancial Times.

The GSBs triumph is more broadly re-flective of a shift in influence and earningspotential toward American universities at

the expense of European peer institutions,according to the FT article. American uni-versities included in the FTs rankingsmoved up between 2011 and 2012 at a sig-nificantly higher rate than their Europeancounterparts. Top U.S. MBA programs also

noted increases in the percent salarygrowth attained by graduates, which wastracked from enrolment to three yearsafter graduation.

Marshall Watkins

Biochemistry professor

receives award for work

in intracellular motor

functions

By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF

James Spudich, Stanford professor ofbiochemistry, will receive this years Wiley

Prize in Biomedical Science, the WileyFoundation announced Tuesday.

Spudich won the award along with Co-lumbia professor Michael Sheetz and Uni-versity of California, San Francisco(UCSF) professor Ronald Vale for theirwork on explaining how cargo is movedby molecular motors along two differentsystems of tracks within cells, said GnterBlobel, chairman of the Wiley Prize awards

jury, in a press release.

ACADEMICS

iDeclareshowcases

majors

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

ASSU FM critiques buffer fund useBy JULIA ENTHOVEN

STAFF WRITER

Against the advice of Neveen Mahmoud11, the CEO of Stanford Student Enterpris-es (SSE) and the financial manager for theASSU, the ASSU Undergraduate Senatepassed a bill Tuesday authorizing the alloca-tion of $35,000 from the UndergraduateSpecial Buffer Fund to the Stanford Con-cert Network. The Graduate Student Coun-cil (GSC) will consider the bill tomorrow.

Mahmoud expressed her concern that dip-ping into the buffer fund for student groupfunds might set a detrimental precedent.

The buffer fund in my interpretationof the way it is outlined in the constitution is there essentially to account for ASSUsmistakes, she said. I dont believe that thisshould be a regular use for buffer-fundmoney.

Mahmoud also asserted that drawingspecial fees from the buffer fund compro-

mises the integrity of the special feesprocess by robbing students of their agencyin the financial decisions and putting an ad-ditional burden on legislators.

I think you would see a huge outcryfrom students, [with] higher waiver rates,she said of any future in which groups werefunded from the buffer fund rather thanthrough the [special fees] election process.Its not about these groups in particular get-ting funding; its about how this all hap-pened, what this all means [and] what arethe implications of this.

Mahmouds opinion may have contra-

dicted her advice during a previous Senatemeeting when she seemed to endorse thewithdrawal of student group funding from

the buffer fund.The senses that I got were that you wereokay with these funds being used from thebuffer fund, said Senator Dan DeLong 13.Have you ever indicated that it wouldntbe okay to use these funds?

Mahmoud answered by explaining that,although she still believes that the bufferfund can handle the $35,000 loss, she nowhas reconsidered its implications for futureuses. She also noted, again, that she is not re-sponsible for making decisions on policy.

The Senators acknowledged the impor-tance of regulating the buffer funds, sayingthat they plan to propose a bill in the nearfuture concerning its appropriate uses andemphasizing that the current funding ismore of a loophole than a trend.

The Senate decided to move forward onthe question of present funding, however,

since future use of the buffer fund is an issueseparate from its current appropriation. Thebody approved the $35,000 request unani-mously.

The Senate also discussed a bill concern-ing the language departments attendancepolicy. Referred to by DeLong as theCARDINAL Act, the legislation urgesthe language center to take urgent action tochange their mandatory attendance policy.The policy currently deducts two percent-age points from a students final grade for

Sophomore class presidentsdeem program successful

By CATHERINE ZAWSTAFF WRITER

Stanfords second iDeclareweek, an event series designed toassist sophomores with theprocess of declaring a major, tookplace last week from Jan. 23 toJan. 27.

The week included a range ofevents geared toward offering theClass of 2014 resources and infor-

mation about potential majortracks and requirements.This years week was high-

lighted by a Sophomore FacultyDinner featuring President Hen-nessy to kick it off, a FacultyMeet Fourteen event on Tuesdayand an alumni panel featuringTime Magazine columnist JoelStein on Friday, said DhruvAmin 14, a sophomore class co-president. Other events in theprogram included a senior-sopho-more mentorship program as wellas internship and research work-shops.

Phounsouk Sivilay 14, sopho-more class co-president, said thatattendance at the events, whiledifficult to assess accurately, was

generally impressive. Sivilay citedthe over-attendance at interviewworkshops and alumni panels asevidence of sophomore interest inthe weeks programming.

The kickoff Sophomore Fac-ulty Dinner featuring PresidentHennessy was definitely the mostpopular event, Amin said, notingthat the allocation of 300 studentseats was filled within 90 minutesof sending out the RSVP link.

That response was faster thanthe past three years this event hasbeen thrown, Amin said.

In addition to President Hen-nessys opening remarks, Sivilaynoted the presence of ViceProvost of Undergraduate Edu-cation Harry Elam and three fac-

ulty Nobel Laureates at the event.All of the Universitys depart-

ments were invited for the weeksevents, and those departmentsthat decided to hold open housesduring the week were wrapped up

District hosts board meeting to discuss achievement gap

By SARAH MOORECONTRIBUTING WRITER

At Tuesday nights Palo AltoUnified School District(PAUSD) meeting, the districtboard continued its discussion ofan achievement gap at the dis-tricts two high schools, compar-ing minority student perform-

ance with that of white and AsianAmerican students.The board also hosted the

high schools principals Tuesdaymorning to hear their HighSchool Single Plans for StudentAchievement. Themes ad-dressed at the meeting includedsocial health and academic inter-vention.

We have a challenge when itcomes to achievement of kidswith different racial and ethnicbackgrounds, PAUSD Superin-tendent Kevin Skelly said.Weve discussed the issue many,many times, so this meeting pro-vides one other way to look at it.

As a whole, African Americanand Hispanic PAUSD high

school students are currentlyscoring worse and meeting fewergraduation requirements thantheir white and Asian Americanpeers.

Skelly refuted the idea thatthe system has become bifurcat-ed, noting that both students ofcolor and non-minority studentshave access to the same uniqueadvantages in their school dis-trict.

The districts graduating classof 2011 self-identified as 57 per-cent white, 29 percent AsianAmerican, eight percent Hispan-ic, two percent African Americanand four percent students of aseparate racial category.

The students who did not

meet the A-G Requirements nec-essary to be eligible for admis-sion to a University of California(UC) were 51 percent white, 12percent Asian American, 23 per-cent Hispanic and 10 percentAfrican American. Students of aseparate racial category formedthe only group that held a con-stant rate at four percent.

A-G requirements includetwo years of history or social sci-ence, four years of English, threeyears of mathematics, two yearsof laboratory science, two yearsof a language other than English,one year of visual and perform-ing arts and one year of an elec-tive. All classes must be at the col-

RESEARCH

SLAC announces first atomic X-ray laser

ALISA ROYER/The Stanford Daily

The Palo Alto Unified School District board discussed the achievement gap, as demonstrated by test scores,

between minority students and their white and Asian American counterparts at a Tuesday meeting.

By ALICE PHILLIPSDESK EDITOR

Scientists at the SLAC Na-tional Accelerator Laboratoryannounced last Wednesday theirinvolvement in an experimentthat created the first successfulatomic X-ray laser.

Such a laser was predicted to

be possible as long ago as 45years, according to Science Now.The vast amount of energy re-quired for a functioning atomicX-ray laser, however, led pastphysicists to attempt even nu-clear explosions in order to gen-erate the requisite power. SLACbroke through by using the Linac

Coherent Light Source (LCLS)laser to power the atomic X-raylaser.

