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

#211

Post by Chromozon » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

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…

My mother would not let me live at home while I went to college specifically for this reason. She commuted to school and worked a part-time off-campus job. She regrets that she missed out on a true college experience and did not want the same for me.

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

#212

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

TomVDB wrote: post #197

Consultant32452 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's staggering to me how much people will publicly support government subsidized partying and friend making. At least in the past it felt like people pretended it was about education.

Partying in college is totally a new phenomenon!

It's not new, but that was never really part of the sales pitch of why we should subsidize it.

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

#213

Post by randcraw » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

dharmab wrote: post #115

nradov wrote: post #111

College students have to be somewhere . They don't magically disappear when schools are closed. So this just means they will be getting infected and transmitting the virus in other places. How is that better?

Undergrads are usually required to live in dense, on campus housing. Even in normal times, campus dorms are a hotspot of disease transmission.

Navigating dorms often requires close contact (elevators, dining halls, shared bathrooms, shared rooms). Social gatherings in near-campus bars, fraternities, and on campus parties will invite infection, as party events at various summer hotspots have demonstrated already. Classrooms are probably the easiest venues of campus infection to mitigate.

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

#214

Post by baron_harkonnen » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

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…

> so-called useless degrees.

Yea no more pesky English majors and philosophy students who bring up all sorts of annoying questions about the power structures that create our society. Can't we just stop thinking about stuff and get back to work!

I'm also hoping that CS will be transformed into something more useful, thinking about complexity theory is a waste of time (outside of helping us make good white boarding questions). We really need an army of CRUD engineers to do useful stuff. If you're learning about something that doesn't make someone else money, you're wasting everyone's time.

Thank god ML has learned to focus from the start on making things that make money. Only handful of whiny researchers complain about annoying things like "oooh we don't really understand how this works, we should understand foundations, blah blah".

But statisticians, oh boy, those academic nerds are the opposite of those ML folks. Always complaining that we aren't running A/B tests correct, and not accounting for confounding variables. All we need to know about stats is how to put results for a marketing experiment into a calculator and then tell the marketing director that the variant they like better is the winner. You can learn that in two weeks.

Brave new world with such people in it!

(bonus points to anyone who recognizes the work of Shakespeare both this post and parent reference).

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

#215

Post by 0xffff2 » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #201

0xffff2 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I disagree completely. Some people are just inhumanly capable of balancing everything. One of the smartest people I met while in school was in a sorority and partied hard . She was also extremely successful acade…

I disagree completely. Some people are just inhumanly capable of balancing everything. One of the smartest people I met while in school was in a sorority and partied hard. She was also extremely successful academically and is currently attending medical school. She’s the exception that proves the rule. I met at least half a dozen people in first year who partied only moderately and have since flunked out of the schoo…

I think both you and she are near opposite ends of a fairly normal distribution. Yes, she's an outlier (not as much as you seem to think though), but your description of your experience is as well.

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

#216

Post by randcraw » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:48 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…

Tomorrow you have a .0001% chance of dying. Care to increase that to 1%? (E.g. walking through a bad thunderstorm.) Or 10% (Walking through a battlefield or in the middle of a busy superhighway.) Then are you willing to live with that level of risk every day for the next nine months? In time, increased risk adds up to real danger.

You also overlook the many people on campus who are over age 30 -- all profs, and most academic and support staff. Infected students will mix with them and increase their risk to a dangerous degree that none of them would welcome.

Or are you thinking that you can run a college with only students and no staff? Dream on.

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

#217

Post by pmyteh » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #112

kolbe wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction is purely a classist one. But functionally speaking, going to nursing school (a trade school) and going to medical school (a professional school) are the same concept, but with one side rebranding themselves as to not be associated with the lower class variant of their work. You’re right there is a legitimate distinction, but maybe we should stop. It is 2020 and thinking you’re “better” than other peo…

Yes there's still some funny distinctions being made - like in the UK some apartments are advertised as 'professionals only' and only 'professionals, teachers, and police officers' are allowed to sign and witness some documents I believe for some reason.

The list of people who can witness passport applications in the UK is quite interesting. It's got all the usual jobs you'd expect (lawyers, doctors, clergy etc.) and then a set of other jobs which are wildly diverse: childminders, for example, accountants, military officers...

The common factor turns out to be accountability. If the childminder falsely certifies an application, Ofsted will revoke her registration for dishonesty. A military officer will be cashiered. A teacher sacked and added to the barring list. So even those posts which are not 'professional' have enough consequences for acting falsely that the state relies on them to be honest.

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

#218

Post by wccrawford » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

sjm-lbm wrote: post #34

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…

Your'e exactly right - at least one large state university (UT Austin) has explicitly set a student dying a scenario that would cause them to close: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/17/ut-austin-reopening-... .

Among other things.

"Along with student death, these triggers to campus closure include “significant actions” by the governor or other public officials, sharply diminished hospital capacity, testing shortages on campus and unmanageable, widespread clusters of cases."

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

#219

Post by randcraw » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

mikem170 wrote: post #135

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…

> we know that there are a much greater percentage of people who will experience significant health problems, potentially with life-long impacts This seems to be an alarmist statement. Any disease with a fever component will leave a small percentage with long term damage, same for diseases affecting the lungs. From https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas... >COVID-19: Lasting damage to the lungs,…

> It does everyone a disservice to spread exaggerated fear.

And so does poo-pooing risk when you have no actual numbers.

Every infectious disease expert I've heard from is puzzled by this disease. The variance of individual outcomes from expected norms is simply impossible to predict. Taking unnecessary risk is the act of a fool.

If you or your close ones invite even a small chance of a dire outcome, then you play it safe. And you hope your good neighbors will be likewise considerate.

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

#220

Post by room500 » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #168

Townley wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"You can claim that the danger is over-stated, but young adults can and do get COVID-19" Yes, they can, and do. And they are overwhelmingly likely to have nothing more than a mild illness. The danger has been drastically exaggerated. In the US, fewer than 300 people under the age of 25 have died from Covid: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm Moreover, when you look at the data, nearly all of th…

This argument seems strange to me. Only 300 people have died because of the policies that were put in place. Relaxing those policies will increase that number.

Now there could be debate about whether that new number is "acceptable" or not. But we shouldn't use the success of the quarantine-like policies to argue that quarantine-like policies are unnecessary.