Exactly this. It is not the same experience being in the same class and teaching. All the energy that could have gone into that is now spent twiddling with gadgets. There is no coordinated 'course production system' in many environments. So teachers have to improvise and they are ending up on different ecosystems. Many of them are now learning to twiddle cameras instead of helping out students. I think many universities have to take a 'gap year' to bring in companies to help them reorg across departments.

Nope. What you're saying is "I cant restructure my business becasue I have high costs".

Your competitor disrupting your business could not care less.

If anything this is a boon to colleges in the long run - it has proven, without a doubt, how much worse online learning truly is. It has been around for a decade now - and it still sucks.

I believe some courses could be taken online. For example, here is an amazing course on Algorithms and Data Structures by Robert Sedgewick https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part1? at Coursera. It works really well for the online format. So, not all online classes suck.

My major was Physics and I was teaching all five years of the Graduate school. I do not have a slightest clue how is it possible to teach Physics remotely at the acceptable quality.

I find it telling that most people who start an online course never finish them - why? The experience isn't worth it.

Just like a video call hasn't replaced person-person interaction, nor can an online course truly replace an in-person class - so many more things happen in the classroom or at a university than at home. There is intelligence in human interaction. This is what silicon valley misses.

But a minority are far better than in-person.

Toss digital scaling in, and it's not a question of if, but when and how. There are real problems people haven't solved, but most of those have to do with how students discover and find good courses, accreditation, etc.

I wouldn't go this far. Enrolling to an online course is essentially an effortless endeavour, unlike on-campus studying. You don't pay anything (or pay less), you don't have to move physically, you (sometimes) can go at your own pace, you can take just this one course instead of the whole curriculum, etc.

I know this isn't everyone's experience but I started undergrad at a small state school in Denver, and had great diverse interactions in philosophy and literature courses because of how many different walks of life people came from.

It's hard to have honest and deep conversations on video. I don't think many would contest that.

Maybe it's not just video though. I feel we're lacking the social tools to deal with our situation, something educators could perhaps provide.

I think this is ultimately a subjective thing, I don't really think something like CompSci (a subject most here studied) needs to be on a campus based lecture basis, but I can see why someone who needs more 'hand-holding' and wants the campus life experience would say this.

I was in an actual Science major, Biology, where your physical presence is needed for lab work as so much of it is just repeating your work (and ideally know why it failed) as experiments fail so often--the experiments are actually incredibly archaic and way far behind the Industry standards, where so much of it is actually outsourced for a reason. So watching youtube videos on distillations and titrations is just about as useful as you will never actually do that in a lab, as its a waste of man-power/labour costs. Reagents and precursor molecules are never going to be made in house by anyone, you buy them like you do bio-markers, so why bother wasting an undergrad student's time making them do it instead of teaching them how to use more modern apparatuses that are actually used in the Industry? I thin it's because that's what grad school is ultimately for and for that you have to 'pay to play' as it were.

The lectures and exams for my major, however, should have been entirely Online in my opinion; we had mainly tenured Post-docs doing research teaching our classes which was always a f'ing nightmare as you could tell they were only doing it out of obligation. The one saving race being that they did give hints as to what was on the exam when you attended which could save you hours/days of overstudying if all you did was just look at the book/slides, so I ended up creating a study group with 5 other students where we alternated going to lecture and recording it and then uploading online so we could follow along with the slides and book at home as most of us had to work. This should be the standard! Because the truth is there is simply no way to cover 7 chapters for a midterm for 3-5 lectures plus quizzes on various subjects, plus lab practicals for each one every semester and have any chance of passing those courses, and then on top of that they think you're going to retain even 20% of that information?!

It's the optimized pump-dump model of rote-learning that they're really 'teaching' which is why so many recent-grads are almost entirely useless if/when they get to the Industry for the first year or so. They're being mis-led about the expectations and working conditions of the roles they're going to fill, which is also probably why so few actually end up in the Industry they studied for.