SLAC scientist John Bozeksaid that the LCLS, which hasbeen operational since August2009, is the only X-ray free elec-tron laser in the world that wouldhave been powerful enough topower the atomic X-ray laser

being tested in the experiment.The $410 million LCLS emitslight 10 billion times brighterthan other X-rays.

The experiment, which hasbeen in the works for approxi-mately two years, pumped X-raysinto a cell of neon gas. The neonmolecules electrons entered an

excited state lasting five fem-toseconds (5x10 -15 seconds).

There are as many femtosec-onds in a minute as there are min-utes in the age of the universe,Bozek said. Its a very small frac-tion of a second.

In order to read whether theatomic X-ray laser beam wasworking, a team of SLAC,

Lawrence Livermore NationalLaboratory (LLNL) and Col-orado State University scientistsset up a spectrometer down-stream of the laser. The spec-trometer, which was furnished byColorado State, was able tomeasure the intensity of light em-anating from the atomic X-ray

laser and then display its readingsin real-time on a monitor in an in-strument room.

[LLNL and Colorado State]brought in some very differentpieces of equipment that we had-nt used before, including thishigh pressure gas cell of neon andthis X-ray spectrometer nei-ther of which are exceptionally

unique, but we hadnt used thembefore, Bozek said. Its an in-teresting facility in the sense thatyoure always doing a new exper-iment every week.

For the first three of five 12-hour shifts or three-fifths of

Please see iDECLARE, page 2

Please seeASSU, page 5

Please see PAUSD, page 2

Please see LASER, page 2

Please see BRIEFS, page 2

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2NWednesday, February 1, 2012 The Stanford Daily

lege preparatory level to fulfill re-quirements.

Last spring, Skelly proposedmodifying some of the districtsgraduation requirements to align

with standards for UCs and Cali-fornia State Universities. The cur-rent PAUSD graduation require-ments that would be affected arethose for two years of mathemat-ics, two years of science (not nec-essarily laboratory science) andone year of either foreign lan-guage orvisual or performing arts.

At last nights meeting, Skellypresented a PowerPoint entitledGraduation Requirements: Pre-liminary Thinking on a New Ap-proach, outlining his proposaland the rationale behind it. Healso presented Algebra II Per-formance and Learning, whichshowed lower results for AfricanAmerican and Hispanic studentsin California Standards Tests

(CST) scores than their white andAsian American peers.

Board members and speakersfrom the community emphasizedthat high school success is also areflection of elementary and mid-dle school learning.

The effects of stereotypes canbe so costly, PAUSD Vice Presi-dent Dana Tom said. I wish thiswere a simple issue to address. Itrequires vigilance, attention and amulti-pronged approach. This is a

pre-K to 12 issue, not just a highschool issue. The gap exists in ele-mentary school as well.

Although a specific plan hasnot been implemented at thispoint, the PAUSD community ex-pressed a clear desire to addressthis disparity problem. The boardsaid it has taken full note of theconcerns of residents of PaloAlto.

There are two gaps here,said Ken Dauber of We Can DoBetter Palo Alto when time wasallotted for comments from thepublic. We are ranked quite lowfor African American and His-panic students while we areranked quite high for white andAsian students. The hiddenachievement gap is the one be-tween Palo Alto District andother high achieving schools.

According to PAUSD Presi-dent Camille Townsend, GunnHigh School principal Katya Vil-lalobos spoke at the morningmeeting about additional coun-selors and ways of interveningwhen students are not perform-ing well academically. Townsend

said she feels that further meas-ures are also necessary for signifi-cant improvements to be made.

I think were going to have amuch better success rate if westart at the elementary schoollevel, PAUSD Board MemberMelissa Baten Caswell said. Wecant just attack it at the highschool level.

Contact Sarah Moore at smoore6@stanford.edu.

PAUSDContinued from front page

The award, which will be pre-sented during a ceremony on April6, in New York City, includes a$35,000 prize. According to theWiley Foundation website, a five-

member jury, including two NobelPrize winners, selected the recipi-ents.

The Wiley Prize in BiomedicalSciences is intended to recognizebreakthrough research in pure orapplied life science research that isdistinguished by its excellence, orig-inality and impact on our under-standing of biological systems andprocesses, the website states. Theaward may recognize a specific con-tribution or series of contributionsthat demonstrate the nominees sig-nificant leadership in the develop-ment of research concepts or theirclinical application.

Last year, recipients Lily Jan andYuh Nung Jan of UCSF won foridentifying the founding member of

potassium ion channels that controlthe nerve cell activity of animals.

Kurt Chirbas

Stanford scientists

transform skin cells

into nerve cells

By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF

A research group at the Stan-ford University School of Medi-

cine found that skin cells from micecan be repurposed as cells that canlater become any of the three germlayers of the nervous system. Thisfinding contradicts the prevalentnotion that a cell must be a pluripo-tent stem cell in order to developinto any of the three primary tissuelayers.

The finding that non-stem cellscan change function indicates thatit may be possible to produce neu-ral cells for transplantation thatspecifically match the human pa-tients genetics. The cells swappedfunction over just three weeks withthe assistance of specialized tran-scription factors in a processknown as transdifferentiation.

This process is advantageous, in

contrast with the process of induc-ing pluripotency in a cell, because itproduces a homogeneous popula-tion of converted cells. Induced

pluripotency can result in leftoverpluripotent cells that, if transplant-ed into a patient, may cause cancerbecause the cells can still differen-tiate their function.

While the Stanford researchgroup is working toward replicat-ing the cell-swapping ability withhuman cells, the process and its re-sulting cells are far from being test-ed with human transplantation

subjects due to the preliminary na-ture of the research. The ability toproduce rapidly large quantities ofneural cells in a laboratory setting,however, is immediately valuablefor research into diseases and drugtargeting, the study said.

The Stanford research grouphas previously shown skin cells ofboth mice and humans to be capa-ble of direct conversion into func-tioning neurons.

Marius Wernig, assistant profes-sor of pathology, is the lead authorof the study, which was publishedonline in the Proceedings of theNational Academy of Sciences onJan. 30. The first author is ErnestoLujan, a graduate student in genet-ics. Wernig is a member of Stan-

fords Institute for Stem Cell Biol-ogy and Regenerative Medicine.

Alice Phillips

BRIEFSContinued from front page

the teams beam-time thegroup was not getting the resultsit was looking for on the moni-tors, according to the SLAC sci-entists. The display was only read-ing one line, whereas a secondline on the readout would indi-cate that the atomic X-ray laserwas up and running. When thereadings started to match thegroups expectations, the scien-tists quickly realized the magni-tude of their success.

People were really jumpingup from the chairs, saying Thereit is, getting really excited andpointing at the monitors, saidChristoph Bostedt, a SLAC scien-tist. It definitely was kind of amoon-landing situation when wesaw the first signal.

Led by lead authors NinaRohringer, formerly of LLNLand now with the Max Planck Ad-vanced Study Group in Germany,and Colorado State professor ofelectrical and computer engineer-ing Jorge Rocca, the group pub-lished its findings in the Jan. 26issue of Nature.

This scheme provides greatlyincreased wavelength stability,monochromaticity and improvedtemporal coherence by compari-son with present-day X-ray free-electron lasers, the report stated.

The atomic X-ray lasers realizedhere may be useful for high-reso-lution spectroscopy and nonlin-ear X-ray studies.

