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MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

web.mit.edu

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Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#441

Post by WalterBright »

jedberg wrote: post #440
mygo wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that many students will lose study time dealing with the move, and may likely end up performing poorer than they would have otherwise. I hope MIT really does take this stuff on a case by case basis. The student who can relocate and be back on their feet in a day will be at an advantage compared to the student who takes longer to settle from the shuffle.

Hopefully everything is graded on a curve to at least minimize the performance effects

Grading on a curve is nice, but it defeats the purpose of having a standard.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#442

Post by kart23 »

pfranz wrote: post #368
kart23 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UC Irvine as well! Not excited to install a rootkit on my computer to take finals, but oh well.

Any option to install it onto a VM or a separate drive for dual boot? Windows 10 VMs are active for a few weeks (or edu discounts are often pretty steep). If it was in a VM you otherwise use you can snapshot and revert back after taking the test (I guess you could do this with a normal backup, too). That's usually my go-to for stuff like this (but for me it's often Linux/macOS).

VMs and Linux aren't allowed, and apparently the software can detect if you're using either. I'm probably gonna use my macbook for it, but I just hate willingly installing such garbage.

https://www.proctoru.com/proctoru-live-resource-center

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#443

Post by kart23 »

greglindahl wrote: post #349
kart23 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International students are gonna be in a very tough spot, especially those from china.

That’s why there’s an exception for them?

Thats good, but I just meant in general. At my school, there's a decent amount of international students, and it just sucks that they can't even go home and see their families, unlike the rest of us. I just feel really sorry for them.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#445

Post by zamfi »

allovernow wrote: post #230
zamfi wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also the bit about being no worse than the flu is not true for any age group It does appear to be true for the very young (ages 0-9), who are at relatively high risk from flu (especially <2), but at shockingly low risk at dying from COVID-19. Admittedly not the population in consideration here.

You're right about that. Children are practically immune. As I understand this has to do with innate vs acquired immunity. Children are born with very strong innate immunity and as we age innate immunity decreases while acquired immunity increases, untill old age where both decline.

Huh, interesting hypothesis. But I wonder why flu hits very young children so hard, then? Is SARS-CoV-2 more handily defeated by the innate system than flu?

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#446

Post by slg »

CydeWeys wrote: post #408
slg wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what we are even debating anymore. It sounds like we both agree that the school closing down was a good decision because there are too many avenues for the virus to spread quickly through the student population.

Yeah me neither. Sometimes conversations just go off the rails. Happens in face-to-face conversations too. Anyway, good day!

Fair enough. Have a good one.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#447

Post by simonw »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #417
simonw wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certain that's not the case here. This isn't about avoiding litigation. It's about flattening the curve. https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ Universities are taking this extremely disruptive step because they have a very large influence on how quickly this disease spreads, and they know it.

That’s quite a nice sentiment. Unfortunately, “flattening the curve” is not what propels the world to action. People getting what they want is. It always has been, and that’s not changing for Covid-19.

Which is why it's important for influential institutions like universities to take the steps they are taking.

Those 100,000+ students weren't going to voluntarily stop attending classes. The universities have now forced the issue for them.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#448

Post by dheera »

kyeb wrote: post #167
generationP wrote: post #144

> Undergraduates who live in an MIT residence or fraternity, sorority or independent living group (FSILG) must begin packing and departing this Saturday, March 14. We are requiring undergraduates to depart from campus residences no later than noon on Tuesday, March 17. This is strange. Isn't the travel they are forcing quite possibly a cure worse than the disease? And are they really expecting students (many of them…

>In what way are dorms worse than personal homes for diseases anyway? Are they not trusting their students to prepare their own food? Why don't they just close the dining halls instead? The dorms have shared bathrooms, often shared rooms with doubles, triples, and quads, and shared living spaces (lounges, study rooms, laundry, etc.) in addition to the dining halls. Moreover, in our dorms, we have effectively no way t…

As a fellow MIT alum I still feel that this was a wrong move.

Online classes -- GREAT

Cancel social events -- GREAT

Encouraging students to go home -- GREAT

Requiring 4000 students to pack up in a span of a week, getting help from other students to dismantle lofts and home-built furniture and moving heavy boxes, sharing push-carts, sharing vehicles, renting vehicles used by god knows how many strangers, scouting nearby supermarket parking lots for grocery carts because all the dorm push-carts are gone, pushing carts full of boxes around town to storage facilities, cramming hotel rooms, travelling via flights -- BAD

I think Stanford's approach is much more reasonable -- they are letting students stay if they wish but are encouraging students to go home.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#449

Post by dheera »

aatharuv wrote: post #340
kelnos wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certainly restaurants nearby, but not sure I'd call them cheap. I imagine a lot of MIT students don't have the money to eat out every day. And since most dorms don't have any kind of kitchens or cooking implements, buying food from the grocery and cooking isn't really an option. Pre-made meals or other things from grocery stores that don't require cooking could work, but, again, I'd expect some/many student…

What dorms don't have kitchens? Certainly when I went to MIT, most (if not all) dorms at least had kitchenette's, 20 years back. Shared, of course, which is the main problem.

I lived at Simmons Hall my first year and one of my reasons for moving to EC was kitchens.

It was plain ridiculous that they were fixated on requiring me to eat dining hall food. Cooking is one of the most basic and healthy life skills anyone can have.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#450

Post by thaumasiotes »

secstate wrote: post #370
protomyth wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US colleges earn money off the meal plan and tend to be liability shy so having a full kitchen is a non-starter. Heck, it was against the rules to have a microwave in dorms (even room not in actual dorms) where I went to college. It was a pain in the butt.

Pretty sure the ban on microwaves was an electrical fire risk, not them being predatory about students eating at the dining hall. Can you imagine if even every other room had an appliance pulling 1000W whenever the hell a student felt like warming up some soup?

> Can you imagine if even every other room had an appliance pulling 1000W whenever the hell a student felt like warming up some soup?

Imagine if every other room had a computer the student could just turn on whenever he felt like it.

In reality, the number of computers is of course more than one per room. No one is worried about the power supply.

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