Some of my best professors openly discussed in private how the models is incredibly broken, some even going so far as to say they wish they could get rid of the grading system entirely as its not a very good gauge as they admitted all they are really gauging is how good you are at repeating what was said to you back them without having much room for interpretation or nuance in the discussion, there is simply no time for it given all the constraints. Which incidentally is what the Scientific Model is actually operating on: self-regulating system that questions and even tries to defy conventional wisdom at every step to arrive to a viable conclusion and the cycle repeats itself never really having a 'definitive' of answer, simply a better one than the previous one. And the reality is, no one really replicates any of the peer reviewed journals and its well-documented that they do not, even outside of Academia.

I'll agree that Online learning has some disadvantages but the trade-offs are worth it, and the alternative is remaining with this perversely bloated form of indentured servitude for the benefit of very few that is gamed by those who have the means and resources to do so, be it in Enrollment or even within it.

I learned to code, albeit not very well, almost entirely from Online sources be it Coursera/Udemy for the basics, and then Stackoverflow for my questions on why things didn't work but it was enough to be able to create a fintech startup, the first of it's kind in fact, where as CTO I ultimately ended up outsourcing the work needed to better developers and I focuses on product development, UX and sales. I learned about Bitcoin/Blockchain from my deep interest in the subject of economics and Anarchist philosphy that spanned decades, which was mainly taught from Online sources and epub books. I ended up at IBM that way and saw very quickly how grad students from illustrious universities in 'blockchain like disciplines' could barely grasp something that I understood very well from my first year involved in the Bitcoin Community where we had amazing developers and cryptologists openly having conversations with anyone interested on the subject about how this tech worked and what its goals were in a complicated, but entirely comprehensible level if you were motivated enough to want to do some legwork to understand.

I think you're making a blanket statement which is more a reflection of you as an individual, as it really just depends on what subject you're studying.

For example: I went back to school for Supply Chain and Logistics and Business/Warehouse Data Analytics (most of these are Master level courses) in order to update my CV but I have already worked for several Automotive Multi-nationals in the past in this sector, so I know what actually works and what is just fluff to pad the course out to the 10-15 week requirements (depending on quarter vs semester, as I've done both) and there is 100% no reason why any of it should be done in person, at all.

I really mean no benefit of it what so ever, in fact I'd go so far as to say that if it had like designated Online office hours/chat/video conference you could sign up for and have it posted in the internal forum/discussion board for future review it would be a superior model to that of University at a fraction of the cost. I'd even pay extra for those features just so I don't have to make the effort to be somewhere during the day and choose to finish a course at my own pace in my extra time.

It is an infectious production-ism. A thing is only valuable if it makes money. An idea only valuable if it makes money, or produces, here, and now. And then you complain of professors who don't care - but this is the result of what you want. The professors are focusing on productivity and what makes money. This isn't endemic to the system. It comes from without.

The survivor-ship bias is just too hard to ignore. "Just get involved. Read forums, go to stack overflow, this is the true way to learn. I'm taking a business course and it's a joke to me therefore it is worthless. Just build it in your garage." Most people are not you. Most people are not people on HN. They want to have lives - not spend every waking moment learning about bitcoin. Many of them will never have any subject they love so deeply. Some will love economically worthless topics. Many just want to get a job to pay for the other parts of their lives.

> I think you're making a blanket statement which is more a reflection of you as an individual, as it really just depends on what subject you're studying.

It doesn't depend at all on subject. There is a motivated person out there that can learn anything online - they will buy the materials, and do it themselves. Most are not this person. My statement is based on my experience as well as the fact the market has not shifted despite years of online options.

The market has already determined - the online options work best for part time learners and CV chasers (like the supply chain course. Business school in general is built for industry - industry doesn't care what you learn in it, they just want it. That is what you should be complaining about. The universities that offer it are just filling a need.)

Thats a perspective of university as a job training program. I would argue that the point of university is more of holistic understanding than inflexible training for skills in need right now. Education in general includes many skills that will not be in industry demand for $$$

I find in person lectures more engaging and pleasant generally speaking. I definitely don't think the information would have stuck with me as well or as long term with online lectures, and I wouldn't have gotten some connections within academia over the internet.

Not to mention I made friends which I wouldn't have had the course been online.

Anyway, how my last sentence went? ;) who couldnt care less?

