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Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

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Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#11

Post by skocznymroczny »

supernova87a wrote: post #2

I remember wondering aloud at MIT/Harvard putting their courses online for free for anyone to listen to, and saying, well what is the value add then of paying to physically go to college? I guess we're going to find out whether the networking, friends, social aspect is worth it. There's also something about the competitive aspect of seeing other people in person do better than you or have better ideas than you. Which…

I know this might not be received well by the HN crowd, but I feel like the classes and networking are secondary, the main value of a reputable college is having a reputable college you can put on your résumé.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#12

Post by enitihas »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #11
supernova87a wrote: post #2

I remember wondering aloud at MIT/Harvard putting their courses online for free for anyone to listen to, and saying, well what is the value add then of paying to physically go to college? I guess we're going to find out whether the networking, friends, social aspect is worth it. There's also something about the competitive aspect of seeing other people in person do better than you or have better ideas than you. Which…

I know this might not be received well by the HN crowd, but I feel like the classes and networking are secondary, the main value of a reputable college is having a reputable college you can put on your résumé.

I think that is an opinion very popular on HN, so don't worry about the reception.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#13

Post by swiley »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #11
supernova87a wrote: post #2

I remember wondering aloud at MIT/Harvard putting their courses online for free for anyone to listen to, and saying, well what is the value add then of paying to physically go to college? I guess we're going to find out whether the networking, friends, social aspect is worth it. There's also something about the competitive aspect of seeing other people in person do better than you or have better ideas than you. Which…

I know this might not be received well by the HN crowd, but I feel like the classes and networking are secondary, the main value of a reputable college is having a reputable college you can put on your résumé.

Yeah in the US that’s exactly it.

Administrators for the sake of administrators everywhere.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#14

Post by pm90 »

To be honest, I’m more worried by the effect it is already having on immigration and the calls from certain politicians to “reduce Asian students”. Besides the disgusting racism involved in that view, as someone who attended Grad School in US, I can confidently say that Asian Immigrants are some of the brightest and hardest working students I met and I was incredibly happy at this country’s future that the student pool was so diverse and talented.

Reducing/Elliminating immigration is going to destroy American graduate programs and will boost those of other Western countries (or even Asian ones) just when we need even more of these folks. This kind of stuff is infuriating and I’m embarrassed at our politicians for even engaging in this rhetoric.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#15

Post by nicolas_t »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #11
supernova87a wrote: post #2

I remember wondering aloud at MIT/Harvard putting their courses online for free for anyone to listen to, and saying, well what is the value add then of paying to physically go to college? I guess we're going to find out whether the networking, friends, social aspect is worth it. There's also something about the competitive aspect of seeing other people in person do better than you or have better ideas than you. Which…

I know this might not be received well by the HN crowd, but I feel like the classes and networking are secondary, the main value of a reputable college is having a reputable college you can put on your résumé.

I've heard that a lot but I did get a degree from a reputable college in my home country (one of the best in France for my subject matter), yet I've only worked outside of France for my entire professional life and pretty much no French colleges are well ranked on international rankings (mostly because the rankings are biased towards much bigger institutions).

And, well, the fact that it is isn't ranked well on any of those international rankings has not been a problem for my carrier at all. I have rarely been asked where I went to university and I don't think that it's affected my carrier at all.

However the fact that I have no student debt because tuition was pretty much free has been a boon for my professional life.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#16

Post by jmspring »

tetris11 wrote: post #7

And so they should. My experience at uni usually involved going to the lecture, not quite grasping the rushed material, then heading to the computer lab after to stream a YouTube video on the same topic to actually understand it. Why was I going to the lectures then? Who knows, on the offhand chance I might ask a question. Now I'm on the other side of the looking glass, I see three types of uni students - those who g…

Horseshit.

The instructor has a serious impact on how the material is presented. I had transform mathematics from David Huffman of Huffman coding fame at the same time I had a similar physics math course.

Both got to the same end, but I only passed both because of the approach and the notes I had from Huffman.

Everyone learns differently and that situation where a professor can convey things on a way that clicks isn’t going to happen with a random YouTube video.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#17

Post by tonyedgecombe »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #11
supernova87a wrote: post #2

I remember wondering aloud at MIT/Harvard putting their courses online for free for anyone to listen to, and saying, well what is the value add then of paying to physically go to college? I guess we're going to find out whether the networking, friends, social aspect is worth it. There's also something about the competitive aspect of seeing other people in person do better than you or have better ideas than you. Which…

I know this might not be received well by the HN crowd, but I feel like the classes and networking are secondary, the main value of a reputable college is having a reputable college you can put on your résumé.

This is also the main problem, because it suppresses any real competition.

All the while these organisations are grading their own students we will continue to get a somewhat mediocre system.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#19

Post by swiley »

gibolt wrote: post #4

As much as I wish it were better, most online courses offered by universities do not come close to the in-person experience. Their real goal/outcome is to increase access. Professors are trained (most at least) to teach in-person and have assignments and curriculums that match. They can't redo that appropriately to be equally effective within a week or two. Few could do it well given over a year doing online only. To…

Why was this downvoted? I failed a class and took the online version once so I got to see both sides.

The online version had:

1) lots of busywork for the sake of busywork (to make up for attendance?)

2) much poorer instruction. Like everything felt like it was written by someone (really a group of people) who didn’t understand the subject very well, which was strange because the in person class was taught by a DR. with a very good understand and a strong passion for it.

3) no organic classroom interaction, people making friends that way have to be an extreme exception. It almost felt like this was actively discouraged to avoid a liability? I’m not sure, but that’s a huge part of the value of going to class that’s totally gone now.

4) and because of that no real discussion (you had discussion boards but those are more like public essays than real conversations.)

The only reason it’s better than just reading a book and doing exercises is that all the administrators recognize you’ve done it, the whole situation is just really dumb.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#20

Post by wildpeaks »

tetris11 wrote: post #7

And so they should. My experience at uni usually involved going to the lecture, not quite grasping the rushed material, then heading to the computer lab after to stream a YouTube video on the same topic to actually understand it. Why was I going to the lectures then? Who knows, on the offhand chance I might ask a question. Now I'm on the other side of the looking glass, I see three types of uni students - those who g…

I'd even go so far as to say it's a superior experience because you can speed up the filler, rewind when something is unclear or when new information give a different context, and pause while looking up something up. And you can still ask questions asynchronously (so there isn't a time pressure for the teacher to answer something quickly) in the comments, with a precise timestamp instead of relying on human memory of what has been said; other students can even answer too.

In-person university lectures are the only time I experienced boredom because it felt like such an inefficient way to learn things.

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