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MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

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

#531

Post by bluGill »

chrisseaton wrote: post #498
CydeWeys wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason any other cop would need guns. Hell, we had a high profile death of an armed MIT police officer not that long ago (Boston bombings). Universities can and do face external threats, so even if the students themselves aren't packing heat (which is itself sometimes the case), there's non-student criminals who cause the same kinds of problems they would anywhere else. I remember there being lots of break-i…

> The same reason any other cop would need guns. So, none. Regular police routinely carrying guns is crazy. Leave it to specialists. You don’t need a gun to police a place of learning.

I have never need an AED device, but I know where the one is in my office and I know how to use it. A gun for a police officer should be the same: they have it and know how to use it, but almost all retire without even once having used it. A gun is almost never needed for police duty, but when it is nothing else will substitute and seconds are counting (police only use a gun when not killing someone fast will make the overall situation worse).

You can say leave it to specialists, but that is the job of the police.

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

#532

Post by htrp »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #312
mackey wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a big place. Those exist in the US too, but MIT is in an area surrounded my software companies and pharmaceuticals. Not a lot of cheap options.

I used to work near MIT. At least several years ago, there were surprisingly few places to buy a decent meal near campus. (By surprising, I mean because there were also numerous businesses in that neighborhood with lots of well-paid employees.) The area also has/had a small number of food trucks at lunchtime (only) IIRC.

Kendall has gotten super expensive .... the food trucks are also pretty much the same price as the restaurants for a meal

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

#533

Post by pyuser583 »

anyfoo wrote: post #453
pyuser583 wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really!? Not my experience - was last in Europe 10 years ago - VAT tax made eating out more expensive. I thought it was VAT tax. Everyone said it was VAT tax.

I don't understand this comment. Were you, for example, in Switzerland, Italy, or the Czech Republic, all of which have vastly different prices? (And their own autonomic tax laws, too!)

Good point - UK.

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

#534

Post by bluGill »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #412
marcinzm wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top private US schools provide very good financial aid packages and are a very good choice for underprivileged students if they can get in. Schools in turn want such students for diversity and metrics.

> if they can get in. These questions are framed in the wrong way. The filter isn't cost, it's getting in, and people from middle class and poor families are at a disadvantage in terms of accomplishments.

MIT is going to be one of the first choices of any student who has a chance to get in. Even though the vast majority don't overcome their disadvantages, MIT still has more qualified applicants from any large background such that they cannot accept them all.

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

#535

Post by Ntrails »

laputan_machine wrote: post #499
Ntrails wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly doubt you to be lying, but you are wrong afaik. There are certainly shared rooms in a university in the UK (at least were ~10 years ago and doubt has changed). However it was a handful of students in shared halls rooms (in big old houses etc) compared to a population that must have been a few thousand. It was cheaper, and some people thought sharing a room would help make friends. I remain dubious.

Can you show me any UK university that has shared sleeping rooms? I have never heard of this. Shared living areas, i.e. sharing a house, does exist, and is what my original post said.

University of Leics had them ~2010. (I had a friend who lived in one)

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

#536

Post by eropple »

easytiger wrote: post #514
fudged71 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a successful response would be seen by the uninformed as an overreaction This is what worries me the most. Is there a name for this bias? Seems similar to survivorship bias, I'm sure it's seen across all kinds of contexts.

Have you thought about inverting your thinking? Every pandemic this century ended up being a damp squib despite WHO et al promising doomsday.

Did they end up being a "damp squib", or were corrective and protective measures implemented to slow them sufficiently so as to control them before they became endemic?

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

#537

Post by cultofmetatron »

jcranmer wrote: post #131
sarbaz wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds pretty silly. There's bound to be a way to make online (or semi-online) learning agile too. Distance learning is basically a solved problem and has been done for hundreds of years. How about recorded lectures and in-person small group recitations? Or longer office hours? Obviously you have to change the methodology of learning a bit, but I'm sure it can be figured out. In any case undergrad level science…

How do you handle things like chemistry labs? Vocational training and art curricula are also going to be very difficult to do remotely, since you're probably not going to have requisite materials at home.

labs are not lectures. If anything, moving the lectures online frees up the lecturer to devote more of their resources towards labs.

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

#538

Post by eropple »

blendo wrote: post #314
whyenot wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted that they have not moved lab classes online. For someone in the sciences, much of your classroom time is spent in lab classes. Unfortunately, there isn’t a good way to teach students how to run a gel, or do a titration, or identify minerals, etc. without in-person instruction. There are students who are graduating this spring and the skills they learn in upper division or capstone lab classes are s…

Nor will in-person, small group seminars be moved on-line. It might be fairer to just extend spring break for 2-3 months, and pick up the semester again in May or June. Or, refund this semesters’s tuition, room, and board, and give everyone a do-over until next fall. (I am assuming the virus will burn out in 2-3 months.) Maybe the best outcome would be radically improve remote learning, this time with full institutio…

> I am assuming the virus will burn out in 2-3 months.

This is a really optimistic assumption. I hope you're right, but I would hope no political unit is making plans based on it.

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

#539

Post by gumby »

peter_l_downs wrote: post #341
gumby wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone believes online is an acceptable substitute to a traditional MIT education, but it's a lot better than nothing, and better than continuing the in person teaching. I'm an MIT grad and know the benefits of being on campus. In fact I spent more time in the lab than I did in classes or my dorm and that just isn't possible online. My son's school (Courant) has sent everyone home too, with online subst…

I went to MIT too and with the exception of about three classes, every single in-person class was a waste. The value the school offers is, in order: - the people you meet - the brand name on your resume - the psets and structured guide to learning hard things Notice that the last two still work over Zoom. If I were in the hard sciences this might be different but as a professional Software Engineer, the classes were…

I’m sorry you felt that way because for me a huge proportion of the value was the human stuff, not just “networking” which wasn’t even called that back then, but doing pests with others (learning) talking to profs, being exposed via meatspace serendipity to hints I would not otherwise have seen or done, and the like.

I did skip most of the big lecture freshman classes (I was in ESG) which would not have worked for me (my HS graduating class was 39) but apart from them the classes tend to be relatively small.

I’ve never really noticed the value of the brand name but perhaps that’s a sign that it works so well :-(

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

#540

Post by mackey »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #312
mackey wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a big place. Those exist in the US too, but MIT is in an area surrounded my software companies and pharmaceuticals. Not a lot of cheap options.

I used to work near MIT. At least several years ago, there were surprisingly few places to buy a decent meal near campus. (By surprising, I mean because there were also numerous businesses in that neighborhood with lots of well-paid employees.) The area also has/had a small number of food trucks at lunchtime (only) IIRC.

Yeah, I worked near MIT from 2008 to 2012. It's almost a completely different place now. There weren't a ton of options back then, you had the MIT foodcourt, Rebecca's cafe, a sandwich place that was also a convenient store above a dry cleaner, and maybe Sebastians, but at least they weren't super expensive.

It doesn't even seem like the lunch options are better today, just more expensive. And dinner options, forget about it, way too expensive. We used to go to Tommy Doyles after playing corporate softball, and at least you could get a cheap burger.

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