28 ms·

MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

• aquova 7y ago
  I can see why the university is taking the actions that it is doing, but on the other hand, if I were still and undergrad, and suddenly told that I had to pack up all my stuff and move within the next 3 days, I can only imagine the chaos that entails. Every student on campus now has to suddenly not only find a place to stay, but also a way to move everything on short notice.
  • piannucci 7y ago
    I think the idea is you leave stuff in your dorm room that you don't need right away, but yeah. Wow. (btw some of the MIT dorms have storage space in the basement)
    • the_svd_doctor 7y ago
      Ar Harvard (same thing happening) from what I’ve read on their website, you need to get rid of all your stuff like in an usual move out.
  • neltnerb 7y ago
    during midterms. with the expectation that either they or parents are rich enough to afford flights somewhere else on three day notice.
    • londons_explore 7y ago
      I'll be booking a greyhound bus to a far off place with cheap rent and good WiFi...
  • jacquesm 7y ago
    It's a very smart decision. You have to imagine the chaos that entails vs the chaos that could entail if they didn't. Err on the side of caution with this stuff.
    • atomicUpdate 7y ago
      > vs the chaos that could entail if they didn't A campus full of runny noses for a couple weeks? These are overwhelmingly young people of which the vast majority would be perfectly fine.
      • jacquesm 7y ago
        What's the typical age of MIT professors? What's the typical age of the students parents? What would happen if a good 5% of them have more than a runny nose, end up in intensive care and there is a shortage of beds? Go read up for a bit on what is happening in Italy, then check where your country is and advance 4 weeks. See if you still think 'runny noses' is a good analogy.
        • chickenpotpie 7y ago
          I don't know if it's fair to compare MIT to Italy. Italy has a very aging population and MIT is very young and Boston has some of the best healthcare in the country.
          • jacquesm 7y ago
            The question is whether or not you are willing to take that chance. The people responsible decided - rightly, in my opinion - that they do not want that responsibility. Risk = impact times likelihood.
          • greedo 7y ago
            And Italy has some of the best healthcare in the world. When you have only so many ICU beds and ventilators, it doesn't matter.
          • roel_v 7y ago
            "and Boston has some of the best healthcare in the country." I hear people say that all the time of all sorts of places, but what does that mean? Does Boston have (beyond some baseline) more respiratory aid machines than other places? More virus or respiratory system specialists? Better or more nurses? If they do, why? It doesn't matter if they have a bunch of world class brain surgeons. I'd imagine the area would have roughly the same level of materials and skills in this specific domain that other big developed areas have. I wonder what makes people so sure about the specific capabilities of all the areas they claim to be (much) better than other areas.
  • xenihn 7y ago
    Beats getting quarantined.
    • TeMPOraL 7y ago
      They might still get quarantined. Given the state of testing in the US, who knows if few days from now they won't discover there was a carrier on the campus.
      • grimjack00 7y ago
        > who knows if few days from now they won't discover there was a carrier on the campus. And by that time, most of the student body (with who knows how many asymptomatic carriers) will have been widely dispersed.
        • JabavuAdams 7y ago
          I'm guessing part of the rationale is that there is no way to contain this in the US. It's going to go around. But, spreading it out in time and space will reduce the chance that local health infrastructure will become saturated, resulting in more deaths. Basically hospital load-balancing.
          • mlyle 7y ago
            Spreading it out in time and space fuels exponential growth, where you might contain it to slow growth through social distancing. But you've got to get people out of environments where it is going to spread extremely quickly, like communal living in dorms, just the same.
    • avocado4 7y ago
      If I'm a poor student without a place to go I can imagine being quarantined in your dorm room with WiFi is not so bad at all.
      • ghaff 7y ago
  • tekacs 7y ago
    They’re providing packing materials and helping with the move. Financially, they say: > We understand that being asked to leave campus may pose a serious financial hardship for certain individuals. Students will receive a follow up communication on this matter. It’s unclear what their solution is, but they seem to have thought about it...
    • r00fus 7y ago
      The unclarity is unsettling. I imagine many will want to fly back to their parents home but may be barred from doing so. Was evicting a large populace a good idea? Aren't there other options?
      • ajross 7y ago
        > The unclarity is unsettling. The situation is unsettling. Realistically MIT made the right broad decision here, I think we can all agree on that. Classrooms (most of them) are an inherently remotable environment. Lecture halls and giant shared dormitories and shared meal facilities are just not a safe environment in a pandemic. They made the right call. Demanding that they do it with perfect bureaucratic finesse is a bit much. Over the coming months, all of us are going to be asked to undergo some hardship, there is no getting away from that. And realistically that hardship not going to be distributed fairly. We all need to do the best we can and help where it's possible.
        • ngold 7y ago
          Looks like they are ripping off the bandaid, anything else would take more time. Evidently, MIT seems to think they don't have any left.
          • ajross 7y ago
            In Boston, I don't know. But Seattle for sure is crossing the threshold where Milan was 10-15 days ago, and there's no reason to expect things will evolve differently. These, literally, are the last days of calm before things start to blow up in the US too.
