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I feel bad for the colleges. But anyone in their right mind that's going to college to learn things will take a gap year. Those going to college just for the

I feel bad for the colleges. But anyone in their right mind that's going to college to learn things will take a gap year. Those going to college just for the paper are well advised to keep going. The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure. You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A!

jacoblambda 7y ago
If you are relying on scholarships to afford university, this is not an option. If you break full time status you essentially forfeit all of your scholarships and it is very unlikely you will get them back.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Depends on the scholarship, but very few will pay during the gap year.
  - OkGoDoIt 7y ago
    I think the concern is about still qualifying for them when you return
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Yes, I know. I think a number of them just pause for quarters you’re absent and then resume once you come back, provided you don’t lose student status or whatever.
- kathe-rine 7y ago
  Perhaps this varies, but I was able to pause all my scholarships to take a year off from uni.
logarhythmic 7y ago
The issue is that it's not possible for the vast majority of students to just "pause" their lives and wait until this all blows over
- collegeburner 7y ago
  I'm not saying I want to just "pause" and play video games for a year, though I'll grant that's true of some of my peers. Rather, I'm saying it makes sense for many people my age to make changes to their up-coming year. I'd continue working as a developer, continue with non-profit work, and keep working on side projects to build skills. I've been working through some interesting books (Boneh and Shoup's crypto book and Crafting Interpreters) and learning a great deal outside the rigor of any formal class. Essentially, while I get why colleges and politicians would want students to go about business as usual, it seems it benefits them rather than me. I'm going to college for two things: research and connections. Both of these are greatly impeded by virtual-only learning. Research is possible in CS but much harder, especially if one doesn't already know the professor. And it seems impossible to form relationships over videochat only.
Alkhwarizmi 7y ago
Taking a gap year isn’t specially viable for parent students, or even transfer students mainly due to the fact of age discrimination in grad schools and or job markets, ergo the sooner we can graduate the better off we are as prospective grad students and also job candidates. (Am a pure math student who’s on average 2 years older than my peers in classroom)
prawn 7y ago
It's unlikely to be a classic gap year travelling the world!
alexbanks 7y ago
Take a gap year and do what? Go nowhere, do nothing? Delay any hope of a reasonable income by another year?
- lisper 7y ago
  Read. Code. Zoom.
  - knolax 7y ago
    A typical HN-reading college student likely already does those things alongside studying. So instead of doing a different of activities like you have imagined, this hypothetical student would now be bored out of their mind by having an even more homogenous set of activities available to them.
  - alexbanks 7y ago
    In what way is this different than taking online courses at university :)
nn35 7y ago
Take a gap year and do what, exactly? Sitting around your parents' house for a year is probably worse than getting the coronavirus, for an 18 year old. Maybe much worse.
- jackson1442 7y ago
  As an 18-year-old, exactly this. Even with the lackluster online classes I am getting, sitting at home is unproductive, uninteresting, and just mentally exhausting. The primary thing I looked forward to in college is independence. Even if my parents completely laid off for the year, I would still feel judged for every decision I made.
  - fellow_colleger 7y ago
    You could work on personal projects. I am a college student too, currently at my parent's home and writing a experimental debugger. Under the usual workload, it's hard to find free time like this; everyone should use this opportunity to better themselves (unless they are impacted directly by the virus, or ciritically affected by the economic downturn).
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    If you're unproductive, that seems more like a personality thing vs a being 18 thing. There's hobbies, things 6i can learn, pick up new skills, exercise and get healthy, learn to cook, start a business, etc.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  I really wish I took a gap year at that age to learn new skills. For instance I went to school for mechanical engineering but I would have loved to have learned programming back then. It was always on my to do list but never had enough time. If I had done it then, I probably would have received a degree in CS or IT instead. Even for my friends that went for CS, they also said they would have loved to have had more time to apply and actually create things vs just learning theoretical/ engineering side of things in school. Or for instance my brother if he took off from school he would have had the chance to go pro in the MLS, but it was too big of a risk to put off school at the time. Not that sports are happening now, but just gives a more diverse view. A more HN example would be to create a business or side hustle.
moneytide1 7y ago
"... If a student wants to study at Princeton, he doesn’t really need to apply or pay tuition. He can simply show up and start taking classes. As a professor, I assure you that we make near-zero effort to stop unofficial education; indeed, the rare, earnestly curious student touches our hearts. At the end of four years at Princeton, though, the guerrilla student would lack one precious thing: a diploma. The fact that almost no one tries this route — saving hundreds of thousands of dollars along the way — is a strong sign that students understand the value of certification over actual learning..." "...Educational austerity is the simplest path back to an economy in which serious on-the-job learning starts during high school — not after college." https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-caplan-education-credentials-20180211-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-caplan-education...
- bachmeier 7y ago