Accreditation will come from industry which is what really matters. There are plenty of coding bootcamps already who companies pay on par or higher than a university IT degree.

+) or significant, why US edu is so bad in terms of price to earnings ratio comparing to what you can get elsewhere. time to say that king is naked.

Right. As a professor, I'm not embracing this at all. We all hate the situation and don't really know what the best thing to do is.

I spent 120+ hours dealing with all the Audio-Visual idiocy to deliver a 20 minute talk that took me probably 20 hours to prepare.

Yeah, adapt. I have some four letter words for you.

The A/V stuff should be figured out by your University IT/Telecom staff.

Hire a guy who can handle the camera and edit the videos. Have professors plan the lecture, do the talking, and verify that the end product is okay. The guy with the camera can edit videos on multiple subjects, because he doesn't really have to understand the topics.

Of course, if the professors have to learn (each of them separately) how to handle the camera and edit the videos, that is a horrible waste of time. But that's just... lack of strategic thinking on the university's part. It doesn't necessarily have to be that way.

Furthermore, 21st century learning should be interactive, so actually all those lecturers should become videogame developers

yes but then again, plain refusing to learn even the basic is ridiculous. you don't have to start a youtube channel and do all the editing yourself, you just have to learn to drive a webcam and a microphone in a decent manner. it's not rocket science.

It's not fun when they're on the learning side, isn't it?

The professor would just have to prepare the lesson, and to talk to the empty room. Actually, you could even arrange a few people for the audience; in the back side of the room, with masks. There would be almost no difference compared to the usual lesson.

And then -- optionally -- the professor could also give some pictures to the camera guy (the pictures could be made on paper, let the camera guy scan them), and say "when I say this and this at 0:25:00, please show this picture instead of my face". And let the guy do this, too. And then let him upload it to YouTube or Vimeo or wherever.

This is really not about having the professors learn something new. It's just about the professors, or administration, or whoever can make the decision, willing to try something new. And find a budget to hire one guy outside of academia. (If you are lucky, you could find one among your students, but it would be easier to not rely on that.) Heck, I would even volunteer to do that, but I don't have solid camera skills.

I don't really see any plausible excuse here. This could be accomplished even with professors who have literally zero computer skills and are unable to learn any. (Frankly, I wouldn't even want to waste their time learning how to use a camera. I'd prefer them to focus on providing a great lecture, rather than mediocre video editing.) There are even universities that did this long before Covid, and often the professor wasn't the one who handled the camera.

I suppose this is just a perspective of someone who does not work in academia. I work for a private company that has branches in multiple cities. We regularly had video meetings even before Covid. I didn't have to learn any camera skills; I just entered the e-meeting room, clicked a button, the camera and the projector turned on, the people in the other city did the same thing, and then we started talking. Everything else happened automatically. Is there a good reason why the same thing couldn't happen in education?

Making money off housing will disproportionately affect students of differing income backgrounds, so this is not the same as moving that cost to tuition fees.

Schools shouldn't have to run themselves like a traditional business, yet that is exactly the model most are forced to follow in order to survive.

Edit: "shouldn't" not "should"

Having trouble parsing this. What do you mean?

IMO the problem is that many colleges are not focused on education to begin with. They compete with each other by building the most luxurious facilities, sports programs, and so forth. Then they pay execs crazy salaries while leaving the actual instructors in the dust:

"Auditors said salaries paid to staff in the UC president’s office are much higher than the pay of comparable positions in other state government jobs. Administrative salaries amounted to a combined $2.5 million more than the maximum annual salaries for comparable state employee positions, auditors found.

For instance, the UC system’s chief investment officer has a base salary of $615,000, while the top investment officer with the state’s teachers’ retirement system is paid $568,000, the audit found."

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-uc-audit-2017042...

I'll also remind that the UC system isn't just "education", so it's difficult to draw direct comparisons from top-line numbers in terms of staff and finances with most other universities.

They run Los Alamos (with Texas A&M + Battelle), Lawrence Berkeley, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, which cumulatively have a budget in the billions.

They also run 5 major medical centers, which represents ~$13bn of their revenue and a large portion of their staff as well.

