So by now you've all heard about Azia Kim, the girl who posed as a Stanford freshman for nearly a year—living in the dorms, attending classes, and doing all the normal things a Stanford student does—while never actually being a student, fooling everyone along the way. To con everyone for nearly an entire school year, you have to admit she must have been pretty clever and resourceful... but ultimately, the whole thing is just really sad.
Anyway, just on the heels of this discovery, a second imposter at Stanford was uncovered last week. Elizabeth Okazaki has apparently been hanging around the physics department for years, attending seminars, using offices and locker space: Imposter II? Four years in Varian. Yes, she's Asian American. According to students, she claims to be a visiting scholar in the humanities, "looking to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on string theory," yet she is not a student, has no official connection with anyone in the physics department, and appears to have very little knowledge of physics itself. She's just... there. She has basically assumed a permanent presence in the physics lab building, and while they've been aware of her some time, the administration seems to have turned a blind eye to her. It's pretty weird. More here: Second impostor found at Stanford. You know, for all the hard work and creativity that goes into maintaining a fake Stanford student life, you might simply be better off channeling that energy into being an real college student elsewhere.
What's going on here? Do we have a new Asian stereotype in the works? Given recent events, it's not very good publicity for Asian American college students. I'm sure we've already got people suspiciously looking at Asian men like possible loner psycho mass killers. Now we've got Asian female students who just might not be students at all. Great. Be ready to whip out your student ID.
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