Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by cellular » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

Gracana wrote: post #87

LargeWu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is college actually good at that sort of thing, or is it just better than staying at home? If I spent half my college tuition on networking, social clubs, conferences, hobby groups, etc, I bet I could do a lot better than I did at my college campus.

Dang! That is something I had not considered before!

I think that would be a great strategy! Spending the money on hobby groups, conferences etc could be put on a resume!

Now thinking of all kinds of options that would give better experience...it seems driving to these might be the bottleneck. But surely there are ones that can subject a student to different opinion/people etc without needing to commute. Heck even a good internship could replace dorm life, and would actually PAY the student.

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

#102

Post by DataWorker » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

gilbetron wrote: post #69

danso wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stanford cancelling on-campus education definitely feels like a major bellwether. It's hard to think of any school better positioned to make it work. Not just because of its wealth and elite status, but because the climate is so aggressively warm and non-rainy, and the spacious campus absolutely has the space (though perhaps not the seating/tables, at least initially) to accommodate all-outdoor classes and activities…

Stanford and a number of the well positioned universities can weather the storm, which is why the are cancelling in person after hoping not to. https://www.profgalloway.com/uss-university

As with everything related to the pandemic, it kills the smaller competitors making those who will survive, schools like Stanford, Harvard, businesses like apple and google, have an even greater market dominance than before.

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

#103

Post by pgrote » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #25

pgrote wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I fully expect a notable outbreak in some college to start a wave of media, followed by all the universities sending everyone back home again. If you are referring to the USA, I disagree. Unless the local county health departments or states require schools to go virtual, I don't see it. If a large public university experiences an outbreak, I don't think they will go virtual until someone dies. I do not think large p…

My experience has been that schools cave pretty fast in the face of media pressure. Edit: Especially if fueled by some notable event.

>My experience has been that schools cave pretty fast in the face of media pressure.

Before now I would agree with you. From what has been reported schools in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Indiana are staying open after large outbreaks. These are elementary and high schools, so maybe it'll be different with universities.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/13/us/schools-quarantined-corona...

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

#104

Post by netcan » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

Gracana wrote: post #87

LargeWu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is college actually good at that sort of thing, or is it just better than staying at home? If I spent half my college tuition on networking, social clubs, conferences, hobby groups, etc, I bet I could do a lot better than I did at my college campus.

Theory and practice.

In theory, you could take your college costs and spend them more wisely elsewhere. Internet age gurus like Peter Thiel, Seth Godin & others have been advocating this for 20 years.

Want to learn business? Take $50k out of the $200k price tag of a fancy college and start a business with a few similarly minded people. Pay a seasoned business person to advise you. After 4 years, you will know much more about business. Same for software engineering, etc. Same for side-effects like networking horizon expansion and everything.

In practice, all that money (whether parental savings to student loans) is tied up with college. The social capital which allows anyone to spend 4 years on abstract "betterment" is tied to college. The safety nets keeping you on course to graduate aren't there.

It's theoretically possible, easy even. In practice, this level of determined heterodoxy is a 1-in-a-thousand thing. Very unlikely to be chosen and very unlikely to bee seen through by a 20-year old.

People operate within structure. We are orders of magnitude less independent than we imagine.

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

#105

Post by chongli » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

bob33212 wrote: post #81

chongli wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sucks because students are signing leases, moving crap, buying meal plans, etc, right now. This is the whole reason schools want students back. They’re desperate to recover some of this cash flow. They have huge budgets and vast numbers of administrative staff to pay. Without the revenue from residence leases and meal plans, they’re in real trouble.

The value offered by colleges is not just an education. It is 4 years of living away from home experiencing whatever floats your boat ( frats, independence, parties, sports, friends, etc... ). There is virtually no demand for online only classes above a 5k/year price point. There is a similar situation with private schools. Some of the demand comes from the fact that it is also a babysitting service, forced social gr…

It is 4 years of living away from home experiencing whatever floats your boat ( frats, independence, parties, sports, friends, etc... )

I’m in university right now. I just finished a term of online classes. I’ve definitely witnessed those benefits being enjoyed by other students but I haven’t had the time to enjoy them myself; my program is simply too difficult for that. The most I’ve enjoyed is going out for drinks with friends once a week, and maybe the occasional meal out on another night.

The ones joining frats, partying constantly, playing sports and all that must have trivial classes. Either that or they’re already so rich and privileged that they can afford to fail courses and keep going.

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

#106

Post by jimmar » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

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. Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and other big names have enough reputation and big enough endowments to weather a storm of a temporary drop in enrollment due to shifting instruction online. Many universities cannot.

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

#107

Post by elliekelly » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #88

elliekelly wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not being contrary at all. Nor do I think I’ve grossly misunderstood the word. Haven’t you ever been to a trade show - a meeting of people from one profession? I don’t think I’ve used the word outside of its definition: > 3. b : the business or work in which one engages regularly : OCCUPATION > 3. c : the persons engaged in an occupation, business, or industry https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trade

If you take your definition then all jobs are trades, in which case why do you think we have the word trade if it doesn’t add any new meaning, and what do you think a ‘profession‘ is? Have you never heard people make a distinction between tradespeople and professionals? What do you think the words in this article mean? Are they completely new concepts to you? https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-m…

It’s quite unnecessary for you to be so condescending. Of course I’m familiar with other uses of the word. Are you? Why are you so upset by what I’ve said?

What is the distinction between a chef trained at a vocational school and a lawyer trained at a law school? Or a programmer trained at Stanford?

Chefs produce something tangible, you might say. Lawyers do, too. We draft briefs and contracts and court filings. Or maybe you’ll point out that a chef has learned a skill that takes a certain je ne sais quoi that cant be taught but can only be acquired with deliberate practice? I would say the same of programmers. (And attorneys, for that matter.) Coding is as much an art as it is a science.

And I don’t think the document you’ve linked excludes professional trades. Lawyers and doctors and programmers all provide a service:

> ‘Trade’ therefore takes its ordinary meaning, which normally involves commercial operations by a trader who provides goods or services to his or her customers in exchange for a reward.

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

#108

Post by nradov » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

anonunivgrad wrote: post #22

Let the college kids get sick. They are extremely unlikely to have any serious effects from covid. At least on a college campus they won’t infect older family members. Herd immunity on campus would be reached very quickly. The few with serious preexisting conditions can stay home until that happens. The level of fear is frankly ridiculous. People get sick and people die. One day, we will all die. That is the human co…

The best estimate of infection fatality rate is only 0.65%, not 1%.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

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

#109

Post by JoshTko » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

celnardur wrote: post #99

I feel like I can offer a unique perspective on this because I go to Notre Dame and we are just finishing the first week of classes with everyone back on campus. It's gone alright so far. All the cases so far have been traced back to off campus bars or parties. However, I expect it to get worse soon as cases start spreading on campus. If you want to see how Notre Dame is doing with cases and testing we have a dashboa…

So the only way this would work long term is if students on campus don't go to bars to parties?

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

#110

Post by ls612 » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

nimaco wrote: post #91

acdha wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are relatively unlikely to _die_ from COVID-19 (and please do not repeat the false claim that these are only “people already on the cusp of death” - the average victim is losing at least a decade of life based on actuarial data) but we know that there are a much greater percentage of people who will experience significant health problems, potentially with life-long impacts. Similarly, not everyone on or near cam…

I always hear "much greater percentage" type language when referring to long-term effects of COVID-19. Is there an actual number associated with this? Or is it more so guesswork

It’s by definition unfalsifiable (since the long term since March hasn’t arrived yet). Which makes it a great talking point for people looking to spread fear.