• JPKab 7y ago
  One of my coworkers daughters is affected by this. The big question this begs: If there is no refund being offered for the content shifting online from in-person, why have in-person at all? Is room and board going to be refunded? If courses being taught online is an acceptable substitute, why have caps on admission at all? Edit: Understood that infinite sized classes aren't workable for human intensive grading, interactions, etc.
  • why-el 7y ago
    > If courses being taught online is an acceptable substitute, why have caps on admission at all? Most assignments are not scored in an automated manner, and the number of staff is not unlimited.
    • logfromblammo 7y ago
      Given the usual university budget and the going rate for overqualified, part-time, and temporary adjuncts, the staff is less limited than one might think. Remote students and remote adjuncts--what do you need administrators for? Ah, yes, to collect the tuition, attend the luncheons, and issue the credentials. It would at least put a small dent in the oversupply of Ph.D. holders in some fields.
      • agustif 7y ago
        Well if MIT/Stanford/Harvard are what they are because of the elitism of getting to study there, and the branding-power it brings to one's resume, it kinda seems obvious they will have 0 interest in have an unlimited supply of students/graduates, which surely would diminish/affect the branding power on a resume of any of those universities programs, if literally a lots of new graduates could be graduating from those schools. Elitism works in a limited setting, probably not in an limited/open setting...
        • logfromblammo 7y ago
          My point is that there is no supply-scarcity limit on university teaching positions. But you are correct that each university has a monopoly on their own brand, so they can restrict supply and raise prices up to the monopolistic competition limit (as the other universities are close substitutes). For the select few universities whose degrees are a Veblen good, the more they charge for their degrees and faculty positions (not just in tuition, but in time, application qualifications, and influence), the more they return in upper-class prestige (not just faculty pay and graduate earnings). You can't project that you only take the top 0.1%, if you admit 0.2% of all high-school graduates. That prestige problem is especially dire with medical colleges in the US. The patient community (aka everybody) desires more numerous, cheaper, and better-distributed physicians, but the physician community desires higher-paying positions that are more costly to fill, with a remuneration premium for working in less desirable territories. So only some hospitals are teaching hospitals, and their residency programs have limited slots. (I think the Army/VA system could possibly break that cartel, by ordering qualified recruits that sign up for a longer term of service to become physicians, and routing their medical training outside of the civilian system. It would certainly drop ER visit prices when those stabilization specialists and trauma surgeons get their 20 and start to "retire" out to civilian jobs.) If universities are going to order students and faculty to leave campus, they are removing a huge piece of their competitive advantage over universities that already have mature distance-learning programs, but with lower tuition. If MIT takes its campus off the table, the thing they have left is their brand name. That's enough to sustain them, specifically, but there aren't many other universities that could get away with it. The one just up Massachusetts Avenue, maybe, and a handful of others. And they still have to pay for grounds and facilities upkeep, even if they aren't using them as much. Any other distance learning program could probably hire 1 remote adjunct for every 10-15 remote students and outdo "two sections of lecture hall plus office hours" tenured professors that have a 1:300 ratio. They can use some of the savings for cheap test proctors at distributed--and possibly also shared--evaluation sites. If every surplus Ph.D. can get a part-time remote teaching-support gig for 20 hours a week at $25/hour, they can still keep working the jobs they already have, that don't require their advanced degrees, because their graduate universities did not restrict Ph.D. output to just what the industry could bear. A degree from MIT might open more interview doors, but there is less difference in switching between schools like Rose-Hulman and Georgia Tech. If campus location is no longer a factor, any student could study at any school. Schools that want to survive under such competition would have to bring down costs, fast.
• enitihas 7y ago
  Where will students go? 1. Students with financial difficulties or out of state students 2. International students
  • icegreentea2 7y ago
    The letter says contact administration and it will be handled on a case by case basis. shrug, probably the best thing to do.
  • StevenWaterman 7y ago
    3. Care leavers 4. Estranged students
  • enitihas 7y ago
    Ok, as mentioned by another commenter, they seem to have thought about these issues. Quoting here - International students who have concerns that they would not be allowed to return to MIT due to visa issues. - International students who will have difficulty returning to their home country if it has been hard-hit by COVID-19. - Students who do not have a home to go to, or for whom going home would be unsafe given the circumstances of their home country or homelife.
• Trasmatta 7y ago
  I expect to see this at more and more universities in the US over the next couple of weeks. I have friends who work in the higher education technology space, and they mentioned that many schools are starting to plan for this.
• kasey_junk 7y ago
  This seems like its likely to have dramatically more serious consequences for the less privileged students. Lots of people don’t have a place other than school they can live & be successful.
  • whymauri 7y ago
    There are students at MIT/Harvard that will temporarily be rendered homeless. Some are depending on the generosity of local friends/classmates to find temporary lodging. It's getting kinda wild.
    • capkutay 7y ago
      can you please not spread misinformation. there's obviously exceptions in the policy for such cases. they're not going to toss students to the street. the goal is to drastically reduce the number of students living on campus and sharing dorm space (rooms, bathrooms/showers, eating halls).