  The author's not at Princeton, so why is he even offering an opinion? This is a bunch of made up BS anyway. Princeton faculty aren't going to be okay with dozens of extra students attending their lectures (there are room capacity constraints). They're sure as heck not going to grade essays, hold office hours, and answer email inquiries from a few dozen random individuals that decided to stroll into the class. He's basically saying there's no need to buy food because you can eat free samples at the grocery store. He also just happens to be the author of a "contrarian" book arguing that college is worthless. It's purely a coincidence that he's posting misinformation on the same topic - making claims about a university where he doesn't work - in one of the most widely read news outlets.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  >The fact that almost no one tries this route — saving hundreds of thousands of dollars along the way — is a strong sign that students understand the value of certification over actual learning..." Or a sign that some people don't understand the value of networking and the value of what earning admission to Princeton signals.
- cafard 7y ago
  It may also be a strong sign that few young Americans have the money to live in that area with no income for four years. The student admitted to Princeton can get money--financial aid or loans--to apply to food and shelter. The student apparently just hanging out has to have some other source of money. I also wonder whether the libraries and the computer centers have such a laissez-faire attitude.
chmln 7y ago
> The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure Sadly this isn't true for a lot of math/computer science courses, speaking from very recent experience. While having an open book and even online access is an advantage, many profs implement measures ranging from webcam proctoring services to extremely difficult time-limited exams to compensate.
drfuchs 7y ago
If all the incoming freshmen take a gap year, then the following year there would be a double-sized freshman class. That wouldn’t work so well. And 4 years later, would the university have to admit a double-sized class again in order to keep a relatively constant number of students enrolled?
- downerending 7y ago
  I can guarantee you that a double-sized freshman class is a problem any university would kill to have.
  - dminzi 7y ago
    Probably not UCLA, which does not even have enough space for people as things were. Even more so considering that nobody will want to live in a tiny 3 person box after all of this.
saagarjha 7y ago
> You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A! My friends who are currently in college tell me that they’re currently dying under a massive workload as teachers fail to realize that “remote learning” does not mean you can assign hundreds of pages of reading “to fill up free time”. Those that are from other countries really dislike waking up at 3 AM to take synchronized online quizzes…it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  Yup, aside from the current situation there's total a classic issue of a teacher not realizing they're not the only class being taken, let alone any remorse for those that also have jobs, kids, or any other type of responsibility.
argonaut 7y ago
Colleges are not going to let many people take gap years. So it'll be a choice between attending the school you want or reapplying next year (when it'll probably be even harder to get in). Usually most people who want gap years are allowed to do so, but usually there aren't many people who want to do gap years (at least in the US).
- anjc 7y ago
  > Colleges are not going to let many people take gap years. How are they going to get out of abiding by their own regulations? Universities I'm familiar with all provide for deferred years.
  - argonaut 7y ago
    What regulation? Colleges have always required that you request deferral. This was almost always granted, but was never guaranteed.
    - anjc 7y ago
      Oh I checked my uni's calendar and you're right, there's a brief notice that deferral isn't guaranteed. In practice I've never seen it denied, but these times are different.
- kathe-rine 7y ago
  My university's policy is that for student-elected gaps, if you returned within three years, "re-admission" was guaranteed. It was a bit dicier if the university required you to leave due to health problems or disciplinary/academic violations.
  - collegeburner 7y ago
    Usually, yes, but now colleges are having revenue problems. The president may block foreigners from attending (big revenue source), and many students may want to delay. So colleges are pretty likely to tell students to suck it up for a year or not get admitted to try to force them to attend as normal.
jimhefferon 7y ago
> You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A! I'm a prof at a SLAC. Many of the students I have are doing fine. But a good number of them are struggling. Some are working, sometimes many hours because their parents are out of work or anticipate being out of work. Some of them have illness in their family (I don't know of any who are themselves ill). And for some of them it is that they are not good at this environment-- they didn't sign up for this. Online education is hard. Personally I perceive that especially for people on the left side of the curve, less learning takes place because they are often just not skilled at self-learning. In the present environment, when working with students I often feel that this is a person who could well have learned, say, Elementary Statistics except that the circumstances hit them where they are weak. Some leeway is called for, it seems to me. I'm not talking about certifying them at something where they are not prepared for the following class (that is, no "Everybody gets an A"). But my school, and many others, is allowing people to choose "No grade" in some cases and that seems reasonable to me.
- downerending 7y ago
  I don't disagree with any of that, and despite my glib phrasing, I don't think grading easy during this time is the wrong thing to do. Rather, just noting that for some students and some courses (especially the non-useful ones), this might be a real opportunity.
- exolymph 7y ago
  You seem both pragmatic and kind, and I'm sure that your students appreciate it!
  - jimhefferon 7y ago
    Thank you. I appreciate it.
nicoburns 7y ago
> The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure. You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A! If my experience of college professors is anything to go by, it'll be more like "You couldn't complete the work because I forgot to include a crucial part of the instructions. Well tough, you fail anyway." Classes won't all be like, be the ones that are will take up so much of students time that they might as well be.