While the scientific communi-

ty is eager to use the new technol-ogy and explore its potential,Bozek said he expects it to beyears until anybody begins tofully utilize the atomic X-ray laserin non-preliminary ways.

We have received proposalsthat want to take advantage ofthis, Bostedt said. It doesnt saythat they will take advantage of it,but we have received proposals.

Atomic X-ray laser technolo-gy could be applied in materialsscience, the investigation of dy-namics, matter, spectroscopy or infields that are not known today.For example, traditional lasertechnology was not inventedspecifically to read CDs or oper-ate radar, Bozek said. Rather,those applications followed theinvention.

The creativity of scientists issuch that somebody is going tocome up with a great idea of howwe can use it to do something thatwe havent even thought of yet,Bozek said.

Its like weve walkedthrough a forest and all of a sud-den theres this beautiful pas-ture, he added. The possibilit iesare huge, and we dont even knowwhat they are yet.

Contact Alice Phillips at alicep1@stanford.edu.

LASERContinued from front page

into the rest of the iDeclareevents.

I feel that we had a good bal-ance [of departments], Sivilaysaid. We did provide the oppor-tunity for any department thatwanted to be involved to get in-volved.

Sivilay commented that thisyears iDeclare week marked sig-nificantly closer collaborationwith other University institutions,such as The Stanford Fund andUndergraduate Advising and Re-

search, than last years event. Hecredited the larger budget avail-able to iDeclare organizers ascontributing to the weeks en-hanced impact on sophomores,citing the increased access to in-formation offered by iDeclarepamphlets and online resources.

Sivilay added that the cost ofthe week was largely borne by thesophomore class presidencyspartnerships with University in-stitutions and academic depart-ments.

It was a collaboration, saidAshley Williams 14, a sophomoreclass cabinet member. We hadour initial ideas of what our peersthought would be helpful anduseful, and we worked with theother parties and incorporatedwhat they thought would be ben-

eficial.The weeks timing in winter

rather than in the fall or spring when sophomores traditionallydeclare their major is deliber-ate, Amin said.

In the fall, students are justbeginning to search for a majorand may still not have experiencewith multiple departments yet,he said. In the spring, most stu-dents are ready to declare andhaving a week of informationabout the various departmentswould no longer be useful.

Sivilay added that, in additionto assisting sophomores withfinding information about vari-ous majors, iDeclare is intendedto help sophomores plan ahead.

This week is meant to informyou and give you access to allthese resources, and allow you tobe ahead on things that you dontknow that youll need yet, Sivilaysaid.

Reflecting on the week, Sivilaynoted that the iDeclare programstill has potential for growththrough incorporating more de-partments into the event series.He remained positive, however,about the weeks impact on soph-omores.

I think it was a very successfulevent, Sivilay said. The peoplewho attended the events foundthem extremely valuable and in-formative.

Contact Catherine Zaw at czaw13@stanford.edu.

iDECLAREContinued from front page

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The Stanford Daily Wednesday, February 1, 2012N 3

By LINDA YU

Ge Wang has regretted spendingtoo much time coding andplaying StarCraft, but he hasnever regretted playing a sec-ond of music.

He is the mastermind behind the musicapp start-up Smule, which has released anumber of wildly successful apps, includingOcarina, Magic Piano and I Am T-Pain. Dedicated to sharing his love ofmusic and pushing the boundaries of com-puter music, Wang is also an assistant pro-fessor of music and, by courtesy, of comput-er science. He also finds time to stay in-volved with a number of musical groups oncampus, including the Stanford Laptop Or-chestra (SLOrk) and Stanford MobilePhone Orchestra (MoPho).

Wangs first exposure to music camewhen he was living in Beijing with hisgrandparents.

My grandmother loved Beijing opera,

my grandfather loved Western classicalmusic, and since both were well versed intheir respective musical loves, there was al-ways music happening at home, he said.

Following this initial stimulus, Wangstarted playing the accordion and the elec-tric guitar. In high school he stumbled intoworking with music and computers.

I was writing little ditties, and it justseemed really fun to write music with com-puters, Wang said.

He didnt have any technical experienceor programming knowledge at the time, buthe made use of whatever notation and pro-duction software he could get his hands on,whether it was shareware, freeware orcracked to remove copy protections.

In college, Wang chose to study comput-er science at Duke University, which hecredits to his interest in video games.

It seemed to me that the one thingmore fun than playing video games wasmaking them, he said. Software is a goodway to express ideas you may have, and its

easy to get together people around the

world to use it. Thats magical.Though he had wanted to somehow

combine music and computer science in hisstudies, Wang didnt realize how he coulddo so until he took an electronic music classhis junior year. Shortly thereafter, he hearda composition by Paul Lansky called Ta-bles Clear, which inspired him to pursuecomputer music in his graduate studies.

Lansky recorded sounds in the kitchen,from pots and pans to children screaming,and then somehow transformed them sothat they magically self-organized into thismusic, he said. It was something youcouldnt make without computers and Iknew after hearing it that I wanted to learnhow to do it.

After completing his graduate studies atPrinceton, Wang applied for an assistantprofessor position at Stanfords Center forComputer Research in Music andAcoustics (CCRMA) in early 2007.

I had known how instrumental Stan-ford has been in the short history of com-

puter music, he said. CCRMA is a place

for serendipitously awesome stuff to hap-pen, and the people at CCRMA set thetone for me to move forward.

One such step forward was founding theiOS music software developer Smule in2008, which Wang undertook with one of hisgraduate students, Jeffrey Smith 89 M.S. 89Ph.D. 13. Though Wang was already simul-taneously working on a number of differentprojects, he was drawn in by the potentialacademic and social benefits of Smule.

From a researchers point of view, totruly study mobile music, you have to studyit from a large scale in the hundreds ofthousands or millions so a startup madesense, he said.

Wang also hoped Smule would increasethe accessibility of music. Frustrated by thecurrent few-to-many state of music mak-ing, where a few people are creating musicand most people are consuming it, he envi-sions a future where making music is morewidespread.

FEATURES

Courtesy of Ge Wang

By CARA REICHARD

Powerhouse high schoolshardly bring to mind vir-tual spaces, but an on-line high school operat-ed by Stanford could

alter that perception.The Stanford Online High

School (OHS), previously calledthe Education Program for GiftedYouth (EPGY), was establishedin 2006 and currently serves morethan 400 students, including bothfull- and part-time students.

EPGY was founded to provideclasses that academically talentedstudents could use to supplementtheir regular high school curricu-lum.

Typically students who cometo us are students who haventbeen able to get [a] level of chal-

lenge academically wherever theyhave been, said Jovana Knezevic,OHS director of information andcommunication.

It is also students for whomthis schedule is far more appeal-ing and conducive, she added.They have no illusions about theamount of time theyre going tospend doing their work but atleast they can take it with themwherever they go.

In 2006, EPGY expanded intoa fully accredited, independentschool and updated its name. Thestandard class holds sessions fortwo hours per week, conductedthrough real-time video confer-ences. Raymond Ravaglia, the ex-ecutive director of EPGY, com-

pared the classes to undergradu-ate seminars.

Students and the teachers alllog in to a central system that issimilar to the video conferencingprogram Skype, adapted to ateaching environment.

Within the video chat, there isa whiteboard on which theteacher and students can write.The teacher can also uploadslides, as in a PowerPoint presen-tation. There are icons for the stu-dents to press that are the equiva-lent of raising their hands, or an-swering yes or no to a question.Additionally, there is a text chatthat students use to make short

contributions to the class discus-sion.

