A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall • Hacker News Board

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#81

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 10:07 AM UTC

moneytide1 wrote: post #54

downerending wrote: post #5

I feel bad for the colleges. But anyone in their right mind that's going to college to learn things will take a gap year. Those going to college just for the paper are well advised to keep going. The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure. You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A!

"... If a student wants to study at Princeton, he doesn’t really need to apply or pay tuition. He can simply show up and start taking classes. As a professor, I assure you that we make near-zero effort to stop unofficial education; indeed, the rare, earnestly curious student touches our hearts. At the end of four years at Princeton, though, the guerrilla student would lack one precious thing: a diploma. The fact that…

>The fact that almost no one tries this route — saving hundreds of thousands of dollars along the way — is a strong sign that students understand the value of certification over actual learning..."

Or a sign that some people don't understand the value of networking and the value of what earning admission to Princeton signals.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#82

Post by anjc » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 10:19 AM UTC

argonaut wrote: post #80

downerending wrote: post #5

I feel bad for the colleges. But anyone in their right mind that's going to college to learn things will take a gap year. Those going to college just for the paper are well advised to keep going. The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure. You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A!

Colleges are not going to let many people take gap years. So it'll be a choice between attending the school you want or reapplying next year (when it'll probably be even harder to get in). Usually most people who want gap years are allowed to do so, but usually there aren't many people who want to do gap years (at least in the US).

> Colleges are not going to let many people take gap years.

How are they going to get out of abiding by their own regulations? Universities I'm familiar with all provide for deferred years.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#83

Post by anjc » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 10:24 AM UTC

derrick_jensen wrote: post #7

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Permanently, too, if this causes a paradigm shift and virtual learning becomes the norm. Beyond the crisis, colleges were already planning on declining enrollment due to demographic shifts. Real estate in exclusively college towns, dependent on collegiate rentals, will be seeing long term changes regardless.

I don't believe virtual learning will be widely used long-term. I might be biased, coming from a mostly engineering school, but there is a lot of vital lab equipment needed for the curriculum, not to mention that social networking and connections are essential to most careers going forward, and I don't see that transferring over in the same way

In my experience, the primary limit for engineering/CS labs are simply room capacities and the number of PCs per lab. Each lab therefore must be tightly scheduled by the school. Virtual learning has been amazing in this sense: labs can be rescheduled, have unlimited capacities, can run concurrently, etc.

They're also far easier to manage, less noisy, you aren't on your feet for hours.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#84

Post by DrAwdeOccarim » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 10:34 AM UTC

alec_kendall wrote: post #25

I moved back home after my university moved my classes to online (mid-march). I’m now paying rent on an apartment I don’t need and have a lease for next school year that I might not use. Even if in-person classes start again, I’ll have to worry about being screwed again next spring. The only other option I could think of was subleasing but unfortunately I signed my lease in January.

One approach is to line up prospective sublease tenants to see the apartment, and have them request showings that appear reasonable but that a large company cannot achieve (if your landlord is a large company). The idea being if they drag you to court, you simply show records that you tried to line up showings but the landlord who has the keys (since you're out of town) couldn't bother to assist in the effort. The way I approached this previously was to advertise on Craigslist with things like "first two months free!". I had people lined up to see the place and the landlord could not show-up without a weeks notice. No judge will side with the landlord in this kind of situation.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#85

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 10:35 AM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #74

WalterBright wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If PMCs are overpaid, then the property owners wouldn't employ them. And if landlords didn't do much work, property owners wouldn't pay PMCs to do that work for them.

I’m not being perfectly precise in my terminology, and you’re spitting out a compiler error in response. Landlords/PMCs are overpaid because tenants pay rent not only for the services provided by the landlords/PMCs, but also for access to the land which they own. This happens because the property owners have a monopoly on that piece of land. The rent will increase in accordance with the contributions of the people us…

If you've ever rented out land, you'd know that the price you can charge is not at all set by what the tenant can afford. Like other prices, it's set by supply and demand.