jacoblambda 7y ago

If you are relying on scholarships to afford university, this is not an option. If you break full time status you essentially forfeit all of your scholarships and it is very unlikely you will get them back.

saagarjha 7y ago
Depends on the scholarship, but very few will pay during the gap year.
- OkGoDoIt 7y ago
  I think the concern is about still qualifying for them when you return
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Yes, I know. I think a number of them just pause for quarters you’re absent and then resume once you come back, provided you don’t lose student status or whatever.
kathe-rine 7y ago
Perhaps this varies, but I was able to pause all my scholarships to take a year off from uni.

logarhythmic 7y ago

The issue is that it's not possible for the vast majority of students to just "pause" their lives and wait until this all blows over

collegeburner 7y ago
I'm not saying I want to just "pause" and play video games for a year, though I'll grant that's true of some of my peers. Rather, I'm saying it makes sense for many people my age to make changes to their up-coming year. I'd continue working as a developer, continue with non-profit work, and keep working on side projects to build skills. I've been working through some interesting books (Boneh and Shoup's crypto book and Crafting Interpreters) and learning a great deal outside the rigor of any formal class. Essentially, while I get why colleges and politicians would want students to go about business as usual, it seems it benefits them rather than me. I'm going to college for two things: research and connections. Both of these are greatly impeded by virtual-only learning. Research is possible in CS but much harder, especially if one doesn't already know the professor. And it seems impossible to form relationships over videochat only.

