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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

#21

Post by pr0duktiv »

pm90 wrote: post #14

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 po…

Hm, at least speaking for my uni (ETH Zurich), lots of grad students from Asia come here for cheap tuition & good PhD salaries, but almost all Chinese grad students I asked want to go back to China afterwards. Ideally we would keep talented people here instead of paying for their education with taxes and have them go back afterwards.

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

#22

Post by hombre_fatal »

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 thought the same as you for most of uni, usually bitter that I was paying $4500 for a course when I couldn't understand the TA anyways and had to watch Youtube videos to do homework. And that's definitely how most of my classes were. Or they were massive lecture halls with zero interaction with the prof.

But then I had a slew of amazing professors in my final year including a philosophy class that was so compelling to me that, after graduating, I sat in their class for a semester without even being enrolled.

I went to a large state school (University of Texas). Sometimes I wonder how different uni would have been for me academically if I went to a tiny school with consistently small classes, as those were always my best experiences in uni.

For example, my calculus classes were so bad at UT (rushed, couldn't interact with the professor, assumed you learned everything outside of class) that I ended up getting my two calculus classes out of the way at a Houston community college over the summer. And man, the class was slow paced, everyone had a chance to ask questions, only 12 kids were in the class. It blew my mind that that class was $60 and my crowded, rushed UT class was $4500.

Something just isn't right in our higher education system.

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

#23

Post by buboard »

Colleges need to change their model and build a "facebook for rich students". Memberships cost $1000 / month, pokes $100, by invitation only.

I 've heard that online classes do not work. Conferences do, however, in fact i think they are preferable. And they get a ton more visibility and attendance too

If there's something about university it's that the culture of curiosity, studying and learning is contagious , and also there's the competitive element which pushes students to perform better. I don't know how you would recreate that in the virtual world. Perhaps with a lot of gamification

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

#24

Post by echelon »

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.

> having a reputable college you can put on your résumé.

At what point will firms rank new grad candidates inversely proportional to the prestige of their university?

Prestigious universities equate with more expensive candidates. Many positions probably don't demand skills beyond the ability to write mostly CRUD apps. The pedigree doesn't really matter in that case.

All companies have these roles. Somebody needs to do the mundane work.

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

#25

Post by maskboy »

jmspring wrote: post #16
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’…

Horeshit.

having taken lin alg with Gil Strang and simultaneously watched his Youtube videos, I can confidently say that Youtube Gil Strang clicked while realtime Strang confused.

;)

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

#26

Post by londons_explore »

pr0duktiv wrote: post #21
pm90 wrote: post #14

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 po…

Hm, at least speaking for my uni (ETH Zurich), lots of grad students from Asia come here for cheap tuition & good PhD salaries, but almost all Chinese grad students I asked want to go back to China afterwards. Ideally we would keep talented people here instead of paying for their education with taxes and have them go back afterwards.

If you were running a country, would you want your brightest and best people leaving and never returning?

A large proportion of chinese people have to go back to China after being educated, or china will discourage them from leaving in the first place, since it wouldn't be in the national interest.

The US does similar stuff - through their worldwide taxation scheme, they discourage citizens from earning lots of money abroad. They're pretty much saying "if you're successful, we want you to bring those profits back to America".

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

#27

Post by ImaCake »

pr0duktiv wrote: post #21
pm90 wrote: post #14

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 po…

Hm, at least speaking for my uni (ETH Zurich), lots of grad students from Asia come here for cheap tuition & good PhD salaries, but almost all Chinese grad students I asked want to go back to China afterwards. Ideally we would keep talented people here instead of paying for their education with taxes and have them go back afterwards.

Maybe you could go with something like the Australian model where Uni is relatively expensive but high quality for international students while it is subsidised for domestic students with interest free loans and direct subsidies on course costs.

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

#28

Post by em500 »

pr0duktiv wrote: post #21
pm90 wrote: post #14

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 po…

Hm, at least speaking for my uni (ETH Zurich), lots of grad students from Asia come here for cheap tuition & good PhD salaries, but almost all Chinese grad students I asked want to go back to China afterwards. Ideally we would keep talented people here instead of paying for their education with taxes and have them go back afterwards.

> Ideally we would keep talented people here instead of paying for their education with taxes and have them go back afterwards.

Not sure how Swiss uni financing is setup, but I believe in most countries international (undergraduate) students pay full price so it's hard to argue that the host country is "paying for their education with taxes".

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

#29

Post by nicbou »

DangitBobby wrote: post #8
Rexxar wrote: post #3

Why they aren't just asking some additional classes after the lockout ? Why immediately ask for a refund after a clearly exceptional event for a curriculum that last probably many years ?

The deal has been altered. They paid for in-person instruction and interaction with a professor and classmates, as well as numerous amenities and facilities, all of which contribute to the college experience. All of which comes at a hefty premium. Instead, they got online instruction, which is less valuable (even when it comes to tuition prices), and typically involves little to no instruction or interaction with a l…

Without the benefits you named, I'd argue that you get almost no value out of university. You end up paying a lot of money to teach yourself things. At that point, I'd rather rely on the excellent (free) resources available on the internet. Khan Academy did more for me than my university ever did.

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

#30

Post by Krasnol »

nicolas_t wrote: post #15
skocznymroczny wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

I have the feeling like OPs reputation theory is self fulfilling in the US and a narrow effect that came up with those paid education thing they have over there. It's like that artificial value you get for your extra money. Like wearing the brand of cloth you bought on the outside of it for everybody to see.
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