For an obvious example, if I tried to rent my house out to Bill Gates for $50 billion, which he can afford, how far do you think I'd get with that?

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#86

Post by cassiet » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 10:49 AM UTC

twomoretime wrote: post #50

cassiet wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a useless world that would create.

You can pick up most of the soft skills you learn in humanities by doing things like reading and practicing writing. The minimum functional skill level is low enough for a majority of people to achieve through practice with minimal guidance. People don't have to spend thousands of dollars and four years of their life to paint or sculpt or whatever - it may not be proficient and lifelike but it'll still be art. Your w…

Said like an ignorant man about a topic they nothing about.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#87

Post by cafard » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 10:54 AM UTC

moneytide1 wrote: post #54

downerending wrote: post #5

I feel bad for the colleges. But anyone in their right mind that's going to college to learn things will take a gap year. Those going to college just for the paper are well advised to keep going. The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure. You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A!

"... If a student wants to study at Princeton, he doesn’t really need to apply or pay tuition. He can simply show up and start taking classes. As a professor, I assure you that we make near-zero effort to stop unofficial education; indeed, the rare, earnestly curious student touches our hearts. At the end of four years at Princeton, though, the guerrilla student would lack one precious thing: a diploma. The fact that…

It may also be a strong sign that few young Americans have the money to live in that area with no income for four years. The student admitted to Princeton can get money--financial aid or loans--to apply to food and shelter. The student apparently just hanging out has to have some other source of money. I also wonder whether the libraries and the computer centers have such a laissez-faire attitude.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#88

Post by cafard » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 10:57 AM UTC

nn35 wrote: post #43

downerending wrote: post #5

I feel bad for the colleges. But anyone in their right mind that's going to college to learn things will take a gap year. Those going to college just for the paper are well advised to keep going. The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure. You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A!

Take a gap year and do what, exactly? Sitting around your parents' house for a year is probably worse than getting the coronavirus, for an 18 year old. Maybe much worse.

This may not be best time to say "find a job", but perhaps it could be done.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#89

Post by q084yn39cptyth » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 11:08 AM UTC

nprz wrote: post #19

CFR for those aged 60 or greater is at 6.4%[0]. And of course an even larger percentage will end up hospitalized. How many professors are in that high risk demographic? Class is just supposed to go on while professors inevitably fall ill, become hospitalized and die? [0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

My guess is there will be mandatory testing for students wanting to return, along with heavy disease surveillance. I also suspect even places claiming "normal operation" will not actually be normal — certain things will be virtual and other things not. There will likely be some reshuffling of teaching assignments too.

I noticed also (former professor) that my institution is now heavily incentivizing early retirement for those getting close to qualifying, and are not shy about linking it to coronavirus.

Finally, I think a lot of social distancing guidelines apply technically in many situations with lectures, etc.

It will be an interesting semester.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#90

Post by jimhefferon » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 11:09 AM UTC

downerending wrote: post #5

I feel bad for the colleges. But anyone in their right mind that's going to college to learn things will take a gap year. Those going to college just for the paper are well advised to keep going. The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure. You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A!

> You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A!

I'm a prof at a SLAC. Many of the students I have are doing fine. But a good number of them are struggling. Some are working, sometimes many hours because their parents are out of work or anticipate being out of work. Some of them have illness in their family (I don't know of any who are themselves ill).

And for some of them it is that they are not good at this environment-- they didn't sign up for this. Online education is hard. Personally I perceive that especially for people on the left side of the curve, less learning takes place because they are often just not skilled at self-learning.

In the present environment, when working with students I often feel that this is a person who could well have learned, say, Elementary Statistics except that the circumstances hit them where they are weak. Some leeway is called for, it seems to me. I'm not talking about certifying them at something where they are not prepared for the following class (that is, no "Everybody gets an A"). But my school, and many others, is allowing people to choose "No grade" in some cases and that seems reasonable to me.