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

MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

web.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 605 posts

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#471

Post by Symbiote »

Larrikin wrote: post #403
aatharuv wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What dorms don't have kitchens? Certainly when I went to MIT, most (if not all) dorms at least had kitchenette's, 20 years back. Shared, of course, which is the main problem.

I've never seen a true dorm with a kitchen, the transition apartments owned by the university for juniors and seniors had them but freshman and sophomore dorms I've been in tend to have microwaves and thats it. Its the right decision in my opinion since the largest number of fire alarm evacuations I've had to do were in those dorms because 18 and 19 year olds living away from their parents can't even figure out how t…

That's disappointing.

The shared kitchen in my "dorm" (we don't use the word) in London was great -- I made good friends by cooking together with others, and massively improved my cooking ability and confidence.

Day-to-day we mostly cooked fairly simple things (like on the front covers of these "student cookbooks"[1], which I was given about 5 of by relatives and friends), but every 2-4 weeks someone would decide to make an elaborate meal, probably something traditional from their country.

The fire alarm was activated once in two years -- and that was the warden burning something in his kitchen.

These kitchens are all for first year students:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/campus-life/accommodation/h...

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/campus-life/accommodation/h...

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/campus-life/accommodation/h...

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/books/cookbook...

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#472

Post by mlang23 »

secstate wrote: post #370
protomyth wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US colleges earn money off the meal plan and tend to be liability shy so having a full kitchen is a non-starter. Heck, it was against the rules to have a microwave in dorms (even room not in actual dorms) where I went to college. It was a pain in the butt.

Pretty sure the ban on microwaves was an electrical fire risk, not them being predatory about students eating at the dining hall. Can you imagine if even every other room had an appliance pulling 1000W whenever the hell a student felt like warming up some soup?

OK, I know the U.S. doesn't have a good public healthcare system. But please don't tell me you don't have decent electricity either?

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#473

Post by asiachick »

PureParadigm wrote: post #50

I think large decisive moves like this may seem to some to be an overreaction, but it will prove to be the correct decision in hindsight (like the early travel bans). Exponential growth is real, and anything we can do to slow the rate of infection will save lives. As a current undergrad at UC Berkeley, they've moved all classes here online [1], and exams are either being postponed or converted to take-home assignment…

Apparently during the Spanish flu cities that closed their schools early had 1/2 as many deaths as cities that waited until the first confirmed cars showed up in their city.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#474

Post by WalterBright »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #467
WalterBright wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the value of an elite education is signaling Not in my case (Caltech). It was clear when I got an industry job that a BS from Caltech was at about the same level as an MS from other institutions. But if the institution is large enough, one can get an elite education by careful selection of the classes and professors, and doing the maximum in those classes rather than just getting by. For example, take honor…

Yikes, I wonder what you think of people like me that couldnt get an elite education.

I don't care if someone has an elite education or not. It's about whether they can do the job or not.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#476

Post by Symbiote »

ijidak wrote: post #325
generationP wrote: post #144

> Undergraduates who live in an MIT residence or fraternity, sorority or independent living group (FSILG) must begin packing and departing this Saturday, March 14. We are requiring undergraduates to depart from campus residences no later than noon on Tuesday, March 17. This is strange. Isn't the travel they are forcing quite possibly a cure worse than the disease? And are they really expecting students (many of them…

Probably, the better way to view these measures by various organizations is in terms of liability. Child gets sick at home, that's on the parents. Child gets sick in a dorm, that's on MIT. That might explain a lot of the drastic reactions by institutions everywhere. You can't let yourself be accused of doing too little. It's probably less liability for doing too much than the potential liability of doing too little.…

> Child gets sick in a dorm, that's on MIT.

I'd argue that they're adults, but from the rest of this thread (not allowed to cook, not trusted to keep clean, restrictions on alcohol, without a genuine lease on their home) maybe you're right.

When do American students / young people learn these things?

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#477

Post by thaumasiotes »

mlang23 wrote: post #472
secstate wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the ban on microwaves was an electrical fire risk, not them being predatory about students eating at the dining hall. Can you imagine if even every other room had an appliance pulling 1000W whenever the hell a student felt like warming up some soup?

OK, I know the U.S. doesn't have a good public healthcare system. But please don't tell me you don't have decent electricity either?

It's fine; I have no idea what secstate was thinking.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#478

Post by vesinisa »

leetcrew wrote: post #202
vesinisa wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a lawyer, but that sure sounds shady as hell. Where I live student housing, even in a dorm, is subject to normal tenancy laws - meaning eviction requires long notice etc. Even saying to someone they need to vacate their home in less than a week could turn out very expensive for the landlord in court.

do you live in the US? getting kicked out of housing is usually a major stick that colleges use to enforce disciplinary codes. at my school, the first serious offense would result in being kicked from one dorm to another (I guess to separate you from your network of troublemakers?). after enough strikes, you would be kicked out of campus housing altogether (if not suspended/expelled). iirc, they would usually give ab…

I live in Finland. The student union is the body which owns the student housing and acts as the landlord around here. When the landlord normally resigns the rental agreement, the minimum notice period is six months.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#479

Post by laputan_machine »

iokanuon wrote: post #205
kyeb wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In what way are dorms worse than personal homes for diseases anyway? Are they not trusting their students to prepare their own food? Why don't they just close the dining halls instead? The dorms have shared bathrooms, often shared rooms with doubles, triples, and quads, and shared living spaces (lounges, study rooms, laundry, etc.) in addition to the dining halls. Moreover, in our dorms, we have effectively no way t…

>Moreover, in our dorms, we have effectively no way to eat if the dining halls close down. That sounds crazy to me, in Poland there's a multitude of cheap restaurants full of students close to every university campus. There's a big demand because universities are packed with students that don't cook for themselves. Why hasn't the same happened to the US then?

In the UK at least, most students live in shared-housing and cook for themselves from supermarket food, the 'dorm' model is usually used for the first year (~10 people sharing a bathroom and kitchen, although some new builds now have ensuite bathrooms), but never a shared room. Usually no cafeteria either (although some do). I can't believe some people are paying tens of thousands of dollars per semester to share a room!

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#480

Post by heavenlyblue »

laputan_machine wrote: post #479
iokanuon wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Moreover, in our dorms, we have effectively no way to eat if the dining halls close down. That sounds crazy to me, in Poland there's a multitude of cheap restaurants full of students close to every university campus. There's a big demand because universities are packed with students that don't cook for themselves. Why hasn't the same happened to the US then?

In the UK at least, most students live in shared-housing and cook for themselves from supermarket food, the 'dorm' model is usually used for the first year (~10 people sharing a bathroom and kitchen, although some new builds now have ensuite bathrooms), but never a shared room. Usually no cafeteria either (although some do). I can't believe some people are paying tens of thousands of dollars per semester to share a r…

Well - you are lying since none of the university accommodation in the UK is covered by tuition fees and it’s costs are sufficiently higher than what you would pay if you didn’t live in dorms.

Also I had a friend who lived in a shared bunk room in the UK.

Post reply on HN