      • whymauri 7y ago
        This is not misinformation. The methods and procedures for appealing are not clear yet (we leave in seven days!) and there are students who are moving into local houses with friends. If you think MIT won't "just toss students to the street" you haven't been paying attention to the closures of Bexley Hall, Senior House, and the upcoming closure of Eastgate (which was only recently amended to be slightly better). The source is that I am currently here and it is unfolding before my eyes and in my community.
      • hacker_newz 7y ago
        Are you an MIT student or employee?
  • pkaye 7y ago
    Do you mean less privileged MIT students? I though MIT is pretty good about giving scholarships and grants to those who are admitted. If your family income is below some threshold they fully cover the costs.
• itronitron 7y ago
  is this move to protect the students or the faculty?
  • wcarss 7y ago
    this is to protect the health care system and all of the residents of the region, by reducing the density of a very large very dense, externally densely connected and high travel community in advance of a serious epidemic that may (likely will) require more intensive care beds than the region has to provide.
  • jacquesm 7y ago
    Everybody, including those not on campus.
  • eikenberry 7y ago
    It protects those at risk, the elderly and people with some preexisting conditions (eg. asthma). So probably some of each plus all the people in the area who fit the criteria.
• loufe 7y ago
  Can the headline be improved? I opened it as the title gives no impression of being temporary or linked to COVID-19.
  • dang 7y ago
    I've added "for the rest of the semester", which is explicit about being temporary and I suppose implies enough about covid-19. (Submitted title was "MIT moves all classes online, requires undergraduates to leave campus".)
    • simonw 7y ago
      As a non-US national I never really know what a "semester" is with respect to US universities. Not sure what a better title would be though. The key information here in my opinion is that students are being told not o come back in a few weeks following spring break.
      • DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
        U.S universities typically have two sessions per year: the "fall semester" (usually September-December) and the "spring semester" (usually January-May). Each course (e.g., Introduction to Chemistry) typically runs one semester. A full-time student usually studies 3-4 courses per semester. Many universities also offer a small number of courses during the summer break. Some universities allow certain courses to be only a half-semester in duration.
        • aatharuv 7y ago
          Many universities (but not MIT) are on a quarter system. I honestly don't know which one is more prevalent.
      • dang 7y ago
        I suppose we could say "term" but it starts to feel like diminishing returns.
• djaque 7y ago
  I'm at Cornell and the admin just announced online learning for all undergraduates for the rest of semester.
• a3n 7y ago
  Gonna suck for foreign undergrads, or anyone who doesn't have a "home" to return to. I think student loans or similar would pay/contribute to dorm living and eating, but living out on the economy might not. ?
  • keithnz 7y ago
    maybe go back and read it in full where it talks about that?
• mherdeg 7y ago
  Kind of missing some historical context here: * Has MIT ever suspended a semester before? * Have they ever run a shortened or extra class year? I seem to remember something unusual happened during WW2?
  • ryeights 7y ago
    I believe the Kent State shooting caused a similar cancellation of classes.
• macawfish 7y ago
  Wait but they're gonna fly home that doesn't make sense either
  • trhway 7y ago
    probably MIT administration tries to CYA by "Doing Something" "out of abundance of caution". After all if people get infected while on campus some creative lawyer may probably sue whereis MIT would bear no responsibility for whatever happens as result of all those people forced to spread around the country and the globe. Some commenters mentioned that that is a preparation for possible outbreak there. Well, i'd think that preparation for outbreak would be making sure that various resources are stocked up (e.g. masks, handheld non-contact infrared thermometers, etc.), necessary personnel brought up and trained, "civilians" educated and all the travel and mass gatherings canceled/discouraged, quarantine procedures and checkpoints are established and ready to be activated, etc... That of course cost money and other resources. An alternative is to kick the can out to somewhere else.
• akhilcacharya 7y ago
  It's interesting that Harvard and MIT have done this. UW makes a little bit more sense, but the scale of the known outbreak in Cambridge isn't nearly as large at the moment (I live in Kendall Square and work next to MIT). Interestingly, UMass Boston still hasn't done this despite having a student confirmed with it a few weeks ago. I wonder if the administrations believe Columbia/Stanford/MIT/Harvard students deserve more protection or something - that sort of attitude wouldn't surprise me.
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    I think it’s interesting that private schools made this decision earlier.
    • AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      Cynically, I wonder how big a role the fear of lawsuits is playing. Private institutions might be more sensitive to that possibility than state-run schools.
      • akhilcacharya 7y ago
        They also have more resources than most state run schools. Which reinforces my original thesis
        • mav3rick 7y ago
          Yes we all want ivy leagues to be protected first.
          • akhilcacharya 7y ago
            I can’t tell if you’re being serious...
• the_svd_doctor 7y ago
  Same at Harvard, undergrads have to leave their dorms https://dso.college.harvard.edu/coronavirusfaq https://dso.college.harvard.edu/coronavirusfaq
• PureParadigm 7y ago
  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 assignments. I'm currently accessing lectures through Zoom. [1] https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/03/09/as-coronavirus-spreads-uc-berkeley-suspends-in-person-instruction/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/03/09/as-coronavirus-spreads-...
