Study yields unsurprising results

Evidence points to Cal’s superiority, Stanford’s deficiencies

By Amaris White
From the November 2005 Print Edition

The widely anticipated 19-year study by the Foundation to Understand the Ridiculously inDisputable (FURD) concluded last week. Scientists and educators were left duly amused upon hearing the conclusion announcing UC Berkeley as indeed better in every aspect than Stanford. Many complained about having to attend the ceremony because such results had been anticipated from the very start, according to the survey “Is FURD necessary?” in October 2000.

“I’m not sure who they thought they were educating — three-year-olds, perhaps? The only thing that brings me peace at night is that this institution is privately funded. Although I have no idea who would pay such an exorbitant sum to be a part of FURD, I’d be outraged if the citizens of California had to pay a dime,” said Cal Swearengen, President of Better Engineers And Real Scientists (BEARS).

The report was based on findings of a study following 1,313 students, professors, lunch ladies, and janitors from the two schools for the graduating classes of 1986-1995. Careful examination of the 10 classes and accompanying faculty was composed by following the lives of the graduates. FURD established quickly that they had an increasingly disproportionate larger number of alum and campus staff to follow from Cal than Stanford. Their studies of the standard deviation of fourth-year variable degree rates soon led them to discover that Stanford has an incredible person recycling system. Many of the graduates had continued on to provide services to the school through janitorial and cafeteria work.

According to the study, 76.5 percent of Stanford students felt that “they were better serving their school by wiping floors and serving slop.” When students at Berkeley were asked if they agreed with this statement, only 3.8 percent would even stop to answer in the negative; the remainder had to be taken to Berkeley Alta Bates Hospital for a lack of oxygen from laughter.

Professors from both campuses supported FURD in their conclusions. When asked about the level of intellectual stimulation, 93.1 percent of Stanford professors said “they preferred to spend the rest of eternity watching a stone grow” than stay in their current position; Berkeley professors overwhelmingly agreed that “they were increasingly pleased with their choice and the students around them.”

The study also found that business owners and other professionals were more likely to hire Berkeley’s graduates over Stanford’s. The General Organization of CEOs and Lawyers (GOCAL) discovered that many of the alumni from the inferior institution possessed a superiority complex and would not work with colleagues from any other campus. Bill Featherstonehough, CEO of College Gear for Less, recapitulated his first realization of this when a young Stanford graduate in 1997 “just waltzed into my office like it was his own and threw a tantrum — literally on the ground, on his stomach, wailing and kicking his feet because the other guys called him Fred, and not King Smith. We can’t fire him ’cause of labor laws … but none of us even so much as look at him now.”

Further inspection of Berkeley and Stanford students in the professional world supported this discovery. Upon examination of the successes revealed in the Oskili Algorithm, FURD’s research came upon a discovery similar to that of Americans in the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Whereas investors had wondered where their money had gone in such a dramatic fashion, FURD’s scientists began by wondering where the Stanford subjects, students, alumni, and the overwhelming majority — dropouts — had gone. Their confusion was quickly ameliorated as failed Stanford survivors were soon discovered in the People’s Republic of Berkeley engaging in the lucrative practice known as “sidewalk fundraising.”

Stanford graduates who had failed in the professional world confessed they actually regretted attending their institution. FURD found that despite the pleasantries experienced by fellow alums in the lunch lines in Palo Alto, many others experienced an emptiness that they hoped to fill by living closer to what they wished had been their alma mater. “Why do you think we don’t bathe?” said Ailuv Cahl, who matriculated from the Farm 13 years ago. “Every time I get any contact with a Cal student — a whiff of their dinner, a bit of spit, even a niggardly penny — a part of me is filled, and I don’t want to lose that.”

But perhaps the most telling finding of the study was in the comparison of the two mascots. Whereas Berkeley’s Oski had the support of 96.3 percent of the students, Stanford’s Cardinal received a “no solution,” since you cannot have a percentage of nothing. “They don’t even know what they are,” said John Cholmondeley, president of FURD. “How can we even begin to examine a mascot that doesn’t even have physical form? It’s a color! At least before they had an actual mascot, but now it’s not even a competition.” FURD concluded that despite Berkeley’s liberal reputation, Stanford misplaced its vertebral column when it submissively changed its mascot from the Stanford Indians to the Cardinal in 1971.

FURD’s study concluded with the acknowledgement that the 19 years had indeed been a waste of time, money, and resources and that they “really were morons for listening to that guy who graduated from Stanford and gave them the idea to do the study in the first place.”

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