What is Stanford’s most popular class in the spring?

May 17, 2023, 6:05 p.m.

The ten most-enrolled courses for the 2023 spring quarter are mostly science and engineering subjects, according to data scraped from Stanford’s Explore Courses website. Five of the ten are computer science (CS) courses.

The course with the most enrolled students this quarter is “CS 161: Design and Analysis of Algorithms.” This theory course is part of the CS undergraduate major’s core and explores data structures, algorithm design techniques and graph problems, according to Explore Courses.

“Self and Society: Introduction to Social Psychology,” which is cross-listed between PSYCH 70 and SOC 2, is the second-most enrolled course this quarter.  Students taking this course attend lectures at Dinkelspiel Auditorium to learn more about the effects of social influence on individual thoughts, emotion and behavior.

The second part of the introductory CS series, “CS 106B: Programming Abstractions,” has over 500 students enrolled, making it the third-most enrolled course this spring. Its prerequisite, “CS 106A: Programming Methodology,” is the eighth-most enrolled course, with over 300 students enrolled.

“CS 231N: Deep Learning for Computer Vision” is the fourth-most enrolled course and provides a “deep dive into details of neural-network based deep learning methods for computer vision,” according to its course description on Explore Courses.

Over 400 undergraduate and graduate students are taking “MS&E 472: Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders’ Seminar,” a one-unit class about entrepreneurship, innovation, culture, startups and strategy.

“PATH 51: Human Anatomy (Online)” was the sixth-most popular course. Exactly 390 students are learning about the basic anatomy of the human body this quarter through the online, self-paced course. The course includes all of the content from four separate one-unit Regional Anatomy (Online) courses, PATH 51A through PATH 51D.

The seventh-most enrolled course was “MGTECON 300: Growth and Stabilization in the Global Economy,” a seminar that gives students a fundamental understanding of “broad movements in the global economy,” including economic growth, technological change, trade and monetary policy, according to Explore Courses.

Students taking a COLLEGE course to fulfill their first-year Civic, Liberal and Global Education requirement are split among seven different courses this quarter, with each focusing on a different topic on global perspectives. 780 students are currently enrolled in a COLLEGE course.

The most-enrolled COLLEGE course is “COLLEGE 106: Environmental Sustainability: Global Predicaments and Possible Solutions,” where students survey sustainability problems and possible global solutions to overcome each.

Mark Allen Cu ’26 is the Staff Development & Data Director for The Daily. He is currently studying International Relations and Education. Contact him at mallencu ‘at’ stanford.edu

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