Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus(mercurynews.com)
mercurynews.com
Stanford pulls plug on the return of freshmen and sophomores to campus
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/01/10/stanford-pulls-plug-on-the-return-of-freshmen-and-sophomores-to-campus/
69 comments
>Just a few weeks ago, they sent us an email reaffirming their plan to bring us back, yet COVID cases in California have remained relatively flat since then.
Where "flat" is 30-40k per day, which it has been since the beginning of December.
Compare that to the trough of 3k/day through the summer and the late spring "peak" of 8-10k/day.
Shit is the worst it has been and it isn't going to get better for a while.
They made the right decision, I'm sorry that it was done so late.
Where "flat" is 30-40k per day, which it has been since the beginning of December.
Compare that to the trough of 3k/day through the summer and the late spring "peak" of 8-10k/day.
Shit is the worst it has been and it isn't going to get better for a while.
They made the right decision, I'm sorry that it was done so late.
One factor they might have been considering: it does seem like these covid spikes reach a point, and then calm down. They might have hoped the top of the peak would have come earlier, and they might have been able to announce that it were safe to return. For example, if Cali had peaked a week ago, by the time y'all were set to move in, it would have been relatively safe.
It's all about the Benjamins. If they gave students enough forewarning they could pursue other options.
You're right that such short notice puts students in a tough spot. They can apparently still request pro-rated refunds, [1] but at this point they have signed up for classes and are (or were) excited to start.
1: https://registrar.stanford.edu/tuition-refund-schedule
1: https://registrar.stanford.edu/tuition-refund-schedule
It's really unfortunately that you're getting whipsawed like this. With more warning you'd more easily be able to pursue internships or other opportunities. Out of curiosity, would you have been able to take the semester off had you known several weeks ago, vs now?
For context, the number of daily covid-19 cases has roughly doubled in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties over the last few weeks. That growth I imagine is the reason why the University administration pulled the plug :(
For context, the number of daily covid-19 cases has roughly doubled in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties over the last few weeks. That growth I imagine is the reason why the University administration pulled the plug :(
> Out of curiosity, would you have been able to take the semester off had you known several weeks ago, vs now?
They extended the leave of absence deadline, so I could still conceivably take the term off. But I don’t think many frosh are doing that. We’ll be off campus for the spring too no matter what (they will prioritize juniors and seniors for graduation), so it makes sense to just do it all remotely.
Where the timing really sucks is on planning off-campus living away from home. I’m not endorsing leisure travel, but the thought of living at home for 6+ more months isn’t great for a lot of us. With classes starting tomorrow, though, it’s going to be tough for people to make arrangements (unless you want to move mid-way through the term, when coursework is heavy).
They extended the leave of absence deadline, so I could still conceivably take the term off. But I don’t think many frosh are doing that. We’ll be off campus for the spring too no matter what (they will prioritize juniors and seniors for graduation), so it makes sense to just do it all remotely.
Where the timing really sucks is on planning off-campus living away from home. I’m not endorsing leisure travel, but the thought of living at home for 6+ more months isn’t great for a lot of us. With classes starting tomorrow, though, it’s going to be tough for people to make arrangements (unless you want to move mid-way through the term, when coursework is heavy).
For what it's worth, rental units (apartments & condos) across the bay have record vacancies due to remote work. That being said:
1) Single Family Home rentals are more rare, due to former SF dwellers seeking more space. (if living with roommates is preferred) SFH near campus tends to be particularly scarce / pricey.
2) Rental terms less than 12 months are rare since landlords prefer stability and want to avoid the financial and temporal cost of re-renting.
3) The commonly available units will likely be pricier than Stanford dorm rooms.
4) The friction involved to rent a regular off campus housing unit (paperwork, security deposit, etc) is more burdensome than the turn key nature of on campus housing.
I imagine virtual-learning college students still prefer to live off campus but in the general area so that they can meet up with classmates off campus?
1) Single Family Home rentals are more rare, due to former SF dwellers seeking more space. (if living with roommates is preferred) SFH near campus tends to be particularly scarce / pricey.
2) Rental terms less than 12 months are rare since landlords prefer stability and want to avoid the financial and temporal cost of re-renting.
3) The commonly available units will likely be pricier than Stanford dorm rooms.
4) The friction involved to rent a regular off campus housing unit (paperwork, security deposit, etc) is more burdensome than the turn key nature of on campus housing.