----------------------

It's a massive enterprise, and if you were drawing the private-sector comparison I've seen elsewhere, it would be in the Fortune 100 in terms of revenue.

I'm not sure what the "right" number is for that job, but it does seem reasonable to think the top couple roles in that enterprise ought to command some sort of high 6-figure salary if you want to get executives of an appropriate caliber to do that job.

----------------------

Some of the lines in that article, like:

> University of California’s executive vice president and chief financial officer is paid $412,000, while an executive doing a comparable job with the California State University system makes $341,000.

Seem ridiculous, given that CSU has a budget 1/6th the size to manage. If anything, one would think the difference in salaries ought to be far larger given the vastly different scope and complexity of the two entities.

-----------------

I'm sure there's plenty of waste and plenty of reform that could be needed, but I'm not exactly convinced on the basis of these claims.

Why? I can't imagine the UC executive needs to, as an individual, do anywhere near six times the work just because they're managing a budget that's six times larger. I want both executives to do their jobs as well as they can, and that means they should be working about as hard as each other.

- Those at the low end, eligible for financial aid. May be eligible for complete housing/tuition financial aid, but likely to leave school with some amount of debt

- Those in the middle, above meaningful thresholds for financial aid. Perhaps family pays for some tuition/housing, but student is saddled with some amount of debt (full cost of tuition/housing or some fraction depending on family contribution)

- Students in the highest tier have education and housing covered by family or another source. No student loans after graduation.

My issue here is that graduate in the first two categories have less freedom to pursue their career goals compared to a student unburdened by debt. Paying off student loans becomes a driving factor for decisions made after graduation.

Agree that sports and similar are likely unnecessary money sinks, but I don't know whether in some cases these actually bring in more money than they cost (via donations, reputation, or otherwise), but I doubt it.

Now you're stating what? That F500 companies have general lack of funding? So who has? Mom & Pop shop?

Even in a no-limits, fully-government-paid education system, Tidmarsh Community College is going to have to convince students to come there instead of Harvard or State U. They'll have different resources.

You'd have to reduce student choice, or socialize college assets, to have a world where colleges just don't care about running like a business. It's not about level of funding, it's allocation.

The current system misallocates by hiding the true cost and benefits from students. You go to the school with fancy-pants dorms because you think it has been successful! Aren't those dorms and gyms built with successful alumni donations and clever investments?

No! Those amenities are being paid with the loan payments you'll make in your 30s and 40s.

I think your argument here is missing the fact that places like Harvard have a competitive admissions process and carry a reputation which will continue to attract distinguished faculty and high-achieving students, regardless of funding scenario.

If a student living near Tidmarsh doesn't get in to Harvard and still wants to attend a school, they may be forced into a second choice school anyway. The top university in many countries is often partially or completely linked to the state (point being gov't funded), and admissions are gated based on academic achievement.

I'm not really sure why you think this system would break down if suddenly if budget worries were suddenly eliminated. Not everyone can go to Harvard in either scenario, and for that matter, not everyone wants to go to Harvard either. If I wanted to be a welder, there are likely dozens of schools better equipped than Harvard to teach me those skills.

I'm a little unclear why socializing university assets would be problematic, but open to clarification on that point if you care to provide it. In my view, a vigorous and stable educational system benefits society as a whole, and seems a reasonable thing to socialize as a "public property" of sorts.

Fair point.

Still, students are not getting what they are paying for and colleges will not be able to adequately justify the same cost to students, whatever their fixed operating expenses may be, especially since students do not benefit from those expenses.

Admins on the other hand are just a bunch of insecure pricks who know that the only reason they have a job is the bloated organizations they themselves created, which can only be supported as long as students keep paying that ridiculous tuitions.

I think this may be them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Courses

https://web.archive.org/web/20090714005930/http://www.nytime...

Looks like they have adjusted, but used to provide videotapes and cassettes.

In the office, Michael Scott is asked to give a lecture and brings a boombox with the same music the TTC lectures start off with. Its a hilarious in joke if you get the reference.

Can we get into Canada?

EDIT: I mean that I thought Canada won't allow entry to people from the US? Is that just a rumor?

