College Students Are Pissed They Wasted Money on a Covid Semester from Hell | Hacker News Reader

College Students Are Pissed They Wasted Money on a Covid Semester from Hell

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55 pointspaulpauper30 comments

Count me in on this. Colleges are a joke right now. I went back to school to fill in maths for grad school, and it's a shit-show right now.

You get better education on YouTube. what do we do now that the standard professor trying to teach remote is worse than youtube?

Paying thousands a semester only to end up using all free resources to actually learn.

One of these days we'll fire 90% of them, and then we can all learn from the top 10%.

Youtube, plus Kahn academy, plus openmit

/rant

Undergrad has been a joke for decades. Try learning differential equations as a 19 year old from a TA that can't speak intelligible English. At least nowadays you can watch an actually informative video on your headphones while you nod along in class.

It depends on the college. Some colleges like Harvey Mudd College have actual English fluent professors teaching undergrad courses. But tuition is very expensive.

Took ordinary and partial differential equations with a chaired professor who was a native English speaker. Still don't understand them, but I guess that's on me.

College isn't for learning things, it's for building connections to future leaders before those people realize they're too valuable to want anything to do with you.

Which is hard to do via zoom.

Right now is pretty much the best time to take a gap year.

Either that or try to get a transfer at a better college.

In other circumstances, an institution that charged full price for an advertised package of services, with no intention of delivering that package but instead throwing together an adhoc representation thereof .. some people might just call that fraud. Which there's laws about.

Depends on how upfront the school was on its COVID plans. Many schools were pretty clear in letting students know things can change throughout the semester. For those schools I don't see a fraud issue.

Although there are many complicating factors--including financial ones and the fact that most normal gap year or year abroad activities aren't available--I'm actually a bit surprised at the number of students who weren't graduating seniors who seem to have decided to power through with remote or otherwise very restricted college options.

What would you expect them to be doing instead? Getting a job? Taking a year off to travel?

Not saying that there aren't other valuable things they could be doing with their time, but just that other options are also constrained.

Hanging out at home with their parents playing video games is also a mildly reasonable option depending on their particular college's situation.

I was due to go back to studying and enroll in some courses next Spring, but due to some administrative errors my account is stuck in limbo and I can't do anything with my account. Been thinking I'll just wait this out and consider it a sign from God or something and wait until I can attend physically, since I've yet to see a positive review of any online learning program. Has anyone come out of their COVID college semester happy?

My kids, who both attend college, have told me and my wife multiple times that they "enjoy remote learning" only for us to turn around and hear them complain about pent up energy. I pity them for having to deal with a new (perhaps persistent) education dynamic and not be able to enjoy their college party years. On the other hand, we both feel that remote learning is the new normal and we as humans should find new ways to adapt to this bourgeoning learning method.

>“I did not focus much on my school work; it was more motivating to just get things done rather than actually obtain any information.”

Welcome to crushing your objectives ;)

> We as humans should find new ways to adapt to this bourgeoning learning method.

Wish more people shared this mindset. A humans greatest strength is their ability to adapt.

> I pity them for having to deal with a new (perhaps persistent) education dynamic and not be able to enjoy their college party years.

This is imo a major factor in drop-outs - partying.

Kids today (who a generation or two ago were considered adults) probably need to stay at home until they're in their 20s.

If remote learning costs drop to account for not having to maintain Club Med-esque campuses, this should be a win for everyone.

> Kids today (who a generation or two ago were considered adults) probably need to stay at home until they're in their 20s.

Not to worry, economic incentives will force this behavior.

My daughter is a freshman and she chose Oregon State from the schools she was admitted to. When I was a student, Oregon State had one campus. They still have their main campus but a major second campus almost 3 hours away by car.

Also, they have had a growing online presence. The three "campuses" are basically treated the same as far as being admitted, scheduling, etc.

Arizona State is another public school that has a huge online presence. I would think that those schools were better suited for the current environment because so many of the staff and instructors are already doing online courses or supporting it.

Articles over the summer said that being on campus was going to feel like being in a minimum security prison or a monastery. She's not excited about being home but she didn't think it would be great on campus.

I'm not dismissing the benefit of face-to-face. But there's some % of material in college that you learn by reading the textbook, and using the computer -- especially in tech disciplines. These aspects of learning feel like they would be pandemic-proof. For the self-motivated, I can see where they don't miss a beat under the changed environment. And that's also why with higher-ed, the bang-to-buck ratio isn't always high. And YouTube just works.

There's a lot of learning happening in the labs working with other students on problem sets and assignments.

College is, even in tech, a magical place where you'll get to see a lot of things, and talk with folks with highly specific interests.

You're right. There are certain intangibles like that that can surely enrich the experience. Interesting that the educational value is being diminished by the absence of something without a price tag attached to it. Not as if colleges are saving money when students can't interact -- putting aside electricity or costs of that nature -- so it's not easy for students to justify that they deserve a rebate. Be nice if the more well-to-do schools dug into their fortune and made amends for the disparity b/w expected and actual value.

Study in countries where it's free. Concept of paying for the education seems crazy to me, if you have brain, you won't spend for your education a cent. I have two master degrees, graduated in different countries and never knew what is student debt.

Mostly they ask you to study their language first, and then you can work on your degree, for free. Investing in educated citizen (including potential) is a right thing.

I will honestly say that, for small class sizes, the difference is not that noticeable. Sure, office hours are much more awkward to set up, but the study groups are actually more active on discord than they were when everyone was trying to plan things in person, and in my opinion offset the loss of non-awkward office hours. YMMV, as the article clearly demonstrates, but for me it has been fine.

Not feeling a lot of sympathy. How did anyone expect this to go any other way?

Huh, who's 'anyone'? College applications happened last December, when nobody was realistically expecting this.

Everyone, I think. There was a whole 8 months between application, the pandemic, acceptance, the continuing pandemic, and start of school. By March - April it was pretty clear things were headed in this direction.

Part of being an adult is realising that sometimes things just don’t go your way for reasons outside of your control. Everyone in the world has had their routine disrupted by COVID. Sure it sucks but this is a life lesson they would need to learn a some point anyway.

Yeah good thing I didn’t pay the $10000 that lesson cost them!

It’s definitely impacting some more than others. Far shittier for someone to miss a year of college than it is for me to miss a year of in-office work... yea I’m tired of WFH but it’s different

I certainly miss my usual travel and getting together with colleagues/peers when doing so. But continuing to collect a paycheck takes a lot of the sting out. It's a lot different from losing out on a year of college experience and paying for the privilege.

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