Some subjects work better than others. Many STEM topics that are of interest to most HNers are probably among the best things you can learn online. I'm current

Some subjects work better than others. Many STEM topics that are of interest to most HNers are probably among the best things you can learn online. I'm currently a grad student in Communication Sciences and Disorders. My field involves linguistics, speech and voice science, disabilities, and more. My education in online classes is absolutely of a lower quality than it would be in person. I don't think that will ever change until humans stop communicating with their mouths, faces, and bodies. Classes whose subject matter necessarily revolves around face-to-face discussion will always be worse online. We need to be very careful on which subjects remain mostly-online, and which subjects we push back into classrooms. Other than that, I have wondered whether "learning pods" will become a powerful tool (rather than a temporary bandaid to the problem). From what I have seen it seems like a promising way to lower the student-instructor ratio and still get some kids spending time face-to-face without traveling to a central location every day.