I'm a current student, and I believe that a major reason behind the skyrocketing enrollments in CS is that the introductory classes are immensely popular and well-organized (disclosure: I TA a couple of those classes). There seems to be an idea in a lot of the other engineering departments that you have to suffer through the introductory classes in order to get to the interesting topics. The Stanford CS classes give people interesting challenges while covering a lot of the basics of CS. Of course there's still a long way to go after that, but it's a start. The second half of the introductory series is pretty rigorous, too, and I've seen at least a handful of interview questions I've been asked pop up in that class.
I don't know how many people were inspired by the iOS class, but it doesn't seem to be super popular on campus. I do know a fair amount of people (myself included) who had never programmed before Stanford and were simply motivated to keep going after the introductory sequence. There's definitely a snowball effect, but it wouldn't happen without a great curriculum.
I don't know how many people were inspired by the iOS class, but it doesn't seem to be super popular on campus. I do know a fair amount of people (myself included) who had never programmed before Stanford and were simply motivated to keep going after the introductory sequence. There's definitely a snowball effect, but it wouldn't happen without a great curriculum.