This is how we wind up with a Jared Kushner in charge of the federal COVID-19 response
He is where he is because he married the eventual President's daughter, not because he got a free pass at top schools (though he did).
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Yale Students Demand Automatic 'Pass' Due to Covid-19
61–70 of 80 posts
Re: Yale Students Demand Automatic 'Pass' Due to Covid-19
#62This will prepare them well for reality. Working adults, I am sure, will have their demands for the continuation of their livelihoods fully met by their employers, their landlords, and their mortgage providers.
Except a lot of governments have indeed enacted policies that protect tenants and employees during this period.
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Re: Yale Students Demand Automatic 'Pass' Due to Covid-19
#63In contrast and great irony, my local community college has announced that they will go online and expect full completion as usual - and the students have accepted it, because of course the academic culture at a white label school for tradesmen and transfer students would be more rigorous, serious and refined than the one at a national pride.
I would have issue with this if I was using loans to finance that semester. I am not getting what I paid for initially, and I owe a debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Do the students get a partial refund since they are no longer paying for the facilities?
Demanding a partial refund would be a reasonable thing to try and negotiate: the damage has to fall on someone and both parties have a right to defend their interests. Asking for a free pass, on the other hand, means asking for every other Yale graduate to pay a cost ("You went to Yale? The place with free passes?") while also not asking for the product they really paid for (education). It's a statement that the paper is more important to them than what the paper represents: a total and open admission of defeat by Goodhart's law.
Re: Yale Students Demand Automatic 'Pass' Due to Covid-19
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some do. Some would otherwise be homeless. All walks of life attend college.
To me that's the most compelling argument: equity. Some students come from a background with very few resources and an unstable home environment, or no home to speak of. These students shouldn't be at an academic disadvantage because of a global pandemic.
Equity argument doesn't seem to hold. Why not just give course credits to everyone in USA and not just those who were rich/lucky enough to go to Yale? Would be way more fair, no?
Re: Yale Students Demand Automatic 'Pass' Due to Covid-19
#65This will prepare them well for reality. Working adults, I am sure, will have their demands for the continuation of their livelihoods fully met by their employers, their landlords, and their mortgage providers.
Except a lot of governments have indeed enacted policies that protect tenants and employees during this period.
Nothing is going to protect you from getting fired if you decide to just stop doing your job after they ask you to WFH.
Re: Yale Students Demand Automatic 'Pass' Due to Covid-19
#66Before we jump to conclusions... Undergraduates were forced off campus a few weeks ago. Imagine yourself in the shoes of an international student who left New Haven in a hurry. You're now required to attend online lectures at 3:00AM local time. Five nights a week. You don't have a reliable internet connection in your country. You lost your job when you left campus. You're missing out on office hours. You can't collab…
Relieve pressure, sure. Free pass? What? I mean they still need to do the coursework. The school should refund their tuition and room/board, and allow them to complete the semester later.
Re: Yale Students Demand Automatic 'Pass' Due to Covid-19
#67They paid for a service and did not receive it. Many have even been kicked out of housing. Sounds like one party broke the contract regarding tuition. Pass or not it really makes no difference. College degrees are losing prestigiousness so who cares. In five years post graduation it really means little. You don't go to college to learn you go there for the degree to get into that first door.
We truly live in such amazing times, where the principle of the transaction is more important than the achieved competency. This isn't Walmart, it's an education system. If they're not getting educated, the degree is completely meaningless.
Re: Yale Students Demand Automatic 'Pass' Due to Covid-19
#681. It's _some_ students demand automatic pass.
2. What students actually need IMHO is no tuition for this semester, and the opportunity for a do-over next semester (if the crisis is over by then). But that's more difficult to demand, so these people go for an easier, and lamer, alternative.
Re: Yale Students Demand Automatic 'Pass' Due to Covid-19
#69So how does this compare to Harvard, where students expect an automatic A even without Covid-19?
Why would that be true? (Asking as a non-American)
Re: Yale Students Demand Automatic 'Pass' Due to Covid-19
#70A lot of Italian universities took a week to rearrange their complete offering with online courses, allowing full theory + practice + projects lesson in virtual mode - exams solutions are being studied and pass/fail is out of the discussion.
If low-funded Italian universities can do it, I wonder what's stopping the best universities like Yale with enormous quantity of money to do the same.