Alkhwarizmi 7y ago

Taking a gap year isn’t specially viable for parent students, or even transfer students mainly due to the fact of age discrimination in grad schools and or job markets, ergo the sooner we can graduate the better off we are as prospective grad students and also job candidates. (Am a pure math student who’s on average 2 years older than my peers in classroom)

prawn 7y ago

It's unlikely to be a classic gap year travelling the world!

alexbanks 7y ago

Take a gap year and do what? Go nowhere, do nothing? Delay any hope of a reasonable income by another year?

lisper 7y ago
Read. Code. Zoom.
- knolax 7y ago
  A typical HN-reading college student likely already does those things alongside studying. So instead of doing a different of activities like you have imagined, this hypothetical student would now be bored out of their mind by having an even more homogenous set of activities available to them.
- alexbanks 7y ago
  In what way is this different than taking online courses at university :)

nn35 7y ago

Take a gap year and do what, exactly? Sitting around your parents' house for a year is probably worse than getting the coronavirus, for an 18 year old. Maybe much worse.

jackson1442 7y ago
As an 18-year-old, exactly this. Even with the lackluster online classes I am getting, sitting at home is unproductive, uninteresting, and just mentally exhausting. The primary thing I looked forward to in college is independence. Even if my parents completely laid off for the year, I would still feel judged for every decision I made.
- fellow_colleger 7y ago
  You could work on personal projects. I am a college student too, currently at my parent's home and writing a experimental debugger. Under the usual workload, it's hard to find free time like this; everyone should use this opportunity to better themselves (unless they are impacted directly by the virus, or ciritically affected by the economic downturn).
- hanniabu 7y ago
  If you're unproductive, that seems more like a personality thing vs a being 18 thing. There's hobbies, things 6i can learn, pick up new skills, exercise and get healthy, learn to cook, start a business, etc.
hanniabu 7y ago
I really wish I took a gap year at that age to learn new skills. For instance I went to school for mechanical engineering but I would have loved to have learned programming back then. It was always on my to do list but never had enough time. If I had done it then, I probably would have received a degree in CS or IT instead. Even for my friends that went for CS, they also said they would have loved to have had more time to apply and actually create things vs just learning theoretical/ engineering side of things in school. Or for instance my brother if he took off from school he would have had the chance to go pro in the MLS, but it was too big of a risk to put off school at the time. Not that sports are happening now, but just gives a more diverse view. A more HN example would be to create a business or side hustle.

moneytide1 7y ago

"... If a student wants to study at Princeton, he doesn’t really need to apply or pay tuition. He can simply show up and start taking classes. As a professor, I assure you that we make near-zero effort to stop unofficial education; indeed, the rare, earnestly curious student touches our hearts. At the end of four years at Princeton, though, the guerrilla student would lack one precious thing: a diploma. The fact that almost no one tries this route — saving hundreds of thousands of dollars along the way — is a strong sign that students understand the value of certification over actual learning..." "...Educational austerity is the simplest path back to an economy in which serious on-the-job learning starts during high school — not after college." https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-caplan-education-credentials-20180211-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-caplan-education...

bachmeier 7y ago
The author's not at Princeton, so why is he even offering an opinion? This is a bunch of made up BS anyway. Princeton faculty aren't going to be okay with dozens of extra students attending their lectures (there are room capacity constraints). They're sure as heck not going to grade essays, hold office hours, and answer email inquiries from a few dozen random individuals that decided to stroll into the class. He's basically saying there's no need to buy food because you can eat free samples at the grocery store. He also just happens to be the author of a "contrarian" book arguing that college is worthless. It's purely a coincidence that he's posting misinformation on the same topic - making claims about a university where he doesn't work - in one of the most widely read news outlets.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
>The fact that almost no one tries this route — saving hundreds of thousands of dollars along the way — is a strong sign that students understand the value of certification over actual learning..." Or a sign that some people don't understand the value of networking and the value of what earning admission to Princeton signals.
cafard 7y ago
It may also be a strong sign that few young Americans have the money to live in that area with no income for four years. The student admitted to Princeton can get money--financial aid or loans--to apply to food and shelter. The student apparently just hanging out has to have some other source of money. I also wonder whether the libraries and the computer centers have such a laissez-faire attitude.