I imagine virtual-learning college students still prefer to live off campus but in the general area so that they can meet up with classmates off campus?
That would make sense —- I was looking at California all together. Edited my parent comment to address this.
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.
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.
That's just horrible. They should at least reimburse travel fees.
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.
A lot of schools weren’t allowing deferred enrollment for freshmen or transfers this year. If you’re part of the group that has to pay full tuition, the math gets hard but what would you do for that year? Just play video games for a year at your parents home? That’s essentially what you’d be signing up for most students. I guess you have to ask how long are you willing to put your life on hold. My partner decided to do her schooling online even though she knew it would be one of the worst things ever for her.
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.
A lot of my dating age friends looking for relationships to blossom into marriages are really frustrated right now with the state of affairs. I'm beyond those years but I can appreciate their frustrations with the halting of their searches.
There will likely be less kids born in the next 6-18 months.
I'm not so sure. There is a quarantine-baby effect as well. People planning to have babies eventually have a strong incentive to do it now as they are home and can't get distracted with many other interim plans.
I'd like to see what happens.
I'd like to see what happens.
Yah, I think I read there will be more babies after this period. So running three months back from the middle of the pandemic (say in July) so maybe a lot of April babies? Makes sense, put a fertile man and women together in a confined space and for a prolonged period of time and things will naturally happen.
Its highway robbery for universities to charge the same tuition for "remote learning" that they do for in-person schooling. The dozen or so hours of academic instruction is only a fraction of the college experience that one pays for. Socialization, library access, gym access, athletics, dining services, student clubs and a whole other host of services and facilities that are denied to students during "remote learning" represent substantial value that students are paying for but no longer receiving. This is even more egregious when many students are going deeply into debt in order to pay their tuition.
Would it be a really cost prohibitive thing to begin to mass produce PPE of the highest grade, like the stuff healthcare workers use who are treating covid cases in the ICU with? It'll look totally zany but going into class wearing a bunny/hazmat suit with positive pressure filtered air and the whole shebang could be worth it for those willing to go out on a limb? What about just forming local communes where everyone stays on the compound and mutually agrees to have some up front testing and quarantine and then when you pass the bar can move freely in the commune. Are either of those feasible?
I found this story pretty interesting -- on how it's largely the willingness and compliance of the students that sets whether you can keep classes going or not:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/world/asia/singapore-coro...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/world/asia/singapore-coro...
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.
From https://registrar.berkeley.edu/service-adjustments/instructi... —
> Will students be required to take in-person classes or be present on campus?
Students will NOT be required to take in-person classes or be present on campus for the spring semester. Almost all academic offerings, including those with in-person instructional activities, will also be delivered remotely. Courses that will be offered in-person if public health conditions allow will have remote alternatives so that students can continue to make academic progress.
> Will students be required to take in-person classes or be present on campus?
Students will NOT be required to take in-person classes or be present on campus for the spring semester. Almost all academic offerings, including those with in-person instructional activities, will also be delivered remotely. Courses that will be offered in-person if public health conditions allow will have remote alternatives so that students can continue to make academic progress.
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.
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.
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 cleared to move in, they must not leave campus for the rest of the term. This should be fairly easy. When I was there, most people only had to leave on weekend, because food was only served as part of your room & board contract during weekdays. That could be extended to cover weekends during COVID. Most other things that we used to leave campus for back then are now readily obtain online for delivery.
It is #2 that I think would be problematic at many schools. I recall that earlier in the pandemic some told students to not leave campus but they were not obeyed.
At Caltech, every undergraduate could understand the science and the mathematical models behind the policy, and see that it is correct. Also, violating the policy after you agreed to it would probably be seen as an honor code violation, which the students take very seriously.
Same for MIT and Harvey Mudd on the science aspect, although I'm not quite sure about MIT. MIT does offer undergraduate degrees in quite a few fields that aren't STEM, such as music, theater arts, global studies and languages, and several others, and I'm not sure how much STEM people in those majors have to take. (Caltech has non-STEM degrees too, such as English, but they still have to take the same calculus, physics, and chemistry that STEM majors have to take--when I was there that was two years of calculus and two years of physics and I think a year of chemistry, although I believe now it is just one year of calculus because nowadays almost everyone has had high school calculus).
For the military academies I assume the students would stay in line because they could be ordered to, and obeying orders is a big deal at those places.
