Tales From America's Covid Campuses

[carnation]

One of my daughters sent me this and I'm horrified. This sounds like some dystopian novel. If my sons' campuses start this sh**, they will be returning home.

https://jordanschachtel.substack.com...V4tNyAsNUM93fk

[*winter*]

Yikes! I wonder how everyone keeps forgetting about mental health and well being right now...

My nephew is a commuter student, but if he lived in campus at an out of state school, I’d tell him to not even go back. This is ridiculous. He’s also a science major, and his experience is being diluted because of all of this. He is into sustainability and they have an ecological center/farm the kids would go to several days a week. Things like that are just no longer and option...yet tuition remains the same.

I have a background in public health, but I think this is going way too far.

[carnation]

Last March, everyone had to leave my younger sons' campus. The dorm students got refunds. The apartment students did not, so they had to pay rent all spring and summer despite losing their on-campus jobs.

Furthermore, many, many professors had or have no idea how to teach online. They are crafting together some crappy patchwork courses that these kids are having to take because no one knows what to do and the universities need the money. Parents and students are paying the regular tuition rate and the students are pretty much teaching themselves.

If I were one of those Purdue students in the article, I would be suing my apartment complex.

[*winter*]

It’s just nuts. He’s a science major, and he’s always been a straight A student. He struggled with Chem II last semester- I suspect the problems were related to the forced online format. I, as a person with a STEM degree, just wonder if he will be competitive in the job market versus someone like me that went to school entirely in person. So much stuff is hands on in science.

The other argument I have against all this online is that a large part of what you learn in college (or any school setting for that matter), you don’t learn intellectually. These kids are supposed to be learning how to be adults, but they can’t leave their rooms without helicopters circling above? What are we doing to this generation? Being social in those first few weeks at college is a HUGE part of the experience. I remember being so overwhelmed- I just wanted to go everywhere and do everything. I couldn’t imagine having someone take that away. Personal development is also important.

[33girl]

This is beyond psychotic!! Withdraw and get $$ back...or if the school balks, get together with others and file a fraud lawsuit. This IS fraud, pandemic or not. Spend the semester reading the Great Books and call it a day.

[trymeplease]

Yep. My senior at U of Oregon will do classes online at home. At least he can continue to work his summer job and see local friends. The mental health implications for this age group will be much worse than the Covid implications.

[Sister Havana]

The IDS just published an excellent article about how things have - and haven’t - changed at IU this year.

[Iota_JWH]

Well, folks it didn’t have to be this bad. Most other countries took decisive action early and have far fewer cases and their lives are much more back to normal.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Iota_JWH

Well, folks it didn’t have to be this bad. Most other countries took decisive action early and have far fewer cases and their lives are much more back to normal.

Yeah, we should have definitely done this.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vic...-wearing-masks

(In case there are any complete idiots reading this I’m being sarcastic.)

[chi-o_cat]

I have a friend who took their daughter (a freshman) to college a few weeks ago, completely optimistic, with good faith that everyone would take all precautions seriously and things would work out okay. The school has already changed course and sent everyone home for virtual learning for the rest of the semester. Unfortunately, their daughter tested positive for Covid, so she has been sent to some sort of quarantine apartment (not her original dorm room) where she has to stay until it gets over it, then she can return home.

[navane]

It sounds like colleges are desperate to:

a) Mitigate their financial losses by attempting to offer "some kind" of classes this fall

while also

b) Lowering their liability in case any students catch COVID19 and become severely ill

It's as if the colleges want to have their cake and eat it too. I expect that enrollment numbers will drop significantly for the spring semester once students and their families realize that this format of higher education isn't working for them and that they aren't getting the experience they wanted for the full price they are paying.

I don't have children; but, if I had a child going into college this year, I'd seriously discuss the benefits of taking the online classes from home with him or her. I can't see the benefit in paying full price for my kid to be isolated, without friends, in a dorm room to do Zoom calls when they could have more freedom and less expenses at home.