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/201...

There are also tons of productive uses of time that can be done during the pandemic. Now is a great time to volunteer.

The "just take a gap year" crew are living on a different planet than me. No, a different universe. How do you afford to eat and have a roof over your head while you're learning python from Wikipedia full time?

Let's be clear here: student loans are not income. If you're going into debt to pay for college, that's even more reason that you should wait to go to college.

If your reason for staying in school this year is that you need funds to survive, you'd be much better off trying to find a job. Jobs pay in actual money, not debt. If you're college age and able-bodied, the delivery companies are all understaffed to the point that if you can fill out an application you're probably hired. It's not glamorous but it's better than many situations right now. When my business was floundering last year, I used my truck to haul recycling for local businesses. Sometimes the best option is not very good.

Obviously you know your situation better than I do, and it may be that there are some other reasons why going to school is a better option. But nothing you have said so far indicates that to me.

However, if you go too long, prerequisites start to change, credits start to expire, etc., so even if you're readmitted that can be problematic.

And there's the caveat that Covid may have all sorts of effects in the coming years.

(OK maybe I'm wrong)

My local food bank certainly requests volunteers, and they're recommending that seniors or those with health conditions cancel their shifts...further reducing their volunteer pool.

We have to be cognizant of the fact that, by all indications, October will be a very stressful time for a lot of people.

Many of my prospects disappeared as COVID hit - and it made me feel some self worth trying to help others. I learned a ton too.

When the volunteer work is truly doing something for the community, I find it more valuable than paid work (even barely scraping by) - just knowing that I did SOMETHING to attempt to help others.

Just my 2 cents.

Exactly. It's a good opportunity for self directed study.

I would spend time doing something productive, not traveling.

One of the biggest advantages of college for me was realizing how much there was to learn and how easy it was to do it (after skating through all of my schooling with straight As), and I only really refined my autodidactic abilities in my mid-20s.

There are probably some core subjects I could usefully have studied. But, in general, I'm probably not going to place out of classes at many schools even if I've deliberately studied for AP tests. So it's not obvious that year of self-study necessarily leads to a shortened or improved degree program.

That's not a reason not to do it of course. But self-study doesn't necessarily lead to greater personal enrichment than volunteering or hiking the Appalachian Trail does.

Fair point, but that's because students are not encouraged to learn what they are interested in.

I went into computer science as a major because I was interested in computers. College was literally the only way I was able to learn because I didn't know anything about getting started - I didn't know what a programming language was, for example, so I wouldn't know to learn to program.

I grew up poor and my public education was very substandard. College allowed me to get past that, I couldn't imagine trying to do it myself with literally zero guidance.

I know some of you are just so smart you don't need college - but please consider there's a vast about of us plebs that do.

Someone coming from a community where there are literally zero engineers or programmers will be very lucky if they even know what words to look for. We can't search for what we don't even know exists. On the flip side people don't know what they do know, in the sense that assumed common knowledge might not actually be common.

I was lucky that I had a parent who was a teacher, at a time when textbooks started including simple BASIC programs to demonstrate concepts. I was also lucky to have access to a safe and clean public library as a kid, that happened to have a couple of shelves with computer books.

As has been discussed here at length before, for better or worse, good university computer science curricula tend to assume you know your way around a computer and can program--or you have to get up to speed very quickly on the side.

Searching for information online and separating the wheat from the chaff is a skill - one I largely learned in college. I don't take that skill for granted, I see my husband and parents struggling greatly searching for information that's trivial to find (you just gotta know how to find it). Yet I don't tell them they have "learned helplessness" and its just so easy.

You have to understand, I literally didn't know a single person who even knew how to use a computer - it took me months of playing around with the computer to even figure out how to access the world wide web at first. I knew it existed, I knew we had internet and a computer so I should be able to access it, but didn't know anything else. I was so excited when I finally figured it out.

>college doesn't really prepare you for these jobs anyway

Yes it absolutely does, mine did.

Lets crank this up a notch: there are 14 year olds that built a fusion reactor with instructions from the internet (just fusors, no net power), or people that learned how to conduct medical procedures with no outside help. Some even conducted surgery on themselves sucessfully. I doubt the average visitor of HN could do that.