3. OK, we've got a COVID free collection of undergraduates. But to have in-person classes we need someone to teach them. Professors don't usually live on campus, so the "once verified as clean never leave" approach won't work for them.
This could probably be handled by having professors on days they are teaching take a rapid response test in the morning, early enough to have results before their first class.
4. For graduate students that live on campus and are not married (or are married but their spouse is also a graduate student at the same school), a similar approach to that for undergraduates could work.
These graduate students could also handle much of the teaching of undergraduate classes, reducing the need for professors to come in.
5. For researchers not involved in teaching, and other staff, you could probably arrange so that they and the students (undergraduates plus whatever graduate students are serving as teachers) do not come in contact.
6. Reorganize classes as far so they are done Hogwarts style. Have separate classes for students living in Ricketts House, Dabney House, Blacker House, and so on.
Couple this with regular testing. The idea is that if someone in one house does get COVID, you find it with the rapid testing, and you can quarantine that house. Since they only have classes with members in their own house, there is a good chance this will catch it before they have spread it to the other houses.
However, just because it might be doable doesn't necessarily mean it is worthwhile.
It would take a lot of planning and a lot of schedule manipulation and choreographing movements around campus to make it so if someone does get it, it is found out before they had spread it beyond a well defined sub-population that is easily quarantined. That might require too much control, except maybe at the 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 cleared to move in, they must not leave campus for the rest of the term. This should be fairly easy. When I was there, most people only had to leave on weekend, because food was only served as part of your room & board contract during weekdays. That could be extended to cover weekends during COVID. Most other things that we used to leave campus for back then are now readily obtain online for delivery.
It is #2 that I think would be problematic at many schools. I recall that earlier in the pandemic some told students to not leave campus but they were not obeyed.
At Caltech, every undergraduate could understand the science and the mathematical models behind the policy, and see that it is correct. Also, violating the policy after you agreed to it would probably be seen as an honor code violation, which the students take very seriously.
Same for MIT and Harvey Mudd on the science aspect, although I'm not quite sure about MIT. MIT does offer undergraduate degrees in quite a few fields that aren't STEM, such as music, theater arts, global studies and languages, and several others, and I'm not sure how much STEM people in those majors have to take. (Caltech has non-STEM degrees too, such as English, but they still have to take the same calculus, physics, and chemistry that STEM majors have to take--when I was there that was two years of calculus and two years of physics and I think a year of chemistry, although I believe now it is just one year of calculus because nowadays almost everyone has had high school calculus).
For the military academies I assume the students would stay in line because they could be ordered to, and obeying orders is a big deal at those places.
3. OK, we've got a COVID free collection of undergraduates. But to have in-person classes we need someone to teach them. Professors don't usually live on campus, so the "once verified as clean never leave" approach won't work for them.
This could probably be handled by having professors on days they are teaching take a rapid response test in the morning, early enough to have results before their first class.
4. For graduate students that live on campus and are not married (or are married but their spouse is also a graduate student at the same school), a similar approach to that for undergraduates could work.
These graduate students could also handle much of the teaching of undergraduate classes, reducing the need for professors to come in.
5. For researchers not involved in teaching, and other staff, you could probably arrange so that they and the students (undergraduates plus whatever graduate students are serving as teachers) do not come in contact.
6. Reorganize classes as far so they are done Hogwarts style. Have separate classes for students living in Ricketts House, Dabney House, Blacker House, and so on.
Couple this with regular testing. The idea is that if someone in one house does get COVID, you find it with the rapid testing, and you can quarantine that house. Since they only have classes with members in their own house, there is a good chance this will catch it before they have spread it to the other houses.
However, just because it might be doable doesn't necessarily mean it is worthwhile.
It would take a lot of planning and a lot of schedule manipulation and choreographing movements around campus to make it so if someone does get it, it is found out before they had spread it beyond a well defined sub-population that is easily quarantined. That might require too much control, except maybe at the military academies.
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.
"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.
I'm a student at a much smaller university than Stanford. I can tell you with confidence your statement of students not leaving campus once they move in cannot work. For one, consider the students who live in off-campus apartments. How are they going to get food? At my school, meal plans cost a crapton of money, and it's a lot cheaper to just buy groceries and cook for yourself.
Even if you forbade those students from coming to campus, how would you prevent students from leaving? Barricade them in? Our shortened fall break heavily encouraged students to stay on campus, but so many people left to see their families. It's not realistic.
