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Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus

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Re: Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus

#41

Post by clashmeifyoucan »

tzs wrote: post #39

For some schools it might be possible to have full in-person classes safely. I think Caltech could do it, and maybe MIT. Maybe Harvey Mudd, too. Oh, and probably the US military academies. Here's how I imagine it could work at Caltech. 1. For undergraduates, give everyone a rapid response COVID test when they arrive. Anyone who fails is quarantined until they are no longer infectious. 2. Once an undergraduate is clea…

So I attend Vanderbilt, who invited everyone to attend in person in the Fall and now will do the same in Spring.

The university is doing 1), as well as 2) to an extent by cancelling spring break.

Interestingly, they haven't opted to do pre-arrival testing giving the following justification:

> Based on the lessons we learned last fall, we expect students’ highest risk activities prior to returning to campus are likely to be traveling to campus and engaging in social activities before classes begin, so efforts will focus on arrival testing and a shelter in place protocol.

We will however have biweekly covid testing throughout the sem, which should be quite effective I think. For Fall, it was only weekly, which meant someone who got infected right after their test would not know until a week later.

Re: Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus

#42

Post by Rebelgecko »

tzs wrote: post #39

For some schools it might be possible to have full in-person classes safely. I think Caltech could do it, and maybe MIT. Maybe Harvey Mudd, too. Oh, and probably the US military academies. Here's how I imagine it could work at Caltech. 1. For undergraduates, give everyone a rapid response COVID test when they arrive. Anyone who fails is quarantined until they are no longer infectious. 2. Once an undergraduate is clea…

School's like Notre Dame have done surprisingly well by just having regular COVID testing for students. After they had thousands of students rush the field after a football game, I don't think they had a single COVID case.

I'm a bit skeptical with how much faith you put in those pursuing STEM degrees. There may be some correlations, but I think the delineation between "STEM and non-STEM" is oversold. Just because someone understands the correct thing to do re: COVID doesn't mean they'll actually do it

Re: Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus

#43

Post by Rebelgecko »

malchow wrote: post #14
p1necone wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you covid conspiracy blatherers still active. What do you get out of this?

The CFR of COVID is less than 0.5%, and in the opinion of many wouldn't be worth the destructive shut-downs even if those shut-downs had the effect of preventing COVID deaths.

At my college, it was a bad year when a dozen students died (which can have a negative effect on the mental health of a surprisingly large # of people). With a 0.5% fatality rate, there'd be hundreds of deaths.

Re: Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus

#44

Post by asdff »

offtop5 wrote: post #28

This is pretty sad, the four years of college easily will be the easiest years of socialization and dating a young person will ever have. To have at a minimum two of these years taken from you, is to lose something you'll never get back.

If I were in undergrad right now I would have probably just taken a leave of absence until campus is back open rather than pay full tuition for zoom class.

Re: Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus

#45

Post by asdff »

epoch_100 wrote: post #5

Stanford frosh (freshman) here. What's disappointing about this is not _that_ they cancelled — most of my friends agree that it's the prudent thing to do — but that they waited so long to cancel. For context, classes start tomorrow [0]. One of my friends literally got the news about the cancellation when he landed in SFO yesterday. Just a few weeks ago, they sent us an email reaffirming their plan to bring us back, y…

Pretty irresponsible for Stanford to even initially announce a return to class a month ago, while cases were beginning to spike from thanksgiving in CA. USC in contrast has been online since march and has maintained that this will be the status quo since July. Their announcement to have spring 2021 be online came as no surprise in mid november, on anticipation of the inevitable thanksgiving surge.

It strikes me as very odd that the admins at Stanford weren't looking around at what the rest of California was doing. It also surprised me to read that Bay Area schools were reopening as early as November. Mindboggling, really. LAUSD is remote this year.

Re: Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus

#46

Post by asdff »

toomanyrichies wrote: post #29

Out of curiosity and for the sake of comparison- to what extent did other campuses handle the situation similarly or differently? I'm especially curious about Berkeley since they're also a top-tier program in a similar region, but those with insight into any other California campus would also be interesting to hear from.

USC has been online since March and is online for spring 2021. There are a limited number of people living on campus and testing is required after arrival, and the USC hotel has been converted into a quarantine facility; where people in isolation would be delivered meals. Employees and students are told to take a covid test at least once a week, and since this test is processed by USC themselves turnaround is within 24hrs. USC has received doses of the vaccine already and is vaccinating groups in 1A within their medical community. 1B will include essential employees with on site business and those older than >75 within the university community, and this will begin as soon as the county health authority authorizes it.

Re: Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus

#47

Post by dehrmann »

asdff wrote: post #44
offtop5 wrote: post #28

This is pretty sad, the four years of college easily will be the easiest years of socialization and dating a young person will ever have. To have at a minimum two of these years taken from you, is to lose something you'll never get back.

If I were in undergrad right now I would have probably just taken a leave of absence until campus is back open rather than pay full tuition for zoom class.

In a cohort with 1.25-1.5x the normal class size? They're both bad options; I'm not sure what I would have done.

Re: Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus

#49

Post by stopChanging »

tzs wrote: post #39

For some schools it might be possible to have full in-person classes safely. I think Caltech could do it, and maybe MIT. Maybe Harvey Mudd, too. Oh, and probably the US military academies. Here's how I imagine it could work at Caltech. 1. For undergraduates, give everyone a rapid response COVID test when they arrive. Anyone who fails is quarantined until they are no longer infectious. 2. Once an undergraduate is clea…

Reading your comment really takes me back.

"STEM undergrads > non-STEM undergrads"

For me, this superiority complex heavily tainted the open campus, freedom of thought feel colleges strive to represent. Constant bragging about whose curriculum is more challenging is one thing, but suggesting without a whiff of substantiation STEM majors wont spread covid as much because they "understand the science and mathematical models"?

I feel like I'm back in the school library trying to focus on my work while some loud, insufferable 20 year old with zero work experience two tables away decries sociology majors.

Re: Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus

#50

Post by jl2718 »

My reading of the campus environment prior to March was that, aside from any pandemic concern, Stanford was not prepared for the heightened level of student and community activism on campus coming into 2020, and the transformation of the formerly bucolic evergreen village into a high-rise arcology, was probably making a lot of people nervous.
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