Maybe its because some folks are smarter than others, or maybe you are taking for granted some andavtages you've had over average Joe, or maybe its both. But if you take random Joe off the street and tell them - you will get £10k if you learn to write basic python in a month with no help, just google - most wont be able to do that.

Take yet another step - realise most of the world does not speak english, and for them to learn coding is even harder.

We have 3 college students in our household. We've had these conversations many times in our house over the last few months. The above is the conclusion I've come to for my own kids, that a gap year is basically a waste of time in the current economy. The last thing I'll add is we are saving some money on online classes, room and board makes up roughly $10,000-$15,000 of the cost of sending a kid to college, having the kids at home doing online classes at least saves us that.

But if your point is that gap years are expensive, and not everyone has the luxury to take one--especially in the current economic climate--then I totally agree.

#Edit: I thought you were talking about gap years generally. But, looking back at the context, maybe you mean that 2020-2021 is a particularly bad time to take a gap year, and that current students should tough it out and get their credits in, saving the gap year frivolities for a year when there are more opportunities and less economic uncertainty. If so, I could see this being good advice for a lot of students (though, of course, much depends on one's individual circumstances).

I feel for the kids nowadays. I'd probably just get a year of college out of the way, despite the particularly shitty, expensive form it'll take this year, because there's really no better use of your time right now.

The difference between our quality of life (and especially fear of needing to go back to work) is huge.

Travelling is pretty easy though when you have time and money at this age, I don't feel that I missed out on some travel when I was younger.

I don't really disagree with your other points (though I might make a different decision). But I'm not sure I buy the argument that you should enter the workforce as young as you can profitably do so (considering net present value relative to educational level) and should never take extended time off between jobs.

This is a value judgment specific to the US (and maybe bunch of other countries in the anglosphere). Places in the Mediterranean like Italy and Greece are notably different in children staying at parents' home till their 30s, or places in the Nordic students both don't pay for college and get small monthly stipends from the government for rent (usually in subsidized student housing) and groceries.

Raising humans is hard work and someone got to be footing the bill. Kids don't magically turn into adults at the age of 18, so their parents who made the decision to make them in the first place has responsibility until their kids reach adulthood, or this responsibility can be collectivized by the whole society because failures of parents will also be suffered by the whole society. Putting the burden of outrageous debt on the kid sounds like the most selfish thing to do by the parents and the society. And a debt only for formal education, which alone is not enough to make kids into adults.

I haven't gone to classes consistently since the end of my sophomore year. As this year has unfolded, I've discovered that I can learn material much faster out of a textbook. I miss lectures because it was nice having a professor physically near me for questions and advice. That said, I am managing fine. Testing has been completely changed at my University and the anxiety I had around it is gone. I have 24 hours + open book for my exams now. I actually fill in many of the gaps in my course knowledge during the midterms and finals, leading to a more complete understanding of the class. This is obviously not true for everybody, but I am learning more and faster than I was before, leaving free time to explore adjacent interests and read.

The biggest problem I am facing with my learning at the moment is administrative nonsense. Enrolling for classes was already bad (UC). Now, not only is it bad, but it is pointlessly bad. I am not allowed to enroll in a class because there are 35 students in it. Based on what I've seen, maybe 20 will watch the live zoom lectures. Why is an online class that hardly anybody shows up to being capped? I believe it is because there is some contractual limit on how many students a prof/ta can be "responsible for". My roommate got that explanation after he was told he couldn't enroll in the last class he needed to graduate last quarter. In my mind, that reasoning does not hold at all given the current situation. It is either shocking that the administrators don't realize this or it is disgusting that they do realize it and choose not to change it.

That said, I am paying nearly $70,000 this year. Same as I paid last year. I am being ripped off this year. I was ripped off last year. Last year was terrible and this year is extremely terrible. At this point, I want to put the whole thing behind me. College has been great because all I've had to do is learn and I've made amazing friends. This year we'll be in our apartment carrying on.

The biggest concern that I have is the job market I'll graduate into.

You could work. The delivery companies are all desperate to hire people. It's not glamorous or high-paying work, but it's better than paying through the nose for online classes.