  • smallgovt 7y ago
    Actually, I think it's likely going to be seen as an overreaction in hindsight by the general public (even though it may not be). If these actions are successful in curbing the virus' spread, most people won't appreciate how bad things could have really gotten.
    • chrisco255 7y ago
      So what do we do if this virus festers for another couple of years? We can't shut down society forever.
      • Trasmatta 7y ago
        The goal at this point should be to flatten the curve as much as possible to prevent overwhelming healthcare until a vaccine is developed and tested. Nobody thinks this is going to be a permanent measure.
        • xur17 7y ago
          I don't disagree with the flattening the curve bit, but I do wonder - my understanding is that a vaccine is at minimum a year out. Would we need to keep doing this for that entire time period, or are there other factors at play here?
• mumblemumble 7y ago
  The "empty out campus" bit seems a bit overmuch to me. What's the epidemiologists' take on something like this? I can see asking students who left for spring break not to come back. But asking students currently on campus to leave, and even demanding that they travel internationally, seems like it might just increase everyone's risk of exposure, and spread it around. Especially considering that, at least according to the stats they post on their website, about 75% of their international students are from Asia or Europe.
  • adrianmonk 7y ago
    Yeah, this sounds like a local optimization that is going to make things worse overall. Even if international students get to stay, you're still giving people a lot of reason to travel. Twice. A lot of people are going to go home and stay with Mom and Dad, I would expect.
    • chickenpotpie 7y ago
      Oh god, I didn't even think about how someone with Corona is going to go from spending all day around young, healthy individuals to their aging parents.
  • Ericson2314 7y ago
    There is an exception for some international students as stated elsewhere in the thread, but yes I still agree. Even the domestic churn of thousands of schools from various schools going home is no good. Massachusetts surely has one of the highest hospital densities in the country, too. I would cancel classes, but allow everyone that wants to to stay put.
    • the-dude 7y ago
      You want to know what is going to happen? They will party all night long.
      • Ericson2314 7y ago
• Ericson2314 7y ago
  I am skeptical of these things. I would have cancelled classes but left everyone in their dorms. All the travel is no good, and high density but young and healthy people (watch their health improve with no crushing amounts of homework!) I wouldn't expect to speed up an epidemic as long as they aren't traveling.
  • MFLoon 7y ago
    There's a multitude of good reasons to close the dorms. People are sharing bedrooms, common areas, bathrooms and kitchens with far more people than they would be in the average private domicile. The network effect of communal living, combined with the generally more lax sanitary/hygenic standards of a younger population, makes any dorm highly at risk for becoming a hotspot, of any infectious disease (and indeed it's quite common for colds, flus and even more serious diseases to cause epidemics in college dormitories).
• saagarjha 7y ago
  My university (UC Santa Barbara) just cancelled all in-person classes minutes ago. I would expect students to start leaving campus soon, but it’s not required so I guess it’s better than this…
• CodesInChaos 7y ago
  I never understood why US universities have so many more rights over their tenants than other landlords. Why do they have the right to terminate what's effectively a rental agreement with only a week's notice?
  • chickenpotpie 7y ago
    I don't get it either. It was especially irritating at my university because the dorms were several thousand dollars a semester more expensive than larger, better apartments nearby, but they were the worst landlords I ever had. They would kick me out all the time, while still charging me rent. During finals week you had to be gone within 24 hours of taking your last final or be fined. If schools in the US aren't going to be free, they should at least be held to the same laws that other institutions that provide the same services are.
    • JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
      If you stay past your lease date in a regular apartment, you will typically be fined as well.
      • chickenpotpie 7y ago
        They also don't charge me rent after that day passes. The finals at my school were from Saturday till the next Friday. So whether your finals were on Saturday or on the next Friday, it still cost the same. It sounds nitpicky, but our rent was about $1500 a month. A lot of students paid $375 to be homeless.
    • saagarjha 7y ago
      Surely they had better things to do than to try to figure out when people had their finals and check door-to-door every day to make sure people left when they should?
      • chickenpotpie 7y ago
        That's exactly what the RAs did
• whiddershins 7y ago
  There are an overwhelming number of comments here assuming this policy is enacted in such a way that it ignores the challenges of underprivileged students. Who are these commenters. Why do they assume this. What is going on. MIT (and many other higher education providers) seem to be trying to preempt the spread of a disease. If someone has specific, concrete, information about someone who is harmed by this and whose difficulties are ignored by administration, of course, comment! But all this hypothetical speculation feels mean spirited.
  • majos 7y ago
    At least one Harvard undergrad has pointed out concrete flaws in implementation of this policy, and how it affects him personally [1]. That said, I also sympathize with administrators, who had to pick a course of action in a chaotic environment and make it work. [1] https://twitter.com/hakeemangulu/status/1237367253374398465 https://twitter.com/hakeemangulu/status/1237367253374398465
• narrator 7y ago
  Speaking of the underprivileged kids. Here in S.F where we have some really high rents, I heard a story from a friend that there was a student who was living in a van and spent most of his time in the lobby of the student center. I wonder if the MIT gang will start living in their cars. This could be the beginning of a new hyper mobile tech road warrior culture... Like all the MIT kids will meet up in random spots around the country and somebody will drive up a box truck with whatever laser or experiment they're working on. Total Bruce Sterling novel in the making here...
