D has no Fridays on her schedule for the second time as well. Her school announced on Friday that the common room in her fall dorm is to be converted to an extra living space.
^ @milgymfam - Is that to create single rooms? Or because they are increasing enrollment?
@JBStillFlying these are already single rooms (almost everyone already has a single and theyâve made no mention of switching the minority of doubles they have- theyâre still in the lottery as doubles). This is to accommodate those students who would have been studying abroad but now cannot.
DH has speculated that they will test everyone as they arrive on campus. After that, they will test anyone who has a fever at fever checks, or who wants to be tested. Those who test positive will go into quarantine dorms. Their close contacts will be notified, but will be allowed to continue as normal, unless they test positive.
The idea is to mitigate, not eliminate risk.
My D19 has her fall schedule set, but there are definitely Friday classesâyou canât really swing 19 credits without them!?
(Sheâs an industrial engineering major whoâs trying to figure out if she can add a philosophy minor. The answer, I am sure, is no, but sheâs certainly gonna try, it appearsâŠ)
So Northeastern has stated that they want the kids on campus in the Fall, which I find refreshing instead of just cancelling tings 3-6 months out like they are doing around here. A few other Boston based colleges are also hopeful going back including Harvard, but Tufts is still wishy washy about it so weâll see. I am going to be optimistic and think they will go back and maybe have some hybrid leaning, like some in person classes and labs, and some remote classes to keep Professors and workers safe.
With the weather getting warmer and they days growing longer I sense a bit of pandemic fatigue and people just want to get out. I live next to a golf course and it was packed this weekend,. Stores mobbed. Hiking trails swamped with people.
I personally have not felt held back from the restrictions in place, and certainly no need for me to go stand around waving signs and yelling to open everything up. Iâve been able to go to the stores I need to for supplies, bike ride, and get take out when needed. We donât eat out a lot, and I donât go to bars, tattoo parlors, or worry about my hair lol. I donât watch a lot of tv so I donât miss that, and I thought I would miss pro sports a bit, but nope not really. Kind of bummed I missed the end of ski season, and not going to some track meets, but other than that we are just keeping on keeping on.
Yesterday DDâs apartment lease started, so we went down to get her key and move as much as we could fit in the pickup. Iâm glad Iâve gotten to see it in person now. Itâs not perfect- but the flaws are generally âold house characterâ so I like it and itâs what sheâs used to as well. Itâs pretty cute.
She will be living there come fall, regardless.
Also drove onto campus to return textbooks in a drop box. Bittersweet for her to see her dorm and how pretty the campus looks in spring- she had been looking forward to being there in nice weather.
@bjscheel moving forward. Thatâs good. Stuck with no info over here. Should know more soon. Someone posted MITâs latest town hall on one of the Covid CC threads. Iâll repost here. Not looking like school is going to be recognizable at all. Most schools are going to look similar to these plans. I donât see any other way around it. I have no idea what S19 will want to do. And returning books? Not sure how heâs supposed to do that. I guess the post office is open and we will have to pack books up? He doesnât have many but Iâm going to have him reach out and see if he can have an extension and just bring them back if/when he goes back to Maine.
Even though D generally hates online learning, she decided to accept a scholarship to attend ASUâs CLI (now online) starting in two weeks. It was a last minute scholarship opportunity and she knows sheâll likely not have the time and ability to learn such an obscure language again for free, so she wanted to take it. Her job wonât be opening back up anytime soon, so even though her school wonât accept the 8 credits she figured it would keep her entertained for a chunk of the summer.
@homerdog are you talking about rental books from the school? S19âs school sent everyone a pre-addressed shipping label so we just have to box them up with a note inside indicating studentâs name/ID number. Perhaps contact Bowdoin and see if they are offering the same sort of service?
@4kids4us Thanks. Iâll have S19 look at the emails they sent. Heâs in the midst of finals week so we will deal with the books next week. One of them is an intra library loan so he could call the library to see how to deal with that oneâŠ
DDâs school also offered mailing labels.
S19âs first year at Denison is officially over. Yesterday, he enjoyed the idea he was on âsummer vacation,â but today he realized he is already bored. Thankfully, Denison sent around an email earlier this week with some helpful offerings for the summer, what they are calling Summer Accelerator. Nothing for credit, but all free. There are some academic offerings, some introductory business classes and an internship program where the students will work on a consulting project. It appears that alumni will be providing a lot of support for the business and consultancy programs. S19 was also hired for a docent position in the Admissions office just before the campus shut down and they are trying to involve him in virtual tours, etc. The schoolâs been doing a good job, both in coming up with ideas like this that keep the kids feeling connected and in keeping everyone informed. The president of the school has been sending around a video every week or two - in the most recent one, he talked about how they are preparing for the fall, with the âintentâ to be on campus. S19 is all in, so we will go along with whatever they decide in the end, even if itâs still online. The professors did a good job this past semester. Out of four classes, only one was kind of a dud, and the other three were quite innovative and very interactive. Assuming that they might still be online, S19 has loaded up his fall schedule with courses designed to knock off some of the GE requirements.
I guess some students are still in finals, but once thatâs over, I think everybody should give themselves a big pat on the back, parents and students alike. If anyone had told us a year ago what was about to happen . . .
S19 finished finals last week, has grades now, thrilled to have earned all As (in one case with a 90.1% - rolling eyes here) so not taking advantage of the generous post-semester P/F option.
Started his first summer session class Monday. The instructorâs frequent communications and real-time office hours have been amazing he says. Expects it to be a good class, looking forward to two more later in the session.
Also, his school announced a partnership with our stateâs department of health to hire college students to do contact tracing. He is applying.
Heads to campus today to empty his dorm room. UofSC required you to sign up for a move-out slot to limit the number of kids there at any one time. He and his friends organized to get a slot together, so Iâm not sure the distancing thing is going to happen quite as planned.
My D misses those 90 As greatly- you have to hit a 94 to have an A at her school. Ha! Yesterday she got to be her groupâs mouthpiece (her group is about 1/3-1/2 of the class) to tell the teacher his final was impossible to complete as written. She didnât love that at all. The final (whatever they can complete of it) is due Friday. And then sheâs done!
Haverford has also recently sent around some free online enrichment courses for the summer taught by faculty and alumni. Again, no credit, but also no cost. Some seem pretty interesting.
S had one professor who only gave As for 96 and above! Fortunately itâs a little less strict in his other classes.
As a teacher, Iâll note that there is nothing sacrosanct about the 90%/80%/and so on scale.
If the class is set up so that grades (in purely absolute numerical terms) skew high, then 96% as the minimum for an A makes sense; if the class is set up so that grades (again, in purely numerical terms) skew lowâas a couple of my classes have been, in my own teaching historyâthen it might make sense for an 80% to be the minimum for an A.
(Really, this is simply what curving a grade does, itâs just that a curve is done afterward.)
@dfbdfb yeah that makes sense.
Too bad Sâs calc professor in the fall wasnât on board with that plan. 
Students also often rise to the challenge when increasing the cutoff. I was TAing an intro bio course for pre-meds at UIUC for a few years. The cutoff for an A was 85%, and the number who were getting As hit 40%, so the next year, without changing the course, they raised the cutoff to 90%. That year, 40% got As. There was no curve either year, and the grading was no less strict.
D19 submitted her last final this afternoon and is officially done freshman year. Sheâs gonna spend the next two weeks reading and doing art before the language intensive starts.