My son is deciding between several schools right now and it would be very helpful to know how well these schools have handled the switch to distance during this semester since it seems like that is a high likelihood that it will be done again, whether as a planned online fall Semester or as a necessary interruption if we get a second wave of the virus. Has anyone compiled reviews from current students on what their colleges are doing and how effective their distance learning strategies and platforms have been?
CC: a meaningful survey of current college students would be a huge draw for those of use still making fall decisions
My two kids have also been having conversations with their friends about renting a place and living together if the schools are online for the fall. They are not set on renting a place close to campus necessarily, as prices might be lower in different areas of the country than the prices around their campuses.
Regardless of what you do with the students, there are a massive number of people who come and go from the campus regularly - faculty, maintenance, administration. You can’t restrict them all to campus and you probably can’t test them every day.
@shuttlebus – Yes, I’ve thought about that too. My D’s college friends are from all over. If they don’t need to be near campus (or aren’t allowed to), they could find a place within fairly easy (8 hours or less?) driving distance from everyone’s home so that if one got sick they could be picked up in fairly short order.
Prolly best to avoid big cities w/ mass transit, of course. Plus, they’re expensive. Being close to nature somewhere would be attractive to my D. She’s an avid hiker.
Again, with the idea that they’d practice the same social distancing, no parties, etc. that’s required wherever they are.
At Ohio State, student newspaper ran this story about off campus house parties…
*In a news release Wednesday posted to Twitter by Columbus Police, Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein said that despite warnings, large gatherings continue to occur — particularly in the University District and short-term rentals. Columbus Police’s original policy was to warn those in violation about potential sanctions before citing them, but Klein said warnings are “no longer enough.”
…
Columbus Police received 10 complaints April 3-5 about gatherings occurring in the University District. *
OSU sent out an email to all students, warning about the consequences…
“Columbus Police may turn these citation records over to the Office of Student Conduct, resulting in additional penalties from the university,” Hegarty said. She also said that charges will be on students’ criminal records for at least a year before they can be sealed.*
@houstonfrshmom Best way to get reviews of the current situation is to talk to students you know from your high school who are at these colleges. First hand experience would give the best examples and reviews. S19 and his high school friends are always comparing notes on how each of their colleges is doing this semester. Or you could start a thread with the colleges your S is considering and posters will chime in with details on how the classes are going.
re: student health services…I know there are at least some services available at Ohio State, because my D was able to call and have them fill her prescriptions by mail.
I’m not really sure how fair or helpful that would be. We had to switch to online format in one week, with very little or no department guidance, much of it with technology we had never used.
It was suggested at one point that we just do our best to survive and moderate our expectations of the students who did not sign up for this. Some of them have limited or inadequate online access. They may be at home with siblings or parents who are also using the internet for school or work. They may have to work to bring in money if their family is taking a financial hit. They may have sick family members or younger siblings they have to care for or try to homeschool. In short, their lives may be upside down and stressed and caring about your particular subject might be close to impossible.
Presumably, if some online format was prescribed for the fall, both students and faculty would be better able to navigate. Judging from the situation RIGHT NOW would hardly be representative of anything.
Yes – agree I think quality of online instruction in the Fall would be higher than now for the reasons above. Faculty will have the summer to prepare and more access to assistance with online instructional design and IT support to create new digital learning assets, esp. for labs. (Note: they may even mail hands-on labs to do at home.)
That said, useful information for a prospective student from now enrolled students is how generally nimble / proactive / and positive faculty and college staff are being given the circumstances.
Hm. I don’t know. A college that can get decent online classes out without much time seems like a college I’d like to go to. I do agree that fall online classes should be better overall but there is absolutely no guarantee on that.
I know I’m a broken record, but S19 and his friends who go to LACs are having a much better online experience. It definitely depends on the class and the quality is not completely consistent but, overall, the small schools seem to be doing this better with the small sample set of S19 and his friends. For S19, three of his four classes are real time virtual with small class sizes. The other is his biggest class with 40 kids and that one just has recorded lectures so it’s not great. I’m guessing that larger schools might have more of the recorded lecture type classes. Of his three virtual classes, this is how they run:
English essay class with 12 kids. Meets at the same time as usual. Three hours one afternoon. Absolutely no change in curriculum. Professor very available for individual meetings.
