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Int. students may need to leave US if classes are 100% Remote

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191–200 of 231 posts

Re: Int. students may need to leave US if classes are 100% Remote

#191

To add a bit of color: * One of my friends went to live with her parents after her OPT expired. She was supposed to enroll in an M.S. in August, but due to COVID, the embassies in her country were shut down. While her university is hybrid, she chose to stay in her home country to take the online-only courses, which are (fortunately) discounted. * My sister, who is trying to renew her F-1 and has no other status optio…

The point about your mom (and more broadly older faculty) is important. I hope it works out for her.

Vulnerable faculty will likely be forced to hold "in-person" lectures (ergo worsening their risk profiles) for the universities to create quasi-in-person courses: in that, videos will still be recorded and students probably won't show up but, on paper, it wouldn't be classified as an online course. This would likely be coupled with batch-scheduled exams being the only occasion the students need to show up in person for (or perhaps, those too are obviated via take-home exams?). This is essentially identical to some large enrollment, advanced CS theory courses I've taken.

Re: Int. students may need to leave US if classes are 100% Remote

#192
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely every person involved should simply be turning to the people above/before them in the chain of command and saying "this is impossible, we need to be more flexible now". And whoever is blocking that escalation is reasonably part of the problem.

Escalating only works when you can reach reason in the higher chain. You can only go to senior leadership with the options and consequences. We have option A or option B, or we do nothing and we have consequence C. When that leader picks consequence C then you're stuck. We have an administration that doesn't value academia or the visa program. So it's no surprise they're willing to sacrifice it in name of "schools mu…

Firstly, I don't know of any situation where that's true. If your manager is insisting on something impossible or immoral/unethical, you escalate. Escalating doesn't have to be within the organisation. It can be going public, going sideways (to clients/collaborators), or going way up (to investors/funders/government/regulators).

Secondly, what I was saying is that whoever is the person that refuses to take it higher - that person is the problem. If you're stuck underneath them, go above them, or go public, or do whatever you need to do to avoid compromising yourself.

Re: Int. students may need to leave US if classes are 100% Remote

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making people do onerous things without good cause IS ridiculous.

Um, it is a good reason. To continue to get a quality education.

I think the complaint is that it would be possible to get a quality education without the onerous requirements if it weren't for some bureaucratic gatekeeper -- they're not saying that education isn't a good reason, but rather there's no reason for the gatekeeping.

Re: Int. students may need to leave US if classes are 100% Remote

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't these visas supposed to be for bringing talented individuals with expertise deemed to be missing in the US? Was the visa system ever 'just' for bringing 'highly qualified' individuals? If America wants highly qualified individuals, it seems to me that 'nurturing' that talent is more important. Bringing in uniquely talented individuals who can distribute expert knowledge accomplishes that. Bringing an IT worke…

Yeah, this whole idea seems a little misunderstood. Here's some of the high-level effects of bringing international talent of all sorts to the US of year: 1) more talent in the US 2) less talent in other nations 3) the US can ignore pre-university education and opportunity problems 1 and 2 are great for the US government and the top of the US economy, but bad for pretty much everybody else. 3 is pretty awful for a hu…

This. This is exactly what I was thinking as I was reading through these threads. Logged in just to upvote, but might as well say: "Thanks for being out there my thought-doppelganger!"

Re: Int. students may need to leave US if classes are 100% Remote

#195
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear I have no skin in the game (not from the US), but if the GP's claims are true, then I was misled because I did think that the 40% that gets thrown around was founded only by immigrants. Does it change my view on immigration? Of course not, but it does indicate that if immigration was stopped entirely then it is not true to say that that 40% slice of fortune 500 companies would simply never have been found…

Well... 40% of the Fortune 500 had at least one founder that was from an immigrant family. I think that's the precise statement, but I might misunderstand. That is not the same as saying that 40% of the founders of Fortune 500 companies were immigrants (which I believe is bruceb's point). To your point: Let's say there were 5 founders. Let's say one was an immigrant. Would the company still have been founded by the o…

I think you are building a straw man from my comment instead of addressing the actual claim, my point is absolutely not about questioning whether the co-founders were relevant to the companies success.

My comment should be read as: I have seen the 40% figure given very often on HN and I did interpret it as 40% of Fortune 500 companies being founded only by first-generation immigrants.

To me someone who was born in a country and has citizenship in that particular country is not an immigrant.

Re: Int. students may need to leave US if classes are 100% Remote

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being an immigrant is not virtuous in and of itself. How many of those 40% 'immigrant families' immigrated here poor and climbed the economic ladder, and how many took stolen wealth from a feudal system in the old country and built a business? Instead of investing in our domestic population with job training and scholarships, corporations are importing labor from overseas. Those people getting imported have degrees (…

> More labor means cheaper labor. The US population has grown from ~150 million in 1950 to ~350 million now.

Interesting. Describe real wage growth over that time period.

Re: Int. students may need to leave US if classes are 100% Remote

#198

This is just another step in a broad-based program to make sure as few highly qualified people as possible can come to learn and work in the US. (1) F1 visas have been effectively banned in much of the world since COVID started - the required interviews could only be done in now-closed centers. (2) H1B, L1, H4, and J1 visas have been suspended until the end of the year, leaving OPT transfers, H1B lottery winners (alr…

Bullshit, it's not an abandonment, it's active harassment.

Getting paperwork finished for the visas for me and my wife can be a months long ordeal where paperwork just disappears and the lawyers have to restart the process.

The rules change randomly, without warning, which causes stress for me and my family.

This is a campaign to harass people, so they don't come to the US, because the current administration lacks the ability to actually do what they want.

Just another massive failure of the American model of governance.

Re: Int. students may need to leave US if classes are 100% Remote

#199
post #157

This is just another step in a broad-based program to make sure as few highly qualified people as possible can come to learn and work in the US. (1) F1 visas have been effectively banned in much of the world since COVID started - the required interviews could only be done in now-closed centers. (2) H1B, L1, H4, and J1 visas have been suspended until the end of the year, leaving OPT transfers, H1B lottery winners (alr…

Or, maybe American’s have grown tired of educating state sponsored (China) students whose sponsors quite literally seek to exfiltrate knowledge from U.S. academia and industry. Do you think I as an American would be welcome to attend a Chinese university 100% remotely? Do you think China would allow any American to attend a program in China that could help the U.S. build a competitive or defensive advantage?

Wasn't that literally the US model, until recently?

Bring folks in, use their knowledge, fuck whoever gave them that knowledge in the first place?

Re: Int. students may need to leave US if classes are 100% Remote

#200

I'm genuine curious what economic benefits this brings. With the very limited economics I've learned, most students are net spenders in the country, them being here will only pour more money in. Economically, how does stopping them coming in help anyone?

It helps politicians to get elected. Immigrants don't vote (they can't), citizens with anti-immigrant sentiments do.
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