Oh, come on. I think you are exaggerating quite a bit here. This is a single pass/no pass unit out of 180 units required for graduation, and, as a Stanford CS s

Oh, come on. I think you are exaggerating quite a bit here. This is a single pass/no pass unit out of 180 units required for graduation, and, as a Stanford CS student, I can assure you the other classes are extremely rigorous. I don't see a problem with a one-unit class designed to help build confidence and demonstrate your skills to an interviewer. If you think that such a class shouldn't be necessary, then blame the current interview system, not all of higher education. Higher education has its problems, but this is hardly grounds to claim it's in "steep decline."