  • HarryHirsch 7y ago
    /notfunny. Student homelessness is real, as is student food insecurity.
  • letitgo12345 7y ago
    MIT has an exception for homeless students.
• gravelc 7y ago
  Sensible precautions. Multiple cases of people arriving from the USA to Australia with COVID19 suggest the virus is much more widespread than admitted by the government[1]. Large gatherings of any sort should be curtailed to prevent a similar crisis to what is occurring in Italy. [1]https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-11/coronavirus-infection-prompts-closure-of-melbourne-school/12044594 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-11/coronavirus-infection...
• chickenpotpie 7y ago
  Isn't it way worse to make everyone travel? If any of the students had contracted the virus wouldn't it be better to keep it contained at the University rather than bringing it to where they're from?
  • ct0 7y ago
    Its not about the virus, its about the liability. Everyone is looking out for them self here.
  • kopochameleon 7y ago
    From what I understand the mitigation strategy has moved from "containing the virus" to reducing peak transmission rate — spreading out. In your scenarios: 1. "keep it contained at the university" would probably look like: thousands of students, staff, businesses get the coronavirus rapidly over the course of the next two months (possibly overwhelming local hospitals), proceed to spread across the other densely populated area universities, Boston, NY, Spring Break, summer internships, travel everywhere happens post-mass-infection phase. Many deaths attributable to the campus being open likely. 2. Single person brings it to where they're from - same effects of a single sick person traveling we're seeing in the US every day (including what brought it to Boston). Unless they're going to another densely populated university or conference, which if more measures like this take place they should not be, the impact will be far less. At this point they aren't aware of any students who have it, so a likely scenario if nothing is done is that the student population GETS it from the Biogen outbreak in Cambridge, AND spreads it at a much higher rate across the local area, country, world.
• thulecitizen 7y ago
  This kicking students out of dorms by MIT is insane! They are a being a terrible landlord. How is having thousands of students packing up their stuff better than them just staying put? Won't this make passing on the virus easier? Those dorms are going to be sitting empty after the students move out. Seriously, what is the logic behind this mess?
• better_names 7y ago
  > to slow a spreading virus like COVID-19 The naming of this thing is such a disaster, even MIT can't get it right. - the virus is called SARS-CoV-2 (like HIV) - the disease it causes is named COVID-19 (like AIDS) - pretty much everyone calls both the virus and the disease coronavirus
  • chrisco255 7y ago
    That's because COVID-19 looks like a JIRA ticket, and people shudder a bit when they type it out.
    • generationP 7y ago
      If it's also as slow as one, we're not in danger.
  • pbourke 7y ago
    https://xkcd.com/2275/ https://xkcd.com/2275/
  • JabavuAdams 7y ago
    Is this causing any actual or damaging confusion? Why care?
  • tropo 7y ago
    Coronavirus is far too vague (there are many coronaviruses) and it gets confused with a type of beer. Those other names, SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, are only slightly more readable than sha256 hashes and UUIDs. We also don't need the virus and the disease to have separate names, especially not ones that are so unrelated. The common and original name is "Wuhan virus". That is easy to remember, easy to type, and specific enough. Use it, for better communication.
• IAmGraydon 7y ago
  The real reason behind such a move is the culture of litigation in the US. Someone made your coffee too hot? Sue them. Someone stepped on your toe? Sue them. In this case, everyone is ducking for cover because they don't want to be the focus of a lawsuit that claims they didn't do anything to prevent the spread of the disease. The people who make these decisions at MIT are not unintelligent. They have all the resources and risk models at their disposal. They have obviously found that the financial risk to the school is greater if they don't send all the students away vs if they do.
  • simonw 7y ago
    I'm certain that's not the case here. This isn't about avoiding litigation. It's about flattening the curve. https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ Universities are taking this extremely disruptive step because they have a very large influence on how quickly this disease spreads, and they know it.
    • IAmGraydon 7y ago
      That’s quite a nice sentiment. Unfortunately, “flattening the curve” is not what propels the world to action. People getting what they want is. It always has been, and that’s not changing for Covid-19.
      • simonw 7y ago
        Which is why it's important for influential institutions like universities to take the steps they are taking. Those 100,000+ students weren't going to voluntarily stop attending classes. The universities have now forced the issue for them.
