Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

stanforddaily.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 482 posts

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

#421

Post by barry-cotter »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #323
beaner wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in the distinction you're making, I just think that many of the degree programs for these older subjects are effectively acting as "diploma mills" today because their result for the student is about the same.

That's true, but GP is making a distinction between diploma mills that have some underlying substance, vs. ones that are completely fake and invented for purpose. From the POV of a student entering a job market, anthropology or international studies may be completely useless. But the student gained real knowledge that is useful for some jobs (even if they're not pursuing them). And it can be useful in their life. To…

> Meanwhile, those fake degrees are literally scams. I.e. students (and their families) are being scammed for their money. The topics are self-referential (invented to be taught), and exist in order to justify spending few years on them, so that the degree rewards putting in work - which makes that degree valuable for employers in the first place. And during the course of that degree, various entities - universities, textbook publishers, etc. - are bleeding students dry. It's not just a degree mill, it's a money printer. The degree becomes purely proof of work, and on top of wasted years of your life, you also have to pay for it.

Please provide examples. I thought Communications was bullshit until I read a textbook. Cyber security is not a bullshit field even though actual practitioners hold degree programmes in it in extremely low esteem. What are some examples of business or other degrees that are in some objective sense valueless? Criminal justice degrees or fire science ones are hazing credentialism but they’re not literally worthless and the research they’re based on is real.

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

#422

Post by JamisonM »

DevKoala wrote: post #405
JamisonM wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "online marketing" degrees are just part of this category, not anything special in themselves. I disagree in that many of the other topics have a real academic history and tradition, involve the expression of genuinely important ideas. Being immersed in that for years has value: in the facts learned, the overall experience, and an appreciation for aspects of the world that you might not have understood or appreciat…

From your source, a NPV of ~$680k in accumulated earnings over 30 years is the average return. That is ~$22,600 earnings per year. I don't think that is a good return by any means. Am I reading the chart correctly? If so, I don't see how your link favors your argument.

That's not what NPV means, no.

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

#423

Post by jachee »

ketamine__ wrote: post #407
jachee wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. The bars should be closed, too. We should be spending the entire defense budget on paying for people to stay home, stay safe, and to get them what they need; as well as funding as much scientific research as feasible to fight this clear and present danger to our lives and livelihoods.

In what world is a virus that is asymptomatic for 99.9% of the population a clear and present danger to our lives?

Yeah, you need to stop spreading misinformation.

This doesn't look like a "99.9% asymptomatic" virus:

https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386...

And that's one of the MOST conservative media outlets in the world.

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

#424

Post by JamisonM »

beaner wrote: post #326
JamisonM wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solid ROI on arts degrees is the market saying that they are needed, no?

I think it's a tricky question, because the provided link seems to distinguish liberal arts schools from other non-technology, non-business schools, and I don't know how that distinction is being made. It could be that their subjects are largely similar, but the schools being explicitly marked as "liberal arts" schools are of an elitist class separated by grades and/or family privilege. And that these aspects of the…

There's a lot more evidence than that out there anyway.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/business/liberal-arts-ste...

There isn't a crisis of unemployed liberal arts majors in America or the world, there is a reason for that. Of course there are a lot of people that have convinced themselves that there is such a crisis!

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

#425

Post by castratikron »

chrisseaton wrote: post #60
huffmsa wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but there are outbreaks of everything at the beginning of the school year, at all levels. Flu, mono, the clap. It's why you're supposed to be up to date on your vaccinations. It's just what happens when a bunch of people who've been in separate microbiomes come together and start sharing the same air.

Freshers’ flu we used to call it. And everyone getting physical in the first couple of weeks means it spreads very quickly.

I'm convinced I nearly died during my first semester. Swine flu, pneumonia and a throat infection all in the course of a month. Anyone who thinks this won't spread through a college doesn't have a clue.

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

#426

Post by andrei_says_ »

jmull wrote: post #176
jimmar wrote: post #106

I'm a professor at a regional university. Not a big name school, but we have about 5,000 students. We would be bankrupt if we told students we'd only be offering classes online this fall because students, by an overwhelming majority, want the in-person experience. We know we would lose enrollment if we went fully online this fall, and the drop would be significant enough for the university to declare bankruptcy. Harv…

Man, this is very tough. I think the problem is (and I very much hope I am wrong!) that an outbreak will occur and your university will still have the financial problems. And also some more sick and dead people. (All from a US perspective) There's been a crazy notion floating around from the start on this, that we can either keep our normal activities/economy (jobs, businesses, schools, etc) or deal with the pandemic…

We are always 6 weeks away from practically ending the pandemic nationwide... If we were capable of a massive, coordinated collaborative effort.