Even if you forbade those students from coming to campus, how would you prevent students from leaving? Barricade them in? Our shortened fall break heavily encouraged students to stay on campus, but so many people left to see their families. It's not realistic.
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.
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.
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
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
fwiw even before the football game, Notre Dame temporarily shifted to online for half a month after an outbreak.¹
Regular testing is great, but it needs to be coupled with effective contact tracing to curb spread.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/notre-dame-coronavirus...
Regular testing is great, but it needs to be coupled with effective contact tracing to curb spread.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/notre-dame-coronavirus...
> Once an undergraduate is cleared to move in, they must not leave campus for the rest of the term. This should be fairly easy.
Maybe CalTech is very different, but I truly cannot imagine this at MIT. Students go out and party, even at top programs that have a disproportionate number of "traditionally nerdy" people.
Further, students aren't the only people present. Faculty exist, and some of them can bring Covid into the bubble. Administrators and staff exist, and some of them can bring Covid into the bubble. Once a few students are infected the "don't leave campus" plan does not achieve much of anything. You mention daily tests, but you can be infectious before a test is positive. And faculty will throw a fit about this.
> At Caltech, every undergraduate could understand the science and the mathematical models behind the policy, and see that it is correct.
There are STEM faculty at top universities who can't seem to understand the basics of how the pandemic functions. I cannot possibly imagine that every single 18-year-old who is smart and interested in science is going to be able to resist the enormous amount of misinformation about the pandemic and stay-at-home orders.
> Same for MIT and Harvey Mudd on the science aspect, although I'm not quite sure about MIT. MIT does offer undergraduate degrees in quite a few fields that aren't STEM, such as music, theater arts, global studies and languages, and several others, and I'm not sure how much STEM people in those majors have to take.
This is crossing a STEMlord line for me. Where my wife works, her department (in the humanities) has more teachers choosing to teach online than the computer science and physics departments. I think you are enormously quick to treat fresh out of high school engineering students as rational actors and everybody else as ignorant buffoons.
Maybe CalTech is very different, but I truly cannot imagine this at MIT. Students go out and party, even at top programs that have a disproportionate number of "traditionally nerdy" people.
Further, students aren't the only people present. Faculty exist, and some of them can bring Covid into the bubble. Administrators and staff exist, and some of them can bring Covid into the bubble. Once a few students are infected the "don't leave campus" plan does not achieve much of anything. You mention daily tests, but you can be infectious before a test is positive. And faculty will throw a fit about this.
> At Caltech, every undergraduate could understand the science and the mathematical models behind the policy, and see that it is correct.
There are STEM faculty at top universities who can't seem to understand the basics of how the pandemic functions. I cannot possibly imagine that every single 18-year-old who is smart and interested in science is going to be able to resist the enormous amount of misinformation about the pandemic and stay-at-home orders.
> Same for MIT and Harvey Mudd on the science aspect, although I'm not quite sure about MIT. MIT does offer undergraduate degrees in quite a few fields that aren't STEM, such as music, theater arts, global studies and languages, and several others, and I'm not sure how much STEM people in those majors have to take.
This is crossing a STEMlord line for me. Where my wife works, her department (in the humanities) has more teachers choosing to teach online than the computer science and physics departments. I think you are enormously quick to treat fresh out of high school engineering students as rational actors and everybody else as ignorant buffoons.
> Maybe CalTech is very different, but I truly cannot imagine this at MIT. Students go out and party, even at top programs that have a disproportionate number of "traditionally nerdy" people.
It is possible things have changed substantially over the years, but when I was there and definitely for quite a long time after, attending parties outside of campus was very rare at Caltech. Parties on campus were not common either, and most of them were parties within a house.
Caltech undergraduate life is kind of like being in a science monastery. It's not merely a school of nerds. It's a school of the people who nerds think are too nerdy.
On the STEM vs. non-STEM issue, I'm not treating "fresh out of high school engineering students as rational actors and everybody else as ignorant buffoons".
Everyone, without exception, needs to rely on expert opinion in some matters. No one has the time and capacity to become expert themselves in all fields that are relevant to all important decisions we have to make in our lives.
Sadly, in many of the areas where we have to rely on experts there are many with financial or ideological interests in getting people to not listen to the experts. This results in people being presented with conflicting opinions all purporting to be from or backed by experts in the relevant areas.