  • Tomte 7y ago
    The Truth About the McDonald's Coffee Lawsuit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9DXSCpcz9E&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9DXSCpcz9E&feature=youtu.be
  • gburdell3 7y ago
• solbloch 7y ago
  At my university, Syracuse University, we just learned that school will be online preliminary for one week after our spring break ends. (Finish this week of school, spring break, then online for a week after)[0]. Not sure that all my peers going home is the best idea. Also, we on campus have watch those from the Florence Abroad Program come back to campus and attend events. Not too likely to have been infected, but I'm worried about all our parents and grandparents. I wonder, what will my Korean or Chinese friends do? If they are expected possibly to have to be back on campus in a month, they can't go home and come back, they can't stay here, so they have to pay for an apartment for a month? [0] https://www.waer.org/post/syracuse-university-cancels-campus-classes-thru-march-30-over-virus-concerns-moving-online-ed https://www.waer.org/post/syracuse-university-cancels-campus...
• icedchai 7y ago
  This sucks, but it's better to get the students out now before it becomes impossible due to travel restrictions. They must've thought about this carefully, weighed the pros and cons. This is just getting started in the US.
• simonw 7y ago
  From that link: "Undergraduates should not return to campus after spring break." Harvard have announced the same thing: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/3/11/harvard-coronavirus-classes-cancelled/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/3/11/harvard-coronav...
• philipkiely 7y ago
  My college is doing the same right now. It’s a small residential college about an hour’s drive from the nearest confirmed case. Campus mood is indescribable. I think the move is for the best but as a graduating senior it’s a very emotional time.
• generationP 7y ago
  > 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 international) to go home within a week, seeing that flights are getting cancelled all over the place? They do seem to have reasonable exceptions for students who "have concerns that they would not be allowed to return to MIT due to visa issues" or who "will have difficulty returning to their home country if it has been hard-hit by COVID-19" or who "do not have a home to go to, or for whom going home would be unsafe given the circumstances of their home country or homelife". I'm wondering how reasonably these will be implemented, though. 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?
  • kyeb 7y ago
    >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 to eat if the dining halls close down. Since mine has a dining hall for us to eat, it has only one kitchen for the entire dorm, which is ~500 people. Edit: It's also worth pointing out that MIT students are at very low risk right now. Sending us all home before we're at a medium/high risk level is the right move, so students aren't bringing it home with them. Nobody on campus has tested positive yet (as far as we know), and once it reaches the campus it would spread like crazy. Better to preempt it and send us away now.
    • iokanuon 7y ago
      >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?
• ptero 7y ago
  I am not a doctor but I honestly do not see why the current state warrants such drastic actions. Is it, objectively, so much worse than usual seasonal flu epidemics? An honest question, any scientific/quantitative pointers appreciated!
  • c0rtex 7y ago
    https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-compared-to-flu-mortality-rates-2020-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-compared-to-flu-...
  • greedo 7y ago
    Here's a good start: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
  • dr-detroit 7y ago
    liability mitigation. lawyers can prove that they knew the hospitals would be overloaded.
• humaniania 7y ago
  Hopefully students make recordings of their classes, for future reference.
• ComputerGuru 7y ago
  The focus has all been on colleges and universities announcing that they're closing face-face-instruction for the month/quarter/semester but we're scrambling trying to find something that works for K-12 schools. * Students at the college level can be counted on to self-study /to an extent/ if you make accommodations and provide the resources they need * Internet access can be taken for granted when dealing with college students * Colleges are largely beholden only unto themselves, a college typically doesn't *actually* need to have students complete the curriculum before x date because they can shuffle things around and make provisions internally, whereas high school students taking standardized exams, applying to colleges, etc. don't /necessarily/ have that luxury. * Kids are slovenly and have poor hygiene, * Schools need to factor in National School Breakfast/Lunch programs and other welfare programs that absolutely rely on having all the kids corralled in a single place for x hours a day * Imagine the mess if suddenly every family without a stay-at-home parent suddenly had to arrange for someone to watch their elementary school student * Pretty much all colleges/universities have *some* online component to their education, even if it's just a portal where assignments can be posted. A lot of schools have no such system in place whatsoever, and now have to not only find such a solution but also train their faculty on its use and migrate/import/create the virtual classrooms, etc. The biggest issue is that we simply don't know how localized any school closures would be or how long any closure would last. If we're the only ones to close our HS, colleges won't be very accommodating to our juniors when they're applying in the fall without having completed some class or the other. If we're the only HS closing down, the CollegeBoard isn't going to reschedule any AP exams. For all other grades, if a self-imposed closure is only a couple of weeks long, we can just take an early and extended spring break, but if it's longer than that then setting up some sort of distance learning is a must. But if it's shorter, then there's no point in scrambling about trying to reach an at-best 60% coverage of the curriculum with younger students that need considerable face-time to grasp concepts and require more interactive lessons. It's a very tough call all around.
  • newtoday 7y ago
    Yep, this. The US public school system is in no way prepared for remote education, or any solution to supplement the impact we're facing.
• sadfev 7y ago
  Welp, even my university will go down this route now!
• bawana 7y ago
  How the world has changed. 100 years ago governments glorified war and sent their youth to their deaths. With what narrative did they blind everyone to the common sense that killing is bad.? Today, the possibility of illness closes entire schools and nations. Maybe the world is coming to its senses. But then again, may be the narrative is rooted in an era of phobia that will transform the world. Are we becoming Niven’s puppeteers?