> That said, I am paying nearly $70,000 this year. Same as I paid last year. I am being ripped off this year. I was ripped off last year. Last year was terrible and this year is extremely terrible. At this point, I want to put the whole thing behind me. College has been great because all I've had to do is learn and I've made amazing friends. This year we'll be in our apartment carrying on.

With due respect, there's no college in existence I would pay $70,000/year for. In four years that's $280,000. That's a nice single family home in a nice suburb, or a brownstone in an up-and-coming city neighborhood. Even if the job market magically rights itself, what job are you expecting to get that will allow you to pay that off?

One thing you could do during a gap year that would be worthwhile would be to apply for every scholarship you can to bring that cost down.

The TAs hold discussion sections (also online), hold office hours and grade exams. I don't think it is unreasonable to limit the number of students per TA.

There are similar restrictions on my time (I can only have so many students before it becomes impossible to answer questions in lecture or office hours). But I think these considerations are less restrictive.

Moreover, even if one doesn't care about how much work the TAs and I might have to do, it is very difficult bureaucratically to increase the number of students per TA. There are department policies limiting this number, university-wide policies, and union contracts.

Oh, and there are looming budget cuts, which will probably reduce the number of TAs available and lower maximum enrollments.

I saw a lot of people have this issue after the 2008 collapse.

I definitely agree with you on the gap year.

Not sure where I land on that, but I would guess it's not an uncommon sentiment.

From my experience studying online will be harder for a non-small degree of students. (Through for some it's easier as they anyway don't show up for curses and do anything from home "ad-hock".)

I believ that for courses which are mainly frontal putting this part online will be majorly helpful (e.g. a reading in front of a large publicum with close to no questions from the publicum).

But especially during a CS master many curses are smaller and with a lot of student professor interactions. This translates not so well to online, even with video conferences. And that is assuming that students do have a easy to access internet connection which is good enough to do a ~20 people conference.

So while I hope for a lot of improvements by putting parts of the studium online I also hope it will be just part of it.

Lastly in-person studium creates a social environment (similar to in-person work) having online only studies/work would have _major_ health risks for a non small amount of people (such which e.g. are already somewhat depressive, have problems creating social connections, have a weak social net, lost most of their friends due to problems in their school years etc.). I have meat at least one person who would not unlikely already have committed suicide in a "online only" world...

unfortunately, for many students that isn't an option. Some students rely on living off of student loans, which they can't get during a gap. Some student's income is tied to the university (for example, working as a TA, or research assistent).

The problem with taking a gap year for current students (in the US) is that many of them have federal student loans whose interest is deferred as long as they are studying full time. A gap year means they will incur interest for the rest of their University time and have that much more to pay off at the end.

They are happy to sing when they get paid the same amount.

> You have to pay homage to various absurd beliefs

Really? Which ones? I don't recall having to "pay homage" to anything during my time in higher ed., must less any absurd beliefs. What do you have in mind here?

> You have to...contribute money to them

I do? I guess I paid tuition, if that's what you mean. But isn't it pretty normal for an institution to require some form of payment in exchange for services? And it wasn't all that much actually, because I was lucky to be able to attend a reasonably high-quality public university within my state. (Of course, one might object to the amount in particular cases.) And I haven't contributed any money since. Certainly nobody has tried to forced me to. in reality, all this amounts to is getting a few annoying emails.

> You have to...worship the value of it no matter what the apparent merit of it is

I don't think so. I don't worship the value of my diploma and never have. (Though I have found it very useful in certain endeavors.) The college police have never showed up at my door and ordered me to show more respect. In fact, my own perception is that skepticism of the value of higher ed. (beyond its credentialing function and possibly its ability ro embed students in certain social networks) is a very fashionable view right now.

I've never read this book but it was published several decades ago and I agree with the premise. Unfortunately I forgot which book it was so this comment is partly an effort to see if anyone else knows which book this is so I can finally get around to reading it.

*edit

I would have liked to remove the part about political correctness, BLM and anti-racism as it does nothing to contribute to the discussion and the question can be answered without a reference to any of those things. I will not, because to do so feels misleading.