Were looking for academi-cally advanced students who arelooking for a rigorous course ofstudy, Ravaglia said. The thingthey all have in common is thatthey are academically advanced[and] serious minded in theirstudies.

OHS senior Nick Bensonmade the decision to attend be-cause the schedule was more flex-ible and therefore better able toaccommodate his acting career.

Ive done alternative onlineprograms simply because I needflexibility in school, Benson said.The online nature got me to lookat the school but it also seemedlike it would be a quality educa-tion.

The Stanford Online HighSchool emphasizes the quality of

its education, like the institutionfrom which it takes its name.Students who come and think

this is an easy alternative thatillusion is quickly dispelled,Knezevic said. The work is veryhard. The students who do bestare students who are intellectual-ly curious, students who really dolike to learn.

One of the biggest differencesbetween an online high schoolsuch as this one and a typicalbrick-and-mortar school is the so-cial experience. Not only are all ofthe classes and extracurricular ac-

Please seeWANG, page 5

INCONCERTWITHTECHNOLOGY

PROFILE

GE WANGINCONCERTWITHTECHNOLOGY

Please seeOHS, page 5

SERENITY NGUYEN/The Stanford Daily

PROFILE

CYBERSCHOOLStanford Online High School grants

diplomas to academically advanced students

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Irealize that Im about to ruinyour day/week/life, but I haveto be honest with you this is

the last installment of Jobberish.Im sure youre devastated, andIm really sorry about that, buthopefully youve at least enjoyedlearning about the incredible va-riety of jobs out there over thepast few months. Now, I feel likeIve given a pretty good range ofideas, but lets say for a momentthat none of the jobs Ive suggest-ed thus far have caught yourfancy what do you do? Turnsout, you have several options. Op-tion one, of course, is the Mrs. de-gree (Mrs., like marry someone.Get it?). With the GSB just a fewminutes away on your bicycle,you can be at Coupa scouting thetalent in no time. And let me add,in the interest of being fair, that aMr. degree is just as valid. But ifthat doesnt sound like an intel-lectually fulfilling lifestyle, you

have another option make upyour own job, which is this weekstopic.

No, this isnt a cop-out becauseI couldnt think of any more cre-ative jobs (okay, maybe a little).As much as I find the various jobsIve suggested interesting, I knowthat none of them are right for me well, with the exception of theboner one, perhaps. Still, the factof the matter is, even with somany wonderful and sometimesbizarre careers out there, theres achance your dream job doesntexist . . . yet.

As you can tell from the dra-matic ellipsis placement, yet isthe operative word here. Its okayif there are no jobs out there for

you right now, because you canmake one for yourself. Countlesssuper-successful people have donethis, and theres no reason why youcant do it, too. In fact, most of thepeople we consider most success-ful in our society have done this inone way or another. They knewwhat they wanted to do and madeit happen. I mean, Oprah doesnthave a job title shes Oprah.

Surprisingly, even with theeconomy the way it is, this kind ofentrepreneurship is in style. Gen-eration Y is quickly becomingknown as the start-up generationand, as I learned very early on inlife, if everyone else is doing some-thing, you probably should, too.

But in all seriousness, start-ups andother entrepreneurial ventures areapparently good for the economy,and while its definitely the riskiestcareer option Ive presented, it hasarguably the highest potential re-ward.

Embarking on this kind of ad-venture in this economy mightseem intimidating, but a recession isactually not a bad time to startsomething new. And if anyone cando it, its one of us I mean, we goto Stanford. Were smart and hard-working (and some of us are alsofunny and cute to boot!). Weregoing to be successful, and theresno reason why we cant be success-ful at something brand new.

The point is, if you cant find a job out there that youre excitedabout, make one for yourself! Fig-ure out what you love to do, andthen start thinking about how toturn that passion into a career, andjust as importantly, into money. Its

no secret that the people who arehappiest are the ones who do whatthey love for a living, so why not atleast try to make that happen foryou? After all, its only your lifewere talking about here.

For fear of sounding like one ofthose tacky motivational postersthey have in elementary schoolclassrooms, Ill avoid telling you tobelieve in yourself and never give

up on your dreams. Thats beendone. But what I will say, and whatI hope my columns have showed, isthat you should let yourself beopen to the idea of an unconven-tional career path. There is nothingwrong with pursuing your dream ofbecoming a doctor or a lawyer, buttheres no point in forcing yourself

down a path you dont want be-cause it seems like a safe choice.There are so many exciting possi-bilities out there, and I know that ifyou look around enough, youllfind or create the job yourelooking for.

Want to start-up something with Amanda? Let her know at aach@stanford.edu.

My mother is a structuralengineer; my dad is acomputer scientist. When

I entered Stanford, I was sure Iwas going to be techie. I didntknow what I wanted to major in(although science seemed like agood bet), so I started off myfreshman year with all of the in-troductory math and scienceclasses I could take. Now, fiveyears later, Ive ended up with adegree in . . . sociology.

How did that happen? I wish Icould say it was because I discov-ered this great new field I neverknew existed and fell in love withit. Although I have enjoyed mymajor, the truth is that in manyways Im a sociology major be-cause I got too fed up with techieclasses to major in them.

Despite jumping into techiecourses with much enthusiasmfreshman year, I soon came to re-alize that the classes themselveswere just not that enjoyable. I fre-quently encountered professors

whose English I could not under-stand and who lacked the abilityto command a classroom or ex-plain concepts at a students level.I disliked feeling like just a num-ber in a class, the inaccessibility ofthe professors and most of all, thetests designed to produce an av-erage grade of 40 percent so thateveryone feels as though he orshe has failed.

For me, the kid who adoredcalculus in high school and whospent a summer taking physics be-cause she was sad she didnt havetime to take it in high school, thiswas a problem. I love learning andI love going to school, so my col-lege years just seemed too pre-cious to be spent in classes that Ididnt enjoy. I fled from these un-satisfying courses and found ahuman-centered, student-cen-tered department in which I couldactively enjoy my education.

In and of itself, this story ofhow I chose my major holds littlesignificance. However, when

looked at in light of nationaltrends, I am one of millions ofwomen who have opted out ofscience, technology, engineeringand math (STEM) fields. Thisphenomenon is often called theleaky pipeline to describe theway that women and non-Asianminorities drop out of thesefields at greater rates than whiteand Asian men at every educa-tional and professional level. Theproblem is that this attrition isnot due to skill or competence;women who drop out of STEMmajors earn equivalent grades tomen who decide to stay in thosemajors. This means that STEMfields, often heralded as the sec-tor most important for economicgrowth in the United States, arelosing out on a number of talent-ed women and minorities and theinnovations that they may bringto these fields. For Stanford, thisis especially troubling becausethe alumni who bring the mostprestige and donate the most

money to the school are oftentechies. By driving women awayfrom techie fields, we are reduc-ing both the future earningpower of alumni and publicity forthe school.

There have been many studiesthat address the problem of howto keep women in STEM majorsin college and a large number ofthem propose solutions that had they already been imple-mented at Stanford wouldhave made a difference in my ed-ucational journey. Many of thesolutions suggest altering peda-gogical methods in ways thatmake classes more accessible towomen. Group work, female TAsand examples of women and mi-norities making a difference intheir field all help reduce the feel-ing of tokenism. Interactive class-es with hands-on work and anemphasis on the applicability andpotential social impacts of thematerial help to sustain interestand make classes more enjoyable.