• WalterBright 7y ago
  Imagine how cool it would be if MIT would make "read only" transmissions of these sessions freely available. (I know that MIT has already made many courses available on yootoob. Those are wonderful, I've watched many myself.) Upon re-reading my lecture notes from long ago, they are sadly incomprehensible without the lecture that went with it. It would be great to be able to review those lectures and refresh my memory. I remember attending one given by Feynman for which no record exists.
  • vulcan01 7y ago
    Have you tried OpenCourseWare from MIT[1]? Tends to have more stuff than YouTube :) lecture notes, and typically assignments as well. Also, some professors from MIT have courses on edx.org. [1](ocw.mit.edu)
    • WalterBright 7y ago
      The Roku box had an OpenCourseWare MIT channel which I enjoyed watching, but they let it die of neglect. :-(
• nathannecro 7y ago
  As other commenters have mentioned, Harvard has also enacted a similar policy. I'm currently not in Boston, but I received an email this morning essentially instructing me to not return to campus for the foreseeable future. A family member of mine is also a graduate student at UCLA and they were also informed that all coursework would be conducted online for the next month.
• ddavis 7y ago
  Duke just suspended all classes until further notice (moving online); also adding a one week extension to spring break (which is this week... probably to prepare for the online setup) and asking people not to return to Durham.
• simonw 7y ago
  Stanford just announced they are doing this too. Email sent out 20 minutes ago says "SPRING QUARTER CLASSES: Stanford will begin the spring quarter on time, but we will use virtual learning, rather than in-person classes, until further notice."
• im3w1l 7y ago
  Getting kicked out of their dorms is exactly the kind of stupidity I expect of the USA. "But they are at risk of being sued if they don't do this" It brings a smile to my face that the elite is getting caught up in the dysfunction this time. Because until they do, nothing changes.
• glofish 7y ago
  All lost in the upheaval is that you can't "just take" a course in a classroom and make it online - especially not on a two-three days notice. Online courses are surprisingly difficult to get right. Here is what I predict this ad-hoc online teaching will be like: professors will take their slides and put them on a webpage. There you have an online course.
  • ryeights 7y ago
    Most classes already post lecture videos, slides, review materials, and problem sets online. Yes, the quality of education will be degraded, but not severely so. Lab classes are a different matter entirely.
• jimmaswell 7y ago
  No results in the page for "refund." They're not refunding students prorated dorm, credit, etc. fees? I hope there are lawsuits coming on part of the students.
  • ohyeshedid 7y ago
    You seem to be jumping to conclusions without any supporting information. You've done it twice in this thread already. I understand that the world can be an ugly place right now, but filling in your lack of firsthand knowledge with negativity from your imagination doesn't benefit anyone. That also seems like an exhausting way to operate.
    • jimmaswell 7y ago
      Coming to the conclusion there will be no refunds based on the article not saying anything about refunds is jumping to conclusions how?
      • ohyeshedid 7y ago
        Yes, coming to the conclusion that they're screwing the students out of money, accusing them of crony capitalism, and hoping there are lawsuits all based on your own conclusion with no supporting information is definitely jumping to conclusions. You're being disingenuous now, so there's no point in paying any further attention to you.
• bsanr2 7y ago
  Schools could undercut one of Bernie Sanders' major platforms by using this as an opportunity to start offering free/low-cost, LIVE courses online, reserving networking and on-campus support opportunities for formally-accepted students. I'd be surprised that this wasn't happening, if not for the cluelessness and/or callousness the moneyed set that make up the constituency of America's top schools seem to be approaching everything these days. As a disabled acquaintance bemoaned about similar developments in teleworking policy: "They've always been able to do it, they just didn't care until their asses were at risk."
  • leggomylibro 7y ago
    Sorry to be flippant, but: https://www.edx.org/ https://www.edx.org/ They already do that. It's not quite "LIVE", but it's close. When you sign up for a certificate, you take the course along with a cohort of other students during a preset period of several weeks. There are staff and other students available to talk and answer questions in a shared forum, your work is graded, and the lectures/homework/exams/etc are spaced into weekly modules. Sadly, the quality varies wildly between institutions and it doesn't seem to work as well as an in-person education for most people. But the affordability and availability make them excellent for helping to expand equality of access and get people started down the road of becoming proficient in specialized topics.
    • bsanr2 7y ago
      If it's "not quite live," then they don't "already do that." There is value to being part of a first-class experience as it plays out, even as a second-class observer, that's over and above dealing with a glorified educational DVR and meaningless certification. But the point is that MIT et al. have lost a credible rebuttal to anyone floating the notion of, "Why not?"; to anyone wondering why the live academic lectures of old, that were ostensibly open to the public but that were limited to people who could afford to be in a particular building at a particular time, haven't seen their progeny truly open to the public as the accessibility of mass communication has grown.
• geophile 7y ago
  Tufts also, after an extended spring break.
• bitforger 7y ago
  Similar action was taken by Johns Hopkins University a couple hours ago. https://hub.jhu.edu/assets/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/jhu_covid_guidelines.pdf https://hub.jhu.edu/assets/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/jhu_covid...
