Stanford University Gets Ready for an Exciting Course on Taylor Swift Led by 'Passionate' Sophomore

Stanford University is thinking about taking a bold step in the world of academia by potentially introducing a course on Taylor Swift's music. The course, focusing on the well-known singer's discography, is now being planned by the esteemed university and is expected to start in the spring semester of 2024. This project builds on the popularity of a Stanford course that spent an entire semester analyzing Taylor Swift's ten-minute song All Too Well.

The song All Too Well, the 10-minute version of which Swift re-released last year, was the subject of a class that studied it for a whole semester. However, that course was a part of the Italic 99 program at the institution, which provides a variety of courses each quarter. As per Fortune, the most recent course would be a component of a different program and would be titled “The Last Great American Songwriter: Storytelling With Taylor Swift Through the Eras.”

However, it's not finalized just yet. A Stanford representative told Fortune that the schedule for the upcoming academic year "is still not set to be finalized and published until mid-August, so we cannot say definitively what will or will not be offered yet. However, we can confirm that plans for the course are underway.”

The initiative, known as a Student Initiated Course (SIC), at the university offers a few classes taught by students each quarter. These "activity courses," which give students the chance to pursue interests or enrichment, are regarded as such by Stanford. They are given a Satisfactory/Non-Satisfactory grade and do not affect the GPA of the student.

The initiative is being led by Stanford class of '26 alumna Ava Jeffs. She claims that the seminar would examine how Swift's discography combines literary allusions, lyricism, and storytelling strategies. 

“I’ve always been very passionate about music, and even wrote my application essay to Stanford about Taylor Swift’s song Clean and how it helped me process challenges in my life before coming to Stanford,” said Jeffs. “I’ve been a fan for 16 years, so getting to teach this course is a great opportunity to share her artistry and lyrical genius with fellow students.”

“Taylor Swift is one of the most polarizing mainstream pop artists out there. People love her or hate her,” stated Jeetendr Sehdev, a branding specialist and bestselling author of The Kim Kardashian Principle: Why Shameless Sells (and How to Do it Right) in an interview with Fortune. “When you get that extreme on the Richter scale, you don’t just have fans, you create fanatics. Those fanatics have a level of dedication that is beyond anything you’ve ever seen. It’s something else.”

Stanford reminds the public that its courses, including SICs, are not open for public auditing. This is assuming the course actually exists on the timetable for the following year.