One of the best ways to resolve such a situation is, if you can do it, is to learn enough about the subject yourself to be able to look at the same information and methods that were used to produce the conflicting opinions and determine which came from actual experts and which did not.
In this one very particular area, namely determining if a particular set of behavioral rules and procedures to prevent a particular community from getting COVID and to limit its spread within that community if it does get in is scientifically justified, STEM students are going to be more likely to be able to do the type of evaluation described in the prior paragraph than are non-STEM students.
Would you say I'm being a "STEMlord" if I said Caltech students were more likely than, say, students in Julliard's piano bachelor's degree program to be able to evaluate evaluate whether someone making a claim about the theoretical upper limit on the efficiency of a classical thermodynamic engine is correct?
It works the other way, too. There are plenty of areas where I'd expect that Julliard piano student to be way better than any Caltech student at evaluating conflicting purported experts. It is just that those areas don't happen to be relevant to the specific problem of convincing a group of people that specific anti-COVID measures are correct.
It is possible things have changed substantially over the years, but when I was there and definitely for quite a long time after, attending parties outside of campus was very rare at Caltech. Parties on campus were not common either, and most of them were parties within a house.
Caltech undergraduate life is kind of like being in a science monastery. It's not merely a school of nerds. It's a school of the people who nerds think are too nerdy.
On the STEM vs. non-STEM issue, I'm not treating "fresh out of high school engineering students as rational actors and everybody else as ignorant buffoons".
Everyone, without exception, needs to rely on expert opinion in some matters. No one has the time and capacity to become expert themselves in all fields that are relevant to all important decisions we have to make in our lives.
Sadly, in many of the areas where we have to rely on experts there are many with financial or ideological interests in getting people to not listen to the experts. This results in people being presented with conflicting opinions all purporting to be from or backed by experts in the relevant areas.
One of the best ways to resolve such a situation is, if you can do it, is to learn enough about the subject yourself to be able to look at the same information and methods that were used to produce the conflicting opinions and determine which came from actual experts and which did not.
In this one very particular area, namely determining if a particular set of behavioral rules and procedures to prevent a particular community from getting COVID and to limit its spread within that community if it does get in is scientifically justified, STEM students are going to be more likely to be able to do the type of evaluation described in the prior paragraph than are non-STEM students.
Would you say I'm being a "STEMlord" if I said Caltech students were more likely than, say, students in Julliard's piano bachelor's degree program to be able to evaluate evaluate whether someone making a claim about the theoretical upper limit on the efficiency of a classical thermodynamic engine is correct?
It works the other way, too. There are plenty of areas where I'd expect that Julliard piano student to be way better than any Caltech student at evaluating conflicting purported experts. It is just that those areas don't happen to be relevant to the specific problem of convincing a group of people that specific anti-COVID measures are correct.
> Would you say I'm being a "STEMlord" if I said Caltech students were more likely than, say, students in Julliard's piano bachelor's degree program to be able to evaluate evaluate whether someone making a claim about the theoretical upper limit on the efficiency of a classical thermodynamic engine is correct?
If I personally knew a bunch of Julliard students who did a better job at this than Caltech students, then I'd certainly ask for some actual data backing up your claim. I see no reason why a freshmen majoring in CS is more likely to make healthy pandemic choices than a freshmen majoring in history.
If I personally knew a bunch of Julliard students who did a better job at this than Caltech students, then I'd certainly ask for some actual data backing up your claim. I see no reason why a freshmen majoring in CS is more likely to make healthy pandemic choices than a freshmen majoring in history.
I think every college student should be entitled to a year of free partying by endowment funds to make up for this.
sbinthree(2)
[deleted]
Just a few weeks ago, they sent us an email reaffirming their plan to bring us back, yet COVID cases in California have remained relatively flat since then. It's unclear what specifically made them pull the plug. Maybe it was the 43 students testing positive. Maybe it was the rising cases in Santa Clara County. But nine months into the pandemic, it’s hard to see these as surprises.
Personally, I wish they did it two or three weeks ago. Or even a week ago. Or even last week. Just not the Saturday night before classes start. (We got this news yesterday.) The writing was on the wall the entire time — they could have saved everyone (including themselves) a lot of time and effort by just being realistic.
Oh well. Surely there are sides to this I'm not seeing.
[0] Classes do start tomorrow (Jan 11), but most students would move in around Jan 22. A small subset of students (RAs, international students, etc.) have been moving in over the past few days, and they won't be asked to leave.