chmln 7y ago

> The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure Sadly this isn't true for a lot of math/computer science courses, speaking from very recent experience. While having an open book and even online access is an advantage, many profs implement measures ranging from webcam proctoring services to extremely difficult time-limited exams to compensate.

drfuchs 7y ago

If all the incoming freshmen take a gap year, then the following year there would be a double-sized freshman class. That wouldn’t work so well. And 4 years later, would the university have to admit a double-sized class again in order to keep a relatively constant number of students enrolled?

downerending 7y ago
I can guarantee you that a double-sized freshman class is a problem any university would kill to have.
- dminzi 7y ago
  Probably not UCLA, which does not even have enough space for people as things were. Even more so considering that nobody will want to live in a tiny 3 person box after all of this.

saagarjha 7y ago

> You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A! My friends who are currently in college tell me that they’re currently dying under a massive workload as teachers fail to realize that “remote learning” does not mean you can assign hundreds of pages of reading “to fill up free time”. Those that are from other countries really dislike waking up at 3 AM to take synchronized online quizzes…it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

hanniabu 7y ago
Yup, aside from the current situation there's total a classic issue of a teacher not realizing they're not the only class being taken, let alone any remorse for those that also have jobs, kids, or any other type of responsibility.

argonaut 7y ago

Colleges are not going to let many people take gap years. So it'll be a choice between attending the school you want or reapplying next year (when it'll probably be even harder to get in). Usually most people who want gap years are allowed to do so, but usually there aren't many people who want to do gap years (at least in the US).

anjc 7y ago
> Colleges are not going to let many people take gap years. How are they going to get out of abiding by their own regulations? Universities I'm familiar with all provide for deferred years.
- argonaut 7y ago
  What regulation? Colleges have always required that you request deferral. This was almost always granted, but was never guaranteed.
  - anjc 7y ago
    Oh I checked my uni's calendar and you're right, there's a brief notice that deferral isn't guaranteed. In practice I've never seen it denied, but these times are different.
kathe-rine 7y ago
My university's policy is that for student-elected gaps, if you returned within three years, "re-admission" was guaranteed. It was a bit dicier if the university required you to leave due to health problems or disciplinary/academic violations.
- collegeburner 7y ago
  Usually, yes, but now colleges are having revenue problems. The president may block foreigners from attending (big revenue source), and many students may want to delay. So colleges are pretty likely to tell students to suck it up for a year or not get admitted to try to force them to attend as normal.

jimhefferon 7y ago

> You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A! I'm a prof at a SLAC. Many of the students I have are doing fine. But a good number of them are struggling. Some are working, sometimes many hours because their parents are out of work or anticipate being out of work. Some of them have illness in their family (I don't know of any who are themselves ill). And for some of them it is that they are not good at this environment-- they didn't sign up for this. Online education is hard. Personally I perceive that especially for people on the left side of the curve, less learning takes place because they are often just not skilled at self-learning. In the present environment, when working with students I often feel that this is a person who could well have learned, say, Elementary Statistics except that the circumstances hit them where they are weak. Some leeway is called for, it seems to me. I'm not talking about certifying them at something where they are not prepared for the following class (that is, no "Everybody gets an A"). But my school, and many others, is allowing people to choose "No grade" in some cases and that seems reasonable to me.

downerending 7y ago
I don't disagree with any of that, and despite my glib phrasing, I don't think grading easy during this time is the wrong thing to do. Rather, just noting that for some students and some courses (especially the non-useful ones), this might be a real opportunity.
exolymph 7y ago
You seem both pragmatic and kind, and I'm sure that your students appreciate it!
- jimhefferon 7y ago
  Thank you. I appreciate it.

nicoburns 7y ago

> The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure. You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A! If my experience of college professors is anything to go by, it'll be more like "You couldn't complete the work because I forgot to include a crucial part of the instructions. Well tough, you fail anyway." Classes won't all be like, be the ones that are will take up so much of students time that they might as well be.