• adam_fallon_ 7y ago
  Is there any blogs or interviews with people who have the virus and aren’t over 60 years old? I tried to find some things on Google but shockingly I can’t find anything. I want to know what it’s like to have it (from the perspective of someone who is young and healthy)
• ineedasername 7y ago
  The "problem" with all of these precautions is that, if it's successful, it will look a lot like an over reaction when all is said and done. Which I suppose is better than the alternative, but I worry that successful prevention in this case will, the next time there's an issue like this, make people a bit less likely to take appropriate preventative measures.
  • maerF0x0 7y ago
    or vice versa. When the crisis does not escalate others will attribute the success to the decisive actions of leaders! "See? We should do this more often to save lives" Of course who knows what would have happened without the response.
• naveen99 7y ago
  I think they might have to normalize closing campuses and dorms every flu season (All of winter semester). I don’t know why we tolerate the lackadaisical attitude towards a theoretically preventable or slow downable communicable disease.
• OldGuyInTheClub 7y ago
  Tremendous respect for MIT but I am dismayed that one of the world's leading institutions just told students to ship out with what appears to be little regard for the difficulties. Arranging for transportation, alternate housing, storage, etc runs into real costs which many don't be able to bear on top of tuition, board, and other fees that schools routinely charge. MIT's research enterprise does not seem to be affected, however...
• bitL 7y ago
  Maybe they could finally offer graduate-level classes online like what Stanford does with SCPD or Georgia Tech with OMS CS... So far one had to be in Boston physically.
• an-allen 7y ago
  Imagine paying $50,000+ a year for education that provides no labs, no campus experience, and no personal interaction with other students and professors.... Now imagine that 50k a year landlord telling you to pack your shit and get out in 2 weeks.
  • geddy 7y ago
    I have a feeling that many of the students aren't paying anywhere near that $50/year.
• anewguy9000 7y ago
  lol its the flu
• rdiddly 7y ago
  Sidestepping for a moment the illness itself, and whether you call this panic or caution, or whether the panic/caution is well-founded, or how inconvenient it is... I love this and all the other examples of it. Greatly increased numbers of people, companies, schools and conferences etc. are suddenly exploring the possibilities of remote meeting & working technologies, some for the first time. Many will inadvertently demonstrate to themselves certain truths they might never have discovered otherwise. And when the epidemic is over, a certain number of them will be much more amenable to letting me, rdiddly, work remotely, which of course is always a plus, because commuting out there sucks balls and so do noisy offices!
• ocschwar 7y ago
  And now Massachusetts has several buildings ready to serve as makeshift hospitals should the need arise.
• BalinKing 7y ago
  Not directly related, but the Caltech rumor mill says that we'll following suit soon: since second quarter finishes in ~1 week, they'll probably make third quarter virtual somehow. As it turns out, there's actually a potential case _on campus_ (which is, not gonna lie, kinda scary), so the affected individual's test results will probably influence what happens in the next couple days.
• Alex_P13 7y ago
  Why?
• winrid 7y ago
  My current company is stating they "don't have a work from home policy." Very frustrating and conflicts with my try not to get sick policy ...
• baron816 7y ago
  What’s going to happen during the next pandemic if these measures are successful? I could easily see a few months from now people complaining about how we shut down everything, took a big hit to the economy, and it all turned out to not be a big deal. Next time, some people will say “oh we did all that stuff for the coronavirus and it was just a big hoax. We don’t need to do that stuff again.”
• mister_hn 7y ago
  Also Politecnico of Bari (Italy) made this choice but wasn't on Hacker News
• ChaseT 7y ago
  We got similar news at Cornell today, with professors being advised to go online asap but will be forced to in early April which is also when students will be sent home. The problem here is that most upperclassmen live off-campus and can't be forced to disperse. Furthermore, many students are from NYC where they'll visit during spring break and then come back to Ithaca. The atmosphere on campus is very nonchalant; most are more upset by cancelled events than the possibility of encountering the virus.
• yread 7y ago
  Maybe they want them empty to be able to convert them to makeshift hospitals
  • anticensor 7y ago
    You would use elementary schools for that purpose, they are much more evenly spread; not universities.
• xvilka 7y ago
  I guess it will help to make MOOC platforms like Coursera[1] and edX[2] much better. It did help to improve online education platforms in China already. [1] https://github.com/coursera https://github.com/coursera [2] https://github.com/edx https://github.com/edx
  • ukyrgf 7y ago
    I can't seem to find a source, but I thought I'd read that MIT and Hardvard and others were either pulling out or removing old courses from edX due to some accessibility laws. Does anybody know what I'm talking about?
• auiya 7y ago
  I wish more schools would do this and lower tuition significantly. I completed Georgia Tech's online M.S. in information security some years ago and it was an incredible learning experience. After having done college both ways, for me at least online was absolutely the best method, it's not even close.
• classified 7y ago
  I guess they will have to, otherwise they'll be sued into oblivion if anybody catches so much as a cold.
• wulandarianggun 7y ago
  https://support.billiongraves.com/support/home https://support.billiongraves.com/support/home