Personal interaction with profes-sors and re-tooling weeder class-es can counter attrition due tolow self-confidence. Womenoften believe that they are doingworse than the average student inSTEM classes a perceptionthat has no correlation to their ac-tual performance. This is especial-

Since 1996, the Introductionto Humanities (IHUM)program has been a defin-

ing feature of undergraduate ed-ucation at Stanford. Disciplinarybreadth requirements have like-wise been the Universitys vehi-cle of encouraging students toengage with subjects outside oftheir preferred fields and to

think in ways orthogonal to howthey are accustomed. Now, thefutures of both IHUM and disci-plinary breadth requirementsare increasingly uncertain. A re-cent report to the Faculty Senateby the Study on UndergraduateEducation at Stanford (SUES)has argued for replacing IHUMwith a one-quarter ThinkingMatters course that would besmaller in size and not necessari-ly a humanities course. Discipli-nary breadth requirements,meanwhile, would be replacedby breadth requirements basedon the development of certainskills: esthetic and interpretiveinquiry; social inquiry; scientificanalysis; formal and quantitativereasoning; engaging difference;moral and ethical reasoning; andcreative expression.

We applaud SUES for its re-sponsiveness to students com-plaints about the current IHUMand disciplinary breadth require-ments. The SUES report noteswhat most students probably al-ready know: IHUM is unpopular.While many students enjoyIHUM, there is no hiding fromgenerally low course evaluationscores and lecture attendancenumbers that can become quite

depressing by the end of thequarter. No matter how well indi-vidual IHUM courses may betaught, it is difficult to feed stu-dents enthusiasm for learning ina class they dont want to take.Much the same arguments can bemade against the current discipli-nary breadth requirements, andthe SUES report does not hesi-tate to make them.

Nevertheless, important ques-tions remain unanswered: whywould students who dislike or failto engage with the IHUM re-quirement welcome a one-quar-ter Thinking Matters course?Broadening the scope of the re-

quirement beyond traditionalhumanities material is certainly astep toward this goal, but themain change from before seemsto be cutting the requirement it-self from three quarters to one.The cumulative nature of manymajors along with the stresses of

adjusting to college life can bestressful for freshmen, and thereis certainly a case to be made forreducing required coursework toallow such students more time toexplore their academic and ex-tracurricular interests. Make nomistake, the move from threequarters to one will mark a muchgreater change in the experience

of Stanford undergraduates thanwhatever changes take placewithin the classroom.

The change from breadth re-quirements focused on discipli-nary diversity to ones geared in-stead toward development of theabove-mentioned reasoningstyles lends itself to similar criti-cism. Will classes fulfilling thequantitative reasoning or sci-entific analysis requirements besubstantially different from ful-filling plain-old math or sci-ence requirements? It would berather surprising if they were.While it is difficult to see how thischange will substantially improveundergraduate education, it isalso unlikely to do any harm.

Over the years, Stanford hasconstantly reinvented the courseor program that is the keystone ofthe freshman year academic ex-perience. The gradual shift fromthe post-WWI ideal of a studentgrounded in knowledge of West-ern civilization to the current sys-tem with its focus on methodolo-gy and arguments before contentrepresents a major shift in theinner-workings of the classes anda reconsideration of what societyconsiders important. The roundof changes proposed by SUES

looks to build on this, but only ina minor way. While requirementswould now be explicitly based onthinking strategies whether inthe form of the new breadth re-quirements or the ThinkingMatters course the focusthey epitomize has pervaded theclassroom for a long time. Thepromise of the SUES recommen-dations lies in a freshman yearthat affords students more timeto explore classes of their ownchoosing at the expense of a two-quarter immersion within a par-ticular humanities discipline,which currently features promi-nently in students winter and

spring schedules. If this plan isadopted, we hope that future ad-ministrators continue to considerfeedback and ways to improve itin the never-ending quest to findthe best way to balance compet-ing objectives in undergraduateeducation.

OPINIONS

ON THE MARGINS, BETWEEN THE LINES

Attrition of women from techie majors

JOBBERISH

Never say never

Unsigned editorials in the space above represent the views of the editorial board of TheStanford Daily and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Daily staff. The edito-

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The future of IHUM,breadth requirements

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Amanda

Ach

Jamie

Solomon

Theres no reason

why we cant besuccessful at some-thing brand new.

I disliked feelinglike just a number

in a class.

Please see TECHIE, page 5

8/3/2019 DAILY 02.01.12

5/8

The Stanford Daily Wednesday, February 1, 2012N 5

The main difficulty in realizingthis goal lies in the barriers thatkeep people from making andsharing their music. Wang thinkssocial pressure is the biggest cul-prit.

People either consider them-selves to be a musician or not, hesaid. But, as Picasso said, Every-one is born an artist, and I reallydo believe that.

As children, we dont havemuch inhibition to try new thingsor be embarrassed, so thereforethere is no failure, Wang added.At some point, people start clas-sifying themselves, and they al-most sell themselves short. Imwondering if theres a way toundo that.

Wang speculates that fear ofnegative or insincerely positivefeedback holds people back from

sharing their music.Wouldnt it be nice if the con-

ditions could be set so that youwould feel much freer about mak-ing music? he said. People singalone in the car or in the shower.How can we get people to sociallyshare that?

Current Smule app users arealready a part of Wangs strategyto help people get over the initialhump of making music: present-

ing it as a game in an anonymoussetting.

Its like benignly trickingpeople into making music, hesaid. People may think musicalinstruments are for specialists, buteveryone can play a game. Musicis human, music is social, and onceyou have it, youll want more.

Music apps are varied andplenty, but the Smule apps standout because of Wangs musicalphilosophy in sculpting the userinteraction. Aside from stellargraphics and the gaming mechan-ics built into the apps, Wang alsomakes sure to not shortchange

the music-making experience.We dont want to lose that true

expression, he said. Theres abalance between ease of entry intothe experience and leaving enoughroom for personal expression.

Drawing from that philosophy,many Smule apps set up a balancebetween the human and machineby hinting to users how to playcertain songs, without penalizingthem for stepping outside of the

guidelines. Wang compared thestructure to Rock Band, whichhe feels is more rigid and less per-sonal. The main difference inSmules approach, he argued, isthat the app fully preserves theusers music rather than encour-aging perfect imitation of a prede-termined piece of music.

Wang is also cognizant of thedangers of instant gratification,which technology often provides.Mastering an instrument requireshundreds or thousands of hoursof diligent practice, and he doesntwant to remove the effort fromlearning. He described the apps as

more like a gateway drug away to give users the feeling thatplaying music is worthwhile.

If it werent for a vision, youcant really justify the process ofgoing through it, he said. Hope-fully we can still instill this sensethat if you put more time into it,you can get better at it. In the end,its up to the person. Were justmaking it easier for people to getpumped about doing these things

in the first place.In addition to his work with

Smule, Wang is also involved withcomputer music research atCCRMA, where he studies newpossibilities in music due to tech-nology.

He pointed out that computermusic is not about recreating ex-isting types of music with comput-ers, and will not replace tradition-al music. Instead, the intersectionof music and technology com-bines elements of the past and fu-ture.

Theres so much room foreverything to coexist, and we con-tinue to add to the palette, Wangsaid. You need instruments andways to make music weve alwayshad.

With technologys powerful

capabilities, it presents multiplepaths for musical exploration.One area of development is mo-bile phones.

