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I agree. For some degrees it's less of an issue but for areas of study like chemistry, biology, physics and many others, access to the college's physical resour

I agree. For some degrees it's less of an issue but for areas of study like chemistry, biology, physics and many others, access to the college's physical resources like laboratories is part of what you're paying for. I don't know how you solve this problem with the current constraints imposed by COVID-19, but you can't expect these students to pay full-price for an inferior education.

HarryHirsch 6y ago
You won't find anyone willing to teach several sections a day in a teaching laboratory with 24 students, the risk of infection is (correctly) perceived as too high. The market has adapted, there are kits to do experiments at home. Research labs are much less densely packed, and in-person interaction is less. In less affected states lab-based research is starting again.
- thomasfortes 6y ago
  > there are kits to do experiments at home. For high school level, sure. But I can't see a sane way to let students handle acids like I did in chemistry labs during college, and physics labs have equipment that is too complex/expensive/dangerous to send to the students.
  - swiley 6y ago
    You can buy a lot of those chemicals in Walmart and Lows in the US (ex: Walmart usually has fairly pure concentrated sulfuric acid. Lows has most common organic solvents.) The lab equipment is also pretty easy to buy on amazon (I’ve bought some trying to teach myself, although I’d recommend against buying anything from China, It always seems to disappear somewhere around LA.) There’s an entire community of autodidacts that do this sort of thing at home as a hobby. They have lots of advice on PPE, materials handling, storage, where to find papers and books etc. Some of them even record experiments instead of just writing them down so everyone can watch.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
      This is a lawsuit waiting to happen and not everyone has the space or want to do this. Completely and utterly unrealistic.
      - swiley 6y ago
        Oh absolutely, but it’s not impossible or even that difficult to set up.
abdullahkhalids 6y ago
My university is solving this by having everything online except for physical lab courses. And these labs will run at reduced density. This does mean that students from out of city will have to find safe accommodation, but thankfully they are only a small part (<10%) of the student population at my uni .

HarryHirsch 6y ago

You won't find anyone willing to teach several sections a day in a teaching laboratory with 24 students, the risk of infection is (correctly) perceived as too high. The market has adapted, there are kits to do experiments at home. Research labs are much less densely packed, and in-person interaction is less. In less affected states lab-based research is starting again.

thomasfortes 6y ago
> there are kits to do experiments at home. For high school level, sure. But I can't see a sane way to let students handle acids like I did in chemistry labs during college, and physics labs have equipment that is too complex/expensive/dangerous to send to the students.
- swiley 6y ago
  You can buy a lot of those chemicals in Walmart and Lows in the US (ex: Walmart usually has fairly pure concentrated sulfuric acid. Lows has most common organic solvents.) The lab equipment is also pretty easy to buy on amazon (I’ve bought some trying to teach myself, although I’d recommend against buying anything from China, It always seems to disappear somewhere around LA.) There’s an entire community of autodidacts that do this sort of thing at home as a hobby. They have lots of advice on PPE, materials handling, storage, where to find papers and books etc. Some of them even record experiments instead of just writing them down so everyone can watch.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    This is a lawsuit waiting to happen and not everyone has the space or want to do this. Completely and utterly unrealistic.
    - swiley 6y ago
      Oh absolutely, but it’s not impossible or even that difficult to set up.

abdullahkhalids 6y ago

My university is solving this by having everything online except for physical lab courses. And these labs will run at reduced density. This does mean that students from out of city will have to find safe accommodation, but thankfully they are only a small part (<10%) of the student population at my uni .