While I was at Yale I heard people complain about Intermediate Microeconomics, Econometrics, and any class taught by a philosophy professor named Shelly Kagan. I think that the aforementioned economics classes developed their reputations because they were mathematically intensive classes that all economics majors were required to take. Shelly Kagan developed a reputation because he graded classes according to the “old Yale scale”. In other words, a B from Professor Kagan was equivalent to an A- in an easier class. Because many non-philosophy majors took Professor Kagan’s classes, it’s also possible that they weren’t able to meet philosophy writing’s unusual requirements.