Hundreds of millions ofphones will be connected, and be-fore long, billions, he said. Whatkinds of new music can we make?Can we create an instrument for amillion people to join in on andcreate music meaningfully? Idont know what that is right now,

but it was simply impossible be-fore because the technology was-nt there to support it.

This sense of uncertainty is in-herent in his research, but Wang isdriven by the belief that there isno doubt of the need for music inour lives. Earlier last March, fol-lowing the earthquake in Japan,more than 3,500 users of SmulesGlee Karaoke app uploadedtheir versions of Lean on Me,creating an international chorusof support.

Music is entirely differentfrom everything else, Wang said.It defies the need for logic, butits not illogical. It makes sense inits own way.

Contact Linda Yu at lindayu1@stanford.edu.

WANGContinued from page 3

tivities online, but students alsoattend from around the world,making it difficult to hang outlike normal high school students.

Instead, students have to findalternative ways to socialize.

Skype is the unofficial socialhub of OHS, Benson said. Thatand Facebook.

There are clubs and othersorts of online social things wherewe bring the kids in to interactwith each other, Ravaglia said.

They spend a lot of time onFacebook, Google Chat, thingslike that, he added. They devel-op a sense of rich personal socialexperience. The friends theyremaking are the best friends theyhave anywhere.

Knezevic echoed a similar sen-timent.

Because the instruction andthe academic experience takesplace in these online seminars, asense of online community getsstarted in the classroom and thenit spills beyond the classroom,

she said.Benson also emphasized thathaving a social experience so cen-tered around the Internet meansthat there is nearly always some-thing to do or someone to talk to.

For me, the social experienceis really always on, he said.

According to Benson, he andhis friends can do all sorts ofthings online that would normallybe done in person. In a process he

described as simul-watching,students will pull up a movie onNetflix or YouTube and watch itat the same time, talking over theInternet as it plays.

Benson conceded that this sortof high school experience mightbe hard for some people to han-dle.

That sort of distance and thelimitations that come with it is notfor everybody, he said.

While there are many onlinehigh schools around the nation,

Stanford is the first university ofits caliber to sponsor such a pro-gram. Knezevic emphasized thatthis program is very differentfrom what normally comes tomind when one thinks of onlineschools.

People hear online and theythink of using technology to in-crease efficiency, she said. Butthe technology isnt the focalpoint of what we do, it enableswhat we do. We use technology tobring students together that oth-erwise wouldnt have access tothe education and wouldnt haveaccess to each other.

Knezevic also noted that OHSteachers are often unique amongtheir peers.

Close to 70 percent of theteachers have doctorates in theirdisciplines, she said. Theyre re-ally in a position to challenge stu-dents, to model for them the kindof scholarship and the kind of en-gagement with the material anddiscipline thats done at the pro-fessional level.

Contact Cara Reichard atcarar1@stanford.edu.

OHSContinued from page 3

ly problematic in weeder courses,which cause disproportionatelyhigh numbers of women and mi-norities to leave the subject de-spite being equally as good at it asthose who dont leave.

So my question is: Stanford,what are you doing to ensurethat our STEM majors arent

just another piece of the leakypipeline? I know that we havenumerous extracurriculargroups and programs to supportwomen and minorities, but the

classroom experience in techiemajors leaves a lot to be desired.With the exception of introduc-tory computer science and prod-uct design classes, the majority

of techie classes geared towardfreshmen and sophomores uti-lize pedagogy that has beenshown to drive away women andminorities. So, Stanford, I chal-lenge you to do your part to stopthe pipeline from leaking andrevisit undergraduate technicalcurriculums to improve themfor your female and minoritystudents.

Any comments? Jamie would loveto hear them at jamiesol@stan-

ford.edu.

TECHIEContinued from page 4

every class they miss, regardlessof the justification.

We feel that it discriminatesagainst people with chronic med-ical conditions or disabilities,Senator Janani Ramachandran 14said.

DeLong added that the policydoesnt have an official stance onhow the department works withstudents with a disability, and saidthat he knew at least three peoplewho have been negatively affect-ed by this policy because of a

medical condition.This policy is in violation of

the spirit of the American CivilLiberties Act . . . and does notcomply with the Universityscommitment to ensure equal ac-cess to educational programs forstudents with disabilities, De-Long argued. He also said thatthe policy jeopardizes studentswell-being because sick studentsare encouraged to go to class, put-ting their own health in danger aswell as that of their peers.

The Senate tabled the bill untilnext week to allow for greater dis-cussion.

Contact Julia Enthoven atjjejje@stanford.edu

ASSUContinued from front page

8/3/2019 DAILY 02.01.12

6/8

By AUSTIN BLOCK

Last spring, the Stanford mensgolf team saw its season end in dis-appointment. Four years removedfrom a national championship,and three years after finishing asthe nations runner-up, the Cardi-nal finished sixth in the NCAACentral Regionals last year. In a

tournament that saw the top fiveteams move on to the NCAAChampionship, the Cardinal,

seeded fourth heading into thetournament, stayed home.

But if the fall season is any indi-cation, the Cardinal will not falteragain this spring. In its first tourna-ment of the fall, the team dominat-ed a strong field, winning theOlympia Fields/Fighting Illini In-vitational by 16 shots. FreshmanPatrick Rodgers stormed onto the

college golf scene, shooting 68-70-68 to win the individual title in hisfirst intercollegiate competition.

Close behind were teammates junior Andrew Yun and sopho-more Cameron Wilson, who fin-ished third and fourth, respective-ly.

Three weeks later, the Cardi-nal, then ranked No. 1 in the na-tion, took third place at The Pres-tige tournament in Palm Springs.Although the Cardinal cooled off

in its next few tournaments, teamcaptain Wilson Bowen is con-vinced that the team is ready tomake a statement this spring.

We kind of showed everyoneright off the bat that were theteam to beat, so that was good,Bowen, a senior, said. It was agood start and then kind of disap-pointing the way we played thelast three tournaments, but I thinkwell learn from the experience.

Any time you go out [and] youdont play well, as long as youlearn from it, it can be a positive,he added. So I think were goingto draw on that and go forwardand have a great spring.

Currently ranked No. 7 in thenation, the team is loaded with tal-

ent and has been boosted by threestrong freshmen Rodgers,Patrick Grimes and Marcel Puyat.Rodgers, who recently played onthe U.S. Walker Cup team, has yetto finish outside the top 10 in a col-lege tournament and is ranked No.4 in the country as an individual.He has compiled a gaudy 70.5scoring average through four tour-naments and will play in theteams No. 1 slot in the upcomingUniversity of Hawaii-Hilo tourna-ment.

Senior captain David Chung isalso projected to have a solid year.In 2010, Chung won the WesternAmateur and the Porter Cup be-fore finishing second in the U.S.Amateur. He went on to earn

spots in the 2011 Masters and U.S.Open tournaments.

Wilson, junior Steve Kearneyand Yun, a 2010-2011 PING All-American who collected seventop-10 finishes last year, round outthe teams lineup for the UH-Hilotournament.

This first event of the newyear is a big one, head coach Con-rad Ray said. Theres [sic] a lot ofteams from all over the countrythat will be there, teams that welleventually have to come upagainst if we want to win thechampionship this year.

T

he Super Bowl is sup-posed to be the pinnacle ofsporting events. Its thebest of the best a dayfor all of us regular folks to

pig out on millions of pounds ofwings, chips, pizza, pasta, soda andeverything else that will ensure webecome diabetics by age 40.

