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Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

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Re: Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

#151

Post by Townley »

chrisjarvis wrote: post #137
tyingq wrote: post #9

My son's state university is forcing students to return in person. I fully expect a notable outbreak in some college to start a wave of media noise, followed by all the universities sending everyone back home again. Sucks because students are signing leases, moving crap, buying meal plans, etc, right now. Aside from the obvious safety issues.

Your son wants to be there in person and he is at no danger from the coronavirus... EDIT: *infinitesimal danger

You have no reason to believe that their son wants to be there in person. The son may share their parents' safety concerns

And claiming that coronavirus poses "no danger" is simply untrue. You can claim that the danger is over-stated, but young adults can and do get COVID-19

Re: Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

#152

Post by PAPPPmAc »

LargeWu wrote: post #56
netcan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat different take. The student debt problem is not really related to the college format. The format existed in earlier decades, exists in other countries and exists in K-12 education without runaway costs and student debt. It's mostly a matter of policy. The US' method to expand third level education to most of the population was by government backed and/or subsidized loans, without price controls. This caused…

I disagree about the college format going completely online. There is so much about the college experience that is not directly related to earning a degree. It's a place where most people are exposed to new ideas, new types of people. It's a place where lasting friendships and relationships are formed. It's a place of growth that an online experience could never hope to replicate, and that's the REAL benefit of colle…

At most state schools (including the one that employs me) on-campus room and board now costs at least as much as tuition due to years of upward pressure on amenities from [parents of] students and the resulting ill-considered public/private development deals.

I agree that the spending time immersed in the university environment is one of the most important parts of the college experience, but you don't have to get expensively kenneled on campus to do that, just spend time on campus with interesting people and interesting organizations.

I would only suggest most people deal with on-campus housing if it is being primarily paid for by a scholarship or grant they won't have to pay back and/or their circumstances don't offer a good alternative. If you're attending a school where there is an option for family (or whatever) that can provide you with a non-distracting environment and a _short_ commute for cheap, do that for a year. Once you establish a cohort of known-reliable friends with similar needs, rent with them, or pick up a modest apartment. I will say, IMO, renting with unknown quantity randos from a campus-predator slumlord _is_ a worse option to university housing, it includes both sets of disadvantages.

I'm also of the opinion that you have a substantial number of gen-eds you still have to take (not covered by APs, etc.), and they won't be paid for by a scholarship, do a year or so at a community college. It will be cheaper and better than the university service courses - gigantic sections taught from materials outsourced to ed-tech carpetbaggers, supervised by disinterested graduate students with alarming English skills, optimized to extract tuition from kids who statistically won't make it. I say this after years of discovering my students who took their early calculus sequence at community college, embarrassingly, tend to be more mathematically literate than the ones who did it at the university. I'm not yet convinced if that is because the ones that had the maturity to do it that way are predisposed and/or usually a little older, or the quality of the early sequence at [intentionally unnamed university] are really that poor.

Re: Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

#153

Post by chrisjarvis »

kingkawn wrote: post #136

The self-righteous smugness on display in this thread about what is valuable to learn and what isn’t is mind boggling. Apparently humility and curiosity about things you don’t know aren’t on the stem curriculum y’all took

Also its much easier to say every should go to school online when the person saying it most likely already got to go to college for real.

Re: Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

#154

Post by amanaplanacanal »

matz1 wrote: post #63
tyingq wrote: post #9

My son's state university is forcing students to return in person. I fully expect a notable outbreak in some college to start a wave of media noise, followed by all the universities sending everyone back home again. Sucks because students are signing leases, moving crap, buying meal plans, etc, right now. Aside from the obvious safety issues.

So what if its outbreak? Why afraid? We know by now that vast majority of people will be fine.

Culling the herd of the weak is probably not the college experience most people are looking for.

Re: Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

#155

Post by doorstar »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #67
eric4smith wrote: post #12

I firmly think there is a sea change going on from standard “college” degrees to more practical training that will be a mix of apprenticeship and solid training like air/vac, electricians and online skills, since the vast majority of jobs don’t really need a college degree. This has actually begun already at the high school level. Once again I believe net/net the beer virus will be positive for America in the long ru…

Trades have been more lucrative than many liberal arts-esque jobs for decades. Awareness isn’t the issue. The issue is social acceptability. Until plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc. stop being a part of the undesirable Other to middle and upper middle class Americans, nothing will change. Paying $100,000 for your kid to study underwater basket weaving at Harvard is still socially superior to running a multi-mil…

College vs. trade school isn't just about money or 'social acceptability', it's also about opportunity. A 18 year old who goes to trade school to become an electrician is going to become an electrician, they are not going to be able to change their minds in two years and become a biologist.

