Overheard at an advising office

I randomly declared Electrical Engineering when I applied to UT Dallas and they made me go in today to switch my major. Apparently they force students to do a degree audit where you go in and lay out your course schedule, but EE wanted no part of a postbacc, premed student who has no intention of taking a single EE class. So I was introduced to my new advisor for Biology and these are snippets from the half hour I spent there:

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ADV: [ looking through my academic history ] Stanford. Where is that?

ME: [ are you kidding me? ] California, also [ in addition to SJSU ]

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ADV: [ clearly trying to help me get my stuff done ] Have you heard of the Stanford story?

ME: [ what the heck is the story about Stanford? The Play? ] Um, what story?

ADV: [ appalled that I couldn't read her mind ] The story! [ my paraphrasing ] The founder was a rich guy who showed up to Harvard dressed casually asking how much it cost to erect a building in his son's memory. The son had passed away but had attended Harvard. The folks at Harvard thought he couldn't afford it and he started Stanford as a response.

ME: [ bored to tears ] Um, yes, Stanford was a rich fellow from the railroads. I haven't heard of that story though. [ Can we get on with this? ]

Note: this story is of course urban legend. Leland Stanford Jr passed away at the age of 16 so did not attend Harvard. [source]

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ADV: [ looking through my transfer credit ] Now this is going to take a long time to match your transfer credit to our classes. I know you said you're not planning to finish the degree, but we need to make sure you have all the prerequisites for the classes you want to take. For example, I don't see Calculus I & II on here.

ME: [ not seeing how Calculus had anything to do with my classes ] Yeah, I AP'd out of calculus at Stanford and then took a quarter of multivariable calculus at the end to fulfill my CS requirement.

ADV: [ thoughtful ] Well, multivariable calculus is after calculus I & II, but...
[ incredulous ] They gave you AP credit for both Calculus I & II? At UT Dallas, you only get credit for Calculus I. Did you take some sort of departmental exam?

ME: [ um... ] No, they gave me credit for it.

ADV: [ trying to be helpful ] Our computer won't let you sign up for a class which has Calculus as a prerequisite because I can't find Calculus I & II on your transcript, so we'd need to get approval for something like that.

ME: [ you just said multivariable is after calc I & II, right?? ] ...

ADV: [ thinking I understood perfectly ] This is what I mean when I say this will be tricky to match up!

ME: [ is there a wall I can bang my head against? ]

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[ after I finally got the 2 minute form filled out to change majors ]

ADV: [ satisfied with a day's work ] You'll have to make another appointment in the future if you want to sit down and do a degree audit. But I'm afraid you'll be missing quite a few classes.

ME: [ what happened to the part where you understood I didn't want the degree ]

ADV: [ continuing ] You'd think that we'd be able to match up a lot of the transfer credit. I mean, it's Stanford! An Ivy League school!

ME: [ okay, somewhat understandable, but not really for an undergrad advisor. the ivy league is a sports conference in the northeast. we're pac-10! ] ...

ADV: [ insightfully ] But there still might be extra classes to take. It's a state law that you would need to complete this set of requirements to receive a degree here. For example, you'll need to take US & Texas History.

ME: [ Texas history. Why am I not surprised? ] ...

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Hopefully they'll still let me register for classes in 6 weeks, but somehow I'm not that optimistic that it will be a smooth process. Why can't they just let you take whatever classes you want?