And much like the Maddencurse, the ratings border on mythi-cal. Many of the most-watched tele-vision programs or events in U.S.history are Super Bowls, led by lastyears Super Bowl XLV, which drewan average audience of 111 millionviewers according to Nielsen.

Once again, the event is upon us if you are able to sort through theweeks of media days, interviews,analysis and hoopla that the NFLhas taken to dumping on the gener-al public in the two-week gap be-tween the conference champi-onships and the game itself.

All of this hype, however, got methinking about just how great theSuper Bowl is because of what itstands for: a do-or-die chance atglory, nearly unduplicated any-where across the American sportslandscape.

Im a baseball fanatic, and willdefend the game to my grave be-cause I love watching my team and pretty much any team everynight from April until October. Butthe playoff series are best-of-five orbest-of-seven affairs, with plenty ofchances for a team to lose a gamehere and there but still win thecrown.

The same is true of basketball,with the NBA being an even worse

offender because it drags its playoffsout for more than a month before

6NWednesday, February 1, 2012 The Stanford Daily

SPORTS

Less BCS,more

Super Bowl

By JACK BLANCHAT

MANAGING EDITOR

On Wednesday, the nations best high schoolfootball recruits will sign on the dotted line andcommit themselves to the top programs in thecountry and four of the nations best recruitscould take their talents to the Farm, including thenations top quarterback prospect.

Head coach David Shaw and the Stanfordcoaching staff have already inked 10 four-star re-cruits in the 2012 recruiting class, and are in therunning to sign four five-star recruits on Wednes-day.

Jameis Winston, a five-star quarterback fromHueytown, Ala., who is rated as the best quarter-back in the nation, could be the biggest recruit tojoin the Cardinal in years. Although Winston iscurrently committed to Florida State, he recentlyhinted that he could change his mind since learn-ing of his acceptance to Stanford. Winston is the

nations 10th-best overall prospect according toRivals.com, and would provide a major boost to ateam that will be looking for a replacement forAndrew Luck.

In addition to the Cardinal possibly finding asuccessor to Luck, it could also score several bigcommitments that could help replace NFL-boundlinemen Jonathan Martin and David DeCastro.Kyle Murphy, a five-star offensive tackle from SanClemente, Calif., has narrowed his choices downto USC and Stanford, and has said that the oppor-tunity to step into either Jonathan Martin or MattKalils spot right away will be the major determin-ing factor in where he ends up. Murphy, who is 6-foot-7, 275 pounds, is the nations third-best offen-sive lineman and the 19th-best prospect in thecountry.

Andrus Peat, the nations sixth-best offensiveline prospect, could also be headed to Palo Alto.Peat, a 6-foot-7, 305-pound behemoth from Tempe,Ariz., will choose between Stanford, Nebraska,

SIGN

ON THE

LINE

SWINGING INTO SPRING

CARD HOPES TO

INK TOP RECRUITS

Miles

Bennett-SmithJacoby is my Homeboy

Please see B-SMITH, page 7

MICHAEL KHEIR/The Stanford DailyHead coach David Shaw and the Stanford football coaching staff have already inked 10 four-star recruits in the 2012 recruiting class, and may sign four five-star recruits today.Please see FOOTBALL, page 8

SIMON WARBY/The Stanford Daily

Senior captain David Chung and the No. 7 Stanford mens golf team arelooking to follow up on a strong fall campaign this spring, beginning withthe University of Hawaii-Hilo tournament, which tees off today. Please see MGOLF, page 8

8/3/2019 DAILY 02.01.12

7/8

The Stanford Daily Wednesday, February 1, 2012N 7

WOMENS WATER POLO

Diving in with Kiley NeushulBy MILES BENNETT-SMITH

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Stanford womens waterpolo team is coming off an NCAAtitle and is currently ranked No. 1in the country. Freshman driverKiley Neushul who had hattricks in back-to-back games overthe weekend sat down with TheDaily to talk all things Stanford, inand out of the water.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Whatwere your expectations going intothis season?Kiley Neushul: Coming in, espe-cially with the quality of my re-cruiting class, the goal for the sea-son is to take each game as itcomes. We have to remember thatwe are a team and we need to playas a team. I think especially for theplayers returning, we know werea very good team and are seeded

first going into the season, andeven though well be missing play-ers going to the Olympics, we arelooking to win a national champi-onship.

TSD: What was it about Stanfordthat made you choose to comehere over someplace closer tohome, or at UC-Santa Barbarawhere your mom is now thecoach?KN : I think I decided I wanted togo to Stanford in seventh gradewhen I saw them play in SantaBarbara, my hometown. Ironical-ly, [Stanford assistant coach]Susan Ortwein was my babysitterwhen I was younger, but that did-nt really have anything to do with

me coming here. Really, you justcant find anything like this any-where else. I was initially decidingbetween UCSB and Stanford.Then my dad said I would have tolive in my room at home if I wentto UCSB, so I said no way. But Ifelt pretty much all along that if Igot into Stanford, I was cominghere. Other schools had a lot tooffer, but I feel like Ive been onthis team since I started playingwater polo. Its a very good fit forme both academically and athleti-cally.

TSD: What is your favorite partabout being on the Farm?KN : Id have to say its just beenmeeting so many amazing people

in my dorm, in my classes; on the

water polo team Ive gotten closewith a lot of the girls. And it waskind of unexpected. I grew up in acollege town, and I wasnt expect-ing it to be like this. Everyonesjust so nice here, and sometimes itmakes doing school work hard.But youre at Stanford so you haveto get your stuff done, even thoughI do procrastinate occasionally.

TSD: How has the transition beenfor you going from high school tocollege polo?KN : I came from a water polobackground, my mom taught mehow to play, shes been my coachsince forever. But I played a veryfree style of water polo, very loosewithout all that much of a specificplan. Coming here, I thought it wasgoing to be much more structured,like the national team is, but Stan-ford Ive found really is not andyou can be very innovative on theteam. And thats what I was most

concerned about, not being able toplay how I wanted to play. And thecoaches have made it clear I can dothat, which has made the transitionmuch easier.

TSD: What was it like to suit upand jump in the pool for your firstmatch with the Cardinal?KN : I was expecting a close game,we were playing [Loyola Mary-mount University], and theyvemade it to the final four in NCAAsbefore, so I prepared really heavily.I was just really excited, I mean,Ive been dreaming of wearing thisStanford cap since I was in seventhgrade. And then we got in thewater; I didnt know how thingswere going to be. It was just fun. I

had a good time. Even though we

won by a few more than I expect-ed, it was really amazing.

TSD: I know youve said you liketo play golf. What intrigued youabout such an individual sport?KN : I played golf for two years inhigh school, and I didnt really likeit. It was more of a humbler. I wasbad. I was not good at golf when Ifirst started. My parents reallywanted me to fail at something. Myfreshman year I didnt play in anymatches, and then as a sophomoreI opened the season as a starter,and our team hadnt lost in 112matches and we lost that firstmatch of the season. It taught meto be levelheaded, and was reallypreparation for what was to come.But yeah, I definitely failed at golffor a long time.

TSD: What are your goals in waterpolo?

KN : I used to really want to go tothe Olympics, that was my goal. Istill do, but Im focusing mainly juston the now. Playing at Stanford is somuch fun, and I dont want to reallytake things too fast, I kind of want to just progress as Im here, and wewill see what happens. TheOlympics is obviously the goal ofmany water polo players and if thatgoal presents itself, then yes, I wouldlove to go to the Olympics, but itsbeen tough so far in that regard.