History class with 25 kids. Lecture in real time. Added to the online "curriculum" is a second class time for groups of four kids at a time - another hour on a different day - to hold discussions with professor. Curriculum hasn't changed at all.
Math with 22 kids. Lecture in real time. Professor then broke kids into groups of 3 and requested they meet virtually twice a week to do the group work required for the homework. On Fridays, she meets with each of these groups of three to answer questions. Curriculum the same.
Astronomy class. Recorded lectures. Class never had labs so not missing that. Professor available for questions upon request. It's kind of an easy entry level type science class for non-sciencey kids and S19 pretty much knows every concept that has been taught so far so, for him, he doesn't feel like it's a big deal that this one is recorded. He's taking it because it's required for him to take higher level astronomy classes.
Overall, S19 says the rigor of his classes is the same. He’s pretty much working M-F all day and usually a little at night. I think he worked maybe six or seven hours last weekend as well.
I’ts just one example. I know some kids at S19’s school have classes that have become less personal. It’s just so dependent on the professor. At his school, faculty was trusted to do their class however best they could since the shift was so last minute.
I’d love to hear from more students about how their mid-sized or large classes are being handled.
All of this being said, we all hope that online class isn’t forever so how classes are taught at the schools is still the most important thing to consider. If I had a high school senior, I don’t think I’d put too too much emphasis on how online is going but being flexible and doing the best for students in a hard time is something that can be judged.
^^my son at Michigan is a junior
Maybe it’s because he’s a junior but I joked around with him about what he is doing with all his “free” time. He’s in his apartment alone. He kinda got pissed at me and said he is being loaded up with group project work and other homework. He said this is his hardest semester yet. He’s still working remotely and doing his ECs online. They seem to be loading these kids up on work. Maybe intentionally? Maybe because it’s new?
For many I think online learning is feasible. Not optimal but feasible.
Same with my U S. Carolina daughter. She is living with her off campus apartment after being home with us for 5 weeks. She likes her independence, and finds it easier to get her work done there. She will be living with 2 roommates in the fall in a 3 br house.
It would not be surprising if colleges that already did substantial distance education did better than others in the quick switch to distance education this semester/quarter.
Specific courses may also matter. A course which already had a distance education section, or where lectures were recorded for later playback, may have adapted more easily to forced distance education. But courses which are inherently more difficult to do distance education with (e.g. those where labs are the main part of the course) may have done worse generally.
I don’t even know why this would be a criteria. A year ago, would anyone have said “Hey, my criteria is what if the college has to close because of a plague - how well will they transition to online in the middle of a semester with no advance?”
Colleges can’t stop adults from renting properties that aren’t campus owned and operated, and I suspect most college towns would object if they tried to drive their business away. It doesn’t benefit college officials to anger the locals, and driving a bunch of property owners into bankruptcy is a good way to tick off a lot of people.
My D attends a tiny LAC with a strong honor code. First, the school couldn’t make kids not take off campus apartments, but if they asked them not to, I suspect they wouldn’t- there is little precedence because almost everyone lives on campus usually. Second, her classes all have twelve students or less, all are held synchronously with zoom office hours and study groups, and the school is being super helpful and accommodating- but that doesn’t mean that online is working well for my D. It’s not, and based on an informal poll going around a group of kids at her school, many kids would prefer to take a semester or even year off than continue online in the fall. Whether that’s the $54,000 tuition or just a very strong desire to not take classes online… well, I don’t know. My D wants to stay with her cohort but also is feeling unmotivated and unhappy with online instruction. I don’t expect they’ll make a decision before June or July for the fall though. I definitely can’t imagine my D going back to an off campus apartment with online courses. Her anxiety means she hasn’t left the house except to walk in nature since this all started- no way she could handle grocery shopping etc on her own through this.
@austinmshauri --it’s a small LAC located in a historic small town surrounded by a well-populated suburban area. Town businesses don’t rely on student spending to survive; they are mostly supported mostly by well-heeled townies, though I’m sure the restaurants benefit when parents come in town and take students out. And there’s a few cheaper