Stanford University was founded in 1885. Leland Stanford, the king of California railways at that time and a former California elder, decided to donate money to set up Stanford University in Palo Alto to commemorate his son who died of illness while traveling in Italy, and took out his 865,438+080 mu farm to train excellent horse racing as the school campus. Their decision will bring endless wealth to California and the United States in the future, although it is still a desolate and isolated remote west in the eyes of Americans. Until now, people still call Stanford a "farm". So in Stanford University, bicycles are a necessary means of transportation for students.
The buildings of Stanford University are all yellow bricks and red tiles, all in the style of the Spanish Missionary Hall in the17th century-there are no buildings of different ages and styles of Harvard University and Yale University, and there is no ivy crawling on the walls of Northeastern University. Entering the university, the first thing you see is the red-roofed building surrounded by khaki stone walls, with arcades and brown cangues in rows, which is full of strong cultural and academic atmosphere in the interaction between classical and modern. The central square is the main part of Stanford. Around it, there are many business schools, geography schools, education schools, engineering schools, law schools and medical schools. There are Stanford Science Park, Botanical Garden, Golf Course and several scientific proving grounds outside. The most famous building in Stanford University is the Stanford Memorial Church. The famous designer Frederick olmsted designed the Stanford campus, and he also designed the famous Amherst College. His most famous masterpieces are Central Park in Manhattan, new york and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. His characteristics are natural forest design and free curve roads. Stanford, on the other hand, has no such characteristics. What is impressive is the Coconut Tree Avenue, which has no natural meaning and presents an artificial scale of several kilometers.
Stanford University has abundant funds, sufficient funds and rich teaching equipment. This library has 6.5 million books. There are more than 7,000 computers for students to use, and there are also many computer rooms and computer centers to provide services for students. Students can use the internet to contact teachers and students in the school. In addition, the school also has many sports facilities, such as gymnasium, golf course and swimming pool, which can accommodate 85,000 people.
In the 1960s, when the University of California at Berkeley was famous for its academic and student movements, Stanford University remained "unknown". But today, Stanford University has been regarded as "Harvard University on the west bank of Jordan".
Stanford's take-off took place after the 1970s, which is probably due to Stanford's "greatness". More than 8,000 mu of land can't be used up by the school, so in 1959, Dean Taimen of the Institute of Technology put forward an idea-this is a turning point of Stanford University: lease 1000 mu of land to the industrial and commercial departments or alumni for a long time at a very low nominal rent to set up a company, and then they cooperate with the school to provide students with various research projects and internship opportunities. Stanford became the first university in the United States to establish an "industrial park" on campus. Thanks to the suggestion of taking out land to get huge profits, Stanford put itself in the forefront of the United States: "Enterprises in industrial parks opened one after another, and soon exceeded the scope of land that Stanford could provide, and developed and expanded outward, forming a" Silicon Valley "where California's cutting-edge technology and elites gathered. Surrounded by science and technology groups and enterprises, Stanford University has established close ties with high technology, commerce, pragmatism and pioneering spirit, which are typical American spirits. With the rise of the "high-tech belt" on the west coast of the United States, various computer companies, including the century darling Microsoft, have set up camp in this line, and the position of Stanford University is becoming more and more important.
If Harvard and Yale University represent the traditional American humanistic spirit, then Stanford University is the symbol of the scientific and technological spirit of the 2 1 century.
Stanford University is a four-year private university, which was rated as the fifth-star university in the United States by US News and World Report, and ranked first in academic research in the United States. In 2002, American News published the latest ranking of American graduate schools. The school of engineering ranks second in the United States, the school of education ranks second in the United States, the graduate school of business ranks first, the school of business management and the school of law rank among the best in the United States, and the school of law has always been at the forefront in the ranking of American law schools. At one time, six of the nine justices of the US Supreme Court graduated from Stanford Law School. In the ranking of doctoral programs, biology ranks first, computer science ranks first with Carnegie Mellon University, MIT and UC Berkeley, geology ranks third, mathematics ranks third with Princeton University and UC Berkeley, physics ranks third with Harvard University, Princeton University and UC Berkeley, applied mathematics ranks fourth and chemistry ranks fifth. Other top courses include English, psychology, mass communication, biochemistry, economics and drama. According to the latest official statistics, the average annual income of recent graduates of Stanford University is the highest among universities in the United States. From 65438 to 0998, Chelsea, the only daughter of American President Bill Clinton, chose Stanford University and became a "fresh person" of the school. Undoubtedly, this is another proof of the strength of Stanford University.
Unique university system
The academic system of Stanford University is different from other universities. According to the regulations of the school, a year is divided into four quarters, and students have to take different classes in each quarter. Therefore, students in Stanford University take more courses than students in two-semester universities, and the pressure is greater than that in other universities. Stanford students must complete required courses in nine fields, including culture and thought, natural science, science and technology and practical science, literature and art, philosophy, social science and religious thought. In addition, students' writing and foreign languages must meet certain standards. When Stanford University recently added the works of non-western social writers to its annual "Nuclear Education in Western Culture", it attracted academic attention and shock.
A group of powerful and famous professors.
According to the data of 1995, among the more than 300 professors in Stanford University/kloc-0, there are ten Nobel Prize winners, five Pulitzer Prize winners, 142 academicians of the American Academy of Art, 84 academicians of the National Academy of Sciences and 14 winners of the National Science Award. Sixty-seven students won Rhodes Scholarship-President Clinton had won this kind of scholarship and was selected to go to Oxford for further study.