TSD: How did it feel getting yourfirst collegiate award as MountainPacific Sports Federation New-comer of the Week?KN : Its always nice to be recog-nized for that, for my play, knowing

that I worked really hard, but itshould really be a team award.Water polo is a team sport, and Impushed every day in practice. In thewater, Im not the one passing my-self the ball or getting open for ashot, so that really is an award forthe entire team.

TSD: Best place to eat on campus,and what is your go-to meal?KN : Id say Tressider and that saladplace [in Union Square]. And thesouthwestern chicken salad is real-ly good when they make it fresh foryou [laughing]. I get that on Mon-days and Wednesdays after mypsych lecture.

Contact Miles Bennett-Smith at

milesbs@stanford.edu.

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crowning a champion.The genius of the Super Bowl

lies in having one game that meansso much, but only after a regularseason and playoff system that isdesigned to weed out non-con-tenders.

Which brings me to the BowlChampionship Series.

Yes, you got me Im a BCShater.

And while the college footballseason may be on hiatus right now although tomorrows NationalSigning Day is arguably one of themost important 24-hour periods ofthe entire college season and couldmean big things for the Stanfordprogram if a couple of recruits de-cide to come to the Farm I canthelp but think about how badly theBCS is failing us in the face of theSuper Bowls success.

The BCS is supposed to give usthe same kind of winner-takes-all

sweepstakes that keeps us glued toour television sets for hours ofpregame, postgame, in-game, out-of-game, super-game, sub-gameand sideways-game analysis. Poten-tially hilarious commercialsnotwithstanding, people tune in be-cause they know there will be anundisputed champion clutchingthat Lombardi Trophy at the end ofthe night, and no computers orpollsters opinions can get in theway of what happens on the field.

If only the BCS could be so wise.Instead, we get a mess of a col-

lege football season that has a mil-lion exciting and amazing gamesthat ultimately may end up mean-

ing nothing because a machine doesnot like how a particular school hasset up its schedule in a particularyear even if that schedule was al-most certainly decided at least fiveyears prior.

Wouldnt it be nice if we couldbe upset that Stanfords loss toOklahoma State cost us a shot at thenational championship game in-stead of just being a chance for igno-rant fans to rip into JordanWilliamson? Sure, it might hurtmore, but I think there would cer-tainly be more value in at least somekind of playoff or plus-one formatthat could make the college footballseasons Super Bowl more like aSuper Bowl.

Yes, No. 1 Alabama tore up No. 2LSU, and I guess since they beat theTigers earlier this season thatmakes them the best team in thecountry. Except that didnt happen.The season series finished at an un-satisfying 1-1, while OklahomaState and other suitors like the Car-dinal were left clamoring for more.

I know that the bowl system isbased on money, and I know thatthe BCS has a vice-like grip over the

chancellors of many of the mostpowerful football schools in thecountry. But maybe, just maybe, oneof them will be watching Tom Bradygo to work on Sunday afternoonand think to himself, You know,they might be onto something herewith this playoff thing.

Until then, Im off to JetbluePark at Fenway South.

This is Miles Bennett-Smiths firstcolumn after finishing his term asThe Dailys managing editor of sports. Send him your congratula-tions at milesbs@stanford.edu andcheck him out on Twitter @smilesb-smith.

B-SMITHContinued from page 6

Ive been

dreaming of

wearing this

Stanford cap since

I was in seventh

grade.

KILEY NEUSHUL

SOLUTION

Complete the grid

so each row,

column and

3-by-3 box

(in bold borders)

contains every

digit, 1 to 9.

For strategies on

how to solve Su-

doku, visitwww.su-

doku.org.uk

2012 The Mepham Group. Distributed byTribune Media Services. All rights reserved.

2/2/12

Level: 1 2 3 4

8/3/2019 DAILY 02.01.12

8/8

Florida State and USC onWednesday. Peats older brother,Todd Peat Jr., is a defensive tacklefor the Cornhuskers, and conse-quently, the Huskers are likely thefrontrunner for the younger Peatstalents.

Nabbing Peat would be a hugecoup for the Cardinal, but shouldMurphy and Peat both come toStanford, the Cardinal would po-tentially have the nations bestgroup of offensive linemen in the

country. Stanford already hasfour four-star offensive lineprospects committed for nextseason, including Joshua Garnett,the nations 33rd-best prospectand second-best guard.

The Cardinal could also adddepth along the defensive lineshould Aziz Shittu, a defensiveend from Atwater, Calif., pick theCardinal over California, USCand UCLA. Shittu verbally com-mitted to Stanford in April 2011,then backed off his commitmentin June, but has still consistentlylisted the Cardinal as one of histop choices. Shittus top twochoices are most likely Stanfordand USC, as Cal has been steadi-ly losing commitments over thepast few weeks after the Bearsunderwent major changes to their

coaching staff. Shittu is the na-tions third-best defensive endprospect.

Currently, Stanford has the na-tions 16th-best class, just behindPac-12 foes USC and UCLA,whose classes are ranked 11thand 13th, respectively, and justahead of Oregon, who has thecountrys 17th-best class.

Should any or all of these fourfive-star prospects decide tobring their talents to Palo Alto,the Cardinal could end up withone of the nations top 10 recruit-ing classes, and the best recruitingclass in the schools history.

Contact Jack Blanchat at blan-chat@stanford.edu.

8NWednesday, February 1, 2012 The Stanford Daily

Four five-star

recruits could

commit to

Stanford today.

Continued from page 6

FOOTBALL|National Signing Day

SIMON WARBY/The Stanford Daily

Currently, Stanford has the nations 16th-best recruiting class, closely following conference opponents USCand UCLA, whose classes are ranked 11th and 13th, and just ahead of Oregon, ranked the17th-best class.

Ray added that most of all, theteam needs to work on its consis-tency. Bowen emphasized the im-portance of getting into a winninghabit and peaking at the right

time.One of the key things for us isto start winning tournaments, be-cause its going to be evidence tous that were putting the time inon the right things and practicingcorrectly, Bowen said.

I think when we won our lastnational championship in [2007]we won like six or seven timesduring the year, he added.When you are in a pressure situ-ation [and] you have to make paron the last hole to win, or you haveto make a birdie, you have theconfidence that you can do thatbecause youve done it before.You can draw on that previous ex-perience.

Adding to the Cardinals

bright outlook for the season isthe fact that the team will play thisyears NCAA Regional at theStanford Golf Course. Aided byhome-course advantage, the Car-dinal can count on familiarity and

fans in its bid for a berth to theNCAA Championship, which willbe held at Riviera Country Clubin Los Angeles.

We can go all the way forsure, Bowen said. We have anunbelievably talented team. Wewon our first event at OlympiaFields this year by a bunch ofstrokes over one of the best fieldsin the country, so anytime you can

do that, you obviously have agreat chance to win a nationaltitle. So thats our goal, thats whatwere going to work towards allspring, and then I think well beready come June.

Ray is equally enthusiasticabout the teams national titlehopes, but recognizes that June isstill several months, and manytournaments, away.

Im excited about ourchances, Ray said. Theres somuch that needs to happen beforewe can really get to the ultimateprize, but we have a competitiveteam, we have some depth, wehave a good schedule lined up, theguys are a close-knit group, whichalways helps . . . We feel like we

have a chance, and at the end ofthe day, thats all you can reallyask for.

Contact Austin Block at aeblock@stanford.edu.

MGOLFContinued from page 6