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Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus

stanforddaily.com

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

#471
post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Sorry, I meant the traditional definition of "conservative" with regard to media, which is to say ensuring that only unbiased facts are reported as best as possible.

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

#472
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…

Something I feel isn't being acknowledged with online education is that brick and mortar schools are the worst people to be doing it. Traditional colleges have staffing levels geared around physical limitations after all. Assuming you can make online-only work even kind've well, won't it mean that staff who share course modules are suddenly redundant as a concept? I get that that's not bad in the efficiency sense but if you can run a college without the brick, mortar, and seating requirements, then why would anyone ever hire the same number of master and phd level academics when you could have people specialized in communicating the material following modules designed by a subset of the people in the mid and upper echelons of academia? It seems like if we ever get online-only working what we're going to see is a mass consolodation of high level programs.

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

#473
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least, these tend to be real subjects that students are actually interested in. I don't think that whether real students are interested in a topic is related to how well that choice of study does for them in the real world. International relations, anthropology, women's studies, psychology, etc., are all real subjects that students are actually interested in. Some small fraction of the people who study them actu…

STEM includes hard science and mathematics - is there that much more demand for math or biology majors than for any of the social sciences? A math undergrad seems just as likely to end up in a call centre or as an office manager

My good friend got a math degree and works retail.

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

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely surprised to find another Gamecock on HN. I'm a recent grad myself - perhaps one of you students? I'm curious: under what conditions do you think the threat to Carolina (and other similar regional flagship schools) becomes "existential"? E.g. classes go online for the Fall semester sometime in Spring, with little hope of reopening the campus for Spring. Forever to thee.

> I'm curious: under what conditions do you think the threat to Carolina (and other similar regional flagship schools) becomes "existential"? In my opinion, when long-term demand for a traditional university education shows signs that it will significantly decline. I just don't think we've seen it yet. (Nor have we seen severe short-term decline in demand. Enrollment is down less than I was expecting.) There are a va…

Thanks for the insight - sounds like we have a similar perspective to the `covid+higher_education` (as well as the the health of `higher_education` in general).

Cheers, again. I always forget that their might be other people from SC on this board. It's refreshing to be reminded.

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

#475
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is college for 'betterment' or 'your interest', about getting a job. I'm not against the first two, but as a member of society I'm only interested in the last one, and I don't think I should be asked to subsidize your hobbies. If you can't get a better job because of education then I want nothing to do with it. (I'm also interested in improving science)

Betterment means all of these. What it means to you means what you think is better. Anyway, why should a hobbiest be asked to subsidize your career progression?

Great question. If someone gets a good job they won't be jealous of me. Most violent crime is by poor people, so I have an interest in there being no poor people.

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

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if that person is 18-22 years old, given the data, how is it irresponsible?

A 20 year old died of cv this week here in Victoria. Everybody is at risk, it’s just that the curve “favours” older people. You know, like professors, admin staff, mature students, parents and grandparents, ...

500 children die of influenza in the US each year. COVID is far less of a threat to young people. We have to make tradeoffs and having kids in college and not at home with parents and grandparents is a good solution

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

#477
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.

>Sucks because students are signing leases, moving crap, buying meal plans, etc, right now. Aside from the obvious safety issues. Follow the money. The colleges are getting paid regardless. The local landlords, businesses, etc. that usually get to skim easy money off college students don't. The colleges have to walk the line between screwing the students by giving them all covid (bad press -> less money) and pissing…

I'm glad someone said this because this was my take as well.

Here's Notre Dame's tracker: https://here.nd.edu/our-approach/dashboard/

My theory is that the semester will be shut down just in time for nobody to get their money back (where students otherwise would have taken a gap year or something). Maybe I'm just cynical.

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

#478
post #347
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and depending on what you're forced to do "for your country", it might mess you up psychologically. And at least in the US, we sadly don't take very good care of our veterans.

I wasn’t implying some sort of mandatory military service, just that there are other avenues to personal growth. I personally don’t think advocating a rite of passage potentially built upon lifelong debt is prudent

Fair point.

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

#479
post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 20 year old died of cv this week here in Victoria. Everybody is at risk, it’s just that the curve “favours” older people. You know, like professors, admin staff, mature students, parents and grandparents, ...

500 children die of influenza in the US each year. COVID is far less of a threat to young people. We have to make tradeoffs and having kids in college and not at home with parents and grandparents is a good solution

The CDC estimates total deaths from influenza in 2019 was 34,200.[0]

173,000 people have died in the USA this year from Covid 19 and the toll is rising.[1] that’s more than the total number of cases (22,000) in Australia. We got 10% the population of the USA and 0.2% of the deaths.

With all due respect, the USA has the worst Covid 19 rates in the entire fucking world. It is a travesty. You guys can say what you like, but your plan is literally killing people.

And specifically to your point: Do you think kids teach themselves? Kids are part of families, kids are taught by adults, kids catch busses driven by adults, kids meals are cooked by adults. The death rate of kids is irrelevant. Since kids can still spread the disease, they should be isolated like everyone else.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

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

#480
post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

500 children die of influenza in the US each year. COVID is far less of a threat to young people. We have to make tradeoffs and having kids in college and not at home with parents and grandparents is a good solution

The CDC estimates total deaths from influenza in 2019 was 34,200.[0] 173,000 people have died in the USA this year from Covid 19 and the toll is rising.[1] that’s more than the total number of cases (22,000) in Australia. We got 10% the population of the USA and 0.2% of the deaths. With all due respect, the USA has the worst Covid 19 rates in the entire fucking world. It is a travesty. You guys can say what you like,…

COVID-19 deaths per 1M population Belgium 857 Peru 796 Spain 612 UK 609 Italy 586 Sweden 573 USA 523
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