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

#427

Post by timr »

acdha wrote: post #273
timr wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We know that there are people who take a long time to recover." There are people who take a long time to recover from rhinovirus. The question is, at what rate? You'll note that this is not covered in the articles you have linked. We simply don't have the data -- what we have is a small number of anecdotes, and a bunch of news organizations who are willing to write speculative stories before we know anything. But yo…

This is a new disease which is still early in the research cycle but I find it somewhat puzzling that in such a climate you're expecting a higher burden of proof for people urging caution than the reverse, especially given that the medical community and researchers are generally urging caution. For example, I linked to this: https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/long-term-symp... > "I think it's an argument f…

"I find it somewhat puzzling that in such a climate you're expecting a higher burden of proof for people urging caution than the reverse, especially given that the medical community and researchers are generally urging caution."

I have the same standard that I apply everywhere: the burden of proof is on the person making the extraordinary claims. I don't care if that person is a hypochondriac telling me about secret herbal cures for cancer, or medical doctors who haven't done their statistics correctly. When I can look at the data myself and see that they haven't done their math right, I disregard their opinions.

Having spent my fair share of time "in the medical community", I'm here to tell you that there are plenty of doctors and nurses and professors out there who are more than willing to give a reporter a salacious quote just to get their name in the press or their paper in a better journal. Doctors are humans too: they rush to judgment, fall victim to bias, and get dazzled by the idea of seeing their name in print.

So far we have a few (mostly bad) papers describing a small number of the most serious cases, a few (really bad) papers that have gone on statistical fishing expeditions, and an absolutely credulous news media, willing to amplify any speculative claim for clicks. So no, I don't cede my critical thinking skills to an authority figure, just because that figure is in a lab coat.

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

#428

Post by mindslight »

csa wrote: post #203
jimmar wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that universities should do more to control costs. I'll push back just a bit that trimming all "fat" would make universities better. Where I am, the "fat" proposed for trimming is support for study abroad, music education, research conferences, and other things that enrich the lives of students and (hopefully) benefit society as a whole.

That’s sad, since that seems more flesh that fat to me. The real “fat” is the admin bloat at most universities. Most schools will continue to be in a precarious financial situation until that fat is cut, imho.

The fundamental problem is that music teachers tend to care about music, while administrators tend to care about protecting their own jobs. So any budget cuts tend to cut services, rather than reducing the overhead. This dynamic plays out everywhere with overgrown middle management.

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

#429

Post by alentist »

jachee wrote: post #423
ketamine__ wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what world is a virus that is asymptomatic for 99.9% of the population a clear and present danger to our lives?

Yeah, you need to stop spreading misinformation. This doesn't look like a "99.9% asymptomatic" virus: https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386... And that's one of the MOST conservative media outlets in the world.

> that's one of the MOST conservative media outlets in the world

That is far from true.

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/financial-times-media-b...

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/financial-times/

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

#430

Post by alchemism »

Chathamization wrote: post #416
alchemism wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I dropped out of International Relations to go be an autodidact hacker in the dotcom boom, I noted that the degree program was basically a track to work at the State Department. The professors were highly enthusiastic about it as a profession. Granted this may have just been my school. I didn’t find any of it relevant at the time. Fast forward 25 years and now that my IT work is distributed full-remote global op…

In my experience, professors will generally exaggerate the usefulness of the classes they teach. I'm curious as to what things from IR you found useful and what actions it lead you to? I've seen many IR grads who went into it hoping to do some sort of international work or business, only to find that businesses didn't find what they were taught particularly valuable (and the people I met who were sent overseas for bu…

I cannot say it was any specific fact or technique I learned. I would say it gave me access to an additional mindset which my colleagues did not possess.

It ended up being a powerful ‘soft’ asset in a transition to engineering management, by virtue of being the staffmember able to identify and resolve problems which originated in cultural and linguistic domains.

One does not need IR training to (say) socially engineer a budget prioritization for sending engineers on overseas exchanges, but I feel it influenced my thinking in this regard.

Post reply on HN