That kid who went to college at 18 has a lot more options. They can switch majors, they can take internships, they can get their degree in underwater basketweaving and still be considered a good applicant to a masters program. They can also take that degree and apply to a lot of 'soft' positions. A basketweaving degree won't get you a dev job at google, but it might get you a HR job.

Re: Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

#156

Post by netcan »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #126
netcan wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that any parent who outright rejects this logic is a moron too, probably moreso. The idea that "social desirability" does not reflect actually valuable stuff is foolish. Class exists in some form in every society. People are always hyper-aware of class issues, and it has always been a primary part of the college/career decision process.

In the US we pretend that class doesn’t exist here. We have risen above that, you see, anybody here can become anything they want. Much the same way we pretend that racism doesn’t exist.

In most republics we pretend that class doesn't exist, and it doesn't in the rigid ways that it did previously. It does however, always exist in some form.

In the UK, class is still discernible immediately by accent, schools are mostly segregated by class, etc. In Ireland, it's not like the UK... though some Dublin neighborhoods still have very distinct class accents. Even this is dying off. But.. class still exists in a more amorphous form broadly.

Re: Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

#157

Post by leetcrew »

LargeWu wrote: post #56
netcan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat different take. The student debt problem is not really related to the college format. The format existed in earlier decades, exists in other countries and exists in K-12 education without runaway costs and student debt. It's mostly a matter of policy. The US' method to expand third level education to most of the population was by government backed and/or subsidized loans, without price controls. This caused…

I disagree about the college format going completely online. There is so much about the college experience that is not directly related to earning a degree. It's a place where most people are exposed to new ideas, new types of people. It's a place where lasting friendships and relationships are formed. It's a place of growth that an online experience could never hope to replicate, and that's the REAL benefit of colle…

> I know people who went to college, but lived at home with their parents "to save money". In reality, they didn't need to save the minimal room and board fees of a state school; they were mostly just cowards. They are the people that haven't changed at all since high school. They're the people that are afraid of everything in the world outside their small circle.

this might be true of the people you know, but I hope you don't think it holds in general. at the state school I went to, room and board cost the same amount as the in-state tuition itself. for a lot of families, this is not "minimal". if your parents have a spare room and already cook dinner every night, this almost doubles the cost of your education.

if your parents treat you like an adult (ie, you control your schedule, no curfew, etc.), there's no reason why you can't get the full college experience as a commuter.

Re: Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

#158

Post by 0xffff2 »

jeffbee wrote: post #79
chrisseaton wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would consider all of those “trades.” Well good luck communicating with other people because is not how anyone else anywhere uses the word ‘trade’. They’re not ‘trades’ they’re ‘professions’. And I would guess you already know this and you’re trying to be contrary rather than you’re genuinely misunderstanding a basic word.

Computer software development has none of the characteristics of a profession, either. There's no licensure, no guild, no liability, and many people practice it without formal training. The software industry would benefit from moving in the direction of being either a "trade" without the manual labor, or toward being a real profession, but it currently occupies a weird middle ground.

>There's no licensure, no guild, no liability,

Those are all things that are near-universally features of working a trade, so what exactly is the difference between a trade and a profession?

Re: Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

#159

Post by netcan »

kriro wrote: post #131
netcan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat different take. The student debt problem is not really related to the college format. The format existed in earlier decades, exists in other countries and exists in K-12 education without runaway costs and student debt. It's mostly a matter of policy. The US' method to expand third level education to most of the population was by government backed and/or subsidized loans, without price controls. This caused…

I think calling "most business degrees excepting accounting and finance" a problem just seems wrong and frankly pretty arrogant. I do think too many people take business degrees and think they'll just "become managers" (and there's a high number of "don't know what else to do" type of students) but there are many actually useful things taught in the typical degree programs. I mean thinking of a typical non specialize…

Well... criticising anyone's degree (even though I also have such a degree) is always arrogant. That's the point we're at though. It has become the most popular degree while simultaneously getting worse in quality... starting from a low base.

As I said, I have one of these degrees, and have hired and worked with many people with such degrees.

First, I agree that the math and (particularly) the statistics classes are useful. Finance and accounting too, in theory, though the vast majority do not seem to internalize much. Business pretty minimal though. A 3-4 years business degree comes with less math education than the first year of an engineering degree, chemistry, physics, etc.

Also.. the majority of business degrees today allow students to avoid most math altogether... and most students do this. The whole thing is continuously moving downmarket. Most business degrees (graduate & undergraduate) are not recognised BAs anymore.

"The market" wants easy degrees with no math. They also don't want accounting or finance. This leaves just the nonsense.

IMO, at this point, most business degrees are less useful than history, philosophy, etc. Graduate salaries are about the same.

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