[carnation]

Our boys planned to do study abroad next summer in Spain and Japan, respectively. If I thought that that would be available this spring, I would want them to go then.

[TXDG]

Is any of this surprising? Universities don’t want to get sued. College kids are notoriously strong-willed.

And yes, as Iota said....it didn’t have to be this way.

[AGDee]

I see no way to manage a pandemic with dorms and greek housing in play. Community bathrooms and close living quarters, even on campuses where all kids are in singles are petri dishes. My friend's son has been back at LSU for less than 2 weeks and he has tested positive for COVID along with 12 other guys in his fraternity house. He cannot travel home. He has an inhaler and steroids and she's worried sick about him. She didn't want him to go back but he did.

There are several campuses where whole fraternity and sorority houses are on quarantine because of multiple positive cases in the houses. I don't know what the right answer is. How many house associations/corps can pay the mortgage without the students paying rent? Not many, I'm guessing. The response has been mucked up from the beginning and we are far past the possibility of containment.

As for the military being an option- my son's buddy in the Marines is quarantined on their base because there are so many positive cases. There is also no way for them to social distance, so that's not a great answer either.

I'm relieved my kids are grown and working in jobs they can work from home.

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by AGDee

I see no way to manage a pandemic with dorms and greek housing in play. Community bathrooms and close living quarters, even on campuses where all kids are in singles are petri dishes. My friend's son has been back at LSU for less than 2 weeks and he has tested positive for COVID along with 12 other guys in his fraternity house. He cannot travel home. He has an inhaler and steroids and she's worried sick about him. She didn't want him to go back but he did.

There are several campuses where whole fraternity and sorority houses are on quarantine because of multiple positive cases in the houses. I don't know what the right answer is. How many house associations/corps can pay the mortgage without the students paying rent? Not many, I'm guessing. The response has been mucked up from the beginning and we are far past the possibility of containment.

All of this. And it's just going to keep happening. And then students are potentially missing a week+ of classes. My mom had COVID (and fortunately made a full recovery!), and her whole company was working from home, but she had numerous days where she'd log in, start working, and very quickly realize she felt too miserable to even sit up in bed and type.

And then professors are having to figure out how to have students make up the work. Imagine having to miss two weeks of class when you have a lab, for example. I started my college career in engineering, and I had to take Chemistry, which had both a lecture and lab component. The lab was once a week for three hours. I missed one lab because I was sick, and arranging to make up that class was a pain in the a**! Imagine missing two to three weeks and then having to work with the poor professors who have to help everyone figure all this out.

I also understand it's difficult to teach a class such as that when it's virtual, and it becomes observational rather than hands-on, but isn't that better than dealing with the chaos?

But again, the US could have handled this so much better, and we didn't. And half this country believes in social distancing and wearing masks, and the others don't. So... this is where we're at.

As for the military being an option- my son's buddy in the Marines is quarantined on their base because there are so many positive cases. There is also no way for them to social distance, so that's not a great answer either.

I'm relieved my kids are grown and working in jobs they can work from home.

Exactly. The military isn't necessarily a better option. I wonder what their recruitment practices look like right now? My brother joined the Army years ago, and I went to his basic training graduation and saw the barracks, and let me tell you... it's not any better than college dorms. In fact, they're worse. At least in the dorms there are only two people to a room. Do a Google search on "Fort Jackson barracks" (or any military base, really), and you'll see that this shouldn't be a recommended course of action for avoiding COVID.

If I was 18 and was looking to start college this year, I'd probably put it off entirely if it was possible. Or attend a community college with online courses, save some money, and start my on-campus college career later. The thing is, everyone is in the same boat and struggling in the same ways right now, so the "fear of missing out" isn't really as strong as it would be under normal circumstances. And I wouldn't want my freshman year to be all about sitting in my dorm all the time, wearing masks, not being able to socialize, and taking most of my classes online.