theodp writes: Golf reports that amateur golf legend Rose Zhang will compete for the first time as a professional when she tees off in the first round of the Mizuho Americas Open Thursday. Golf news is rarely fodder for Slashdot discussion, but when the 20-year-old Stanford student (who plans to complete her degree after a leave of absence) was asked by Golf to identify her toughest class, she threw CS under the bus.

“CS 106A,” Zhang replied, referring to a computer science course. “Currently and still trying to grind in that class. It’s been a little unfortunate for me. I’m not a CS major. Will never code again after this class.” Back in April, Zhang expressed some doubts about being able to juggle the demands of an already-renowned golf career and CS 106A. “I’ll be super, super busy,” Zhang said in an interview. “I’m planning on taking CS 106A. I don’t know if it’s a smart decision but it’s kind of an essential intro CS class into Stanford so I’m going to try to navigate that, balance that out.”

The Stanford Daily reports that CS 106A: Programming Methodology is an introductory programming course taken by 1,600+ students from all academic disciplines each year (2015 Slashdot post on CS 106A’s growing pains). According to the syllabus, CS 106A “uses the Python programming language” and there’s “no prior programming experience required,” although the schedule indicates a lot of ground is covered for someone new to coding (the same could be said of Harvard’s famed CS50).

Lest some take Zhang to task for the sin of stating programming is hard, consider that Stanford’s CS 106A website suggests the same, reporting that the median score on the midterm exam was only 68%, despite a plethora of review materials and sessions. CS 106A students were offered the chance to submit formal ‘regrade requests’ to try to improve their midterm scores and can also vie for “a Jamba Juice gift card and 100% on the final exam” by entering a Python programming contest — one prize will be awarded for “Aesthetic merit”, another for “Algorithmic sophistication” (a number of runners-up will be awarded “a grade boost similar to getting a + on one of their assignments”).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Stanford Golf Phenom Rose Zhang Turns Pro, Vows To ‘Never Code Again’