In general, I appreciate how old the book is because its removed from all modern political discussion yet the advice applies the same. I also appreciate how it has fans on all sides of the political aisle (details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer

I think this is bang-on, and it's evident in the flattening that every concept undergoes when it makes contact with the masses. But I don't know if the descriptor "mass movement" applies very cleanly to institutions like higher education. They certainly have different characteristics, in that institutions nominally have somewhat-centralized authority while mass movements are driven by the collective whims of the masses.

What on earth is this referring to?

>its heresies which appear to be self-directed development and independent thinking

A place to learn to do research makes an heresy of "self-directed development and independent thinking"?

I've had students try to tell me off (with great vitriol too) for not being a 'real developer' since I lack a CS degree or a Software XYZ degree, despite having worked as a developer for a while. Even professors were skeptical about being able to break into the industry. I did manage it, and it was surprisingly easy to do, which made me scratch my head about where those beliefs came from in the first place.

I have a degree in "Computer Science" (1987) but it was not a math program. It would not surprise me to learn today that there are many existing "computer science" programs that are not math degrees.

One of the big issues we've had, which I think we're getting better at, is not realizing how much others on the team are in the dark when you had a discussion but no one else was in on it. This led to a lot of friction and frustration in March / April for us.

If you're used to being able to just tap people on the shoulder and get a group of people looking at something, you can still do that, just get everyone on a call. Working remote, those "collaboration" sessions start to look more like "interruptions", for better or worse. If your team doesn't have more robust communications strategies than being in earshot of each other, it's going to show.

Unfortunately I think that it is also a symptom of poor adaptation to the supposed pandemic, just as much as it is uncertainty for how long this will go on that keeps people and organizations from rebuilding and reorganizing to permanently/temporarily adapt to the current situation. Humans do not do well under perpetual states of uncertainty, no marginally advanced life form really does. Every life form wants and needs predictability, certainty, and habits/patterns. Patterns are the core of life, as they are to the technology sector.

Most people were told we need to "flatten the curve" for two or so weeks and therefore we need to take emergency and short term measures. That was now going on 5 months ago, and without any kind of definitive event horizon for when everyone can "go back to the office".

We hear anything from "we will reassess in two weeks" … every two weeks … to "not until a vaccine is discovered" … which could literally be never, and everything in between. Just alone that ambiguity and uncertainty is causing stress and anxiety because people cannot even plan for their children's education schedule. People are still often operating as if it's a short term emergency, while it is becoming ever more apparent that it may be a permanent shift in reality, especially as companies realize or are pressured to cut costs with remote work that cuts out overhead costs that can be translated into profits or at least revenues to offset the massive costs/losses.

Again, I find that the uncertainty and lack of commitment is a far more damaging situation that may also even lead to severe shake-ups as companies that did commit to remote work and reconsidered and reworked their whole structure to accommodate that, start gaining market share.

What a smart business would do is to commit to some long term schedule as some tech companies already have, e.g, no changes to remote work before the new year, so that people have some certainty, and they would also start investing and rethinking their processes to support remote work to accommodate the things you illustrate as challenges.

It's true that certain types of politicking are harder now, since you can't charm people in the kitchenette or over lunch. But setting meetings and making promises and aligning others' incentives in a way that benefits you is a lot easier in an environment that cuts the non-politicker off from, eg, seeing people walk out of a meeting room and checking their calendars to see what they were meeting about.

I am a tech worker in a highly bureaucratic and "political" type of company (finance). No wonder the "management" has been pushing the return to office so hard - they need the "face time" with their bosses.

There's a valid argument in the annoyance of audio latency for this making it not as efficient as physical presence but it's still a very workable solution and gets most of the way there.

why not?

My previous team was distributed across three sites with some people WFH and it worked really well.

Admittedly the people WFH, myself included, had a home office (i.e. a dedicated room for work), the lack of which, I guess, is the main reason for a lot of people not enjoying WFH, that and the children running around :)

Even without those issues WFH requires a lot of self-discipline to create and stick to a routine. That suits some people but a lot of people need and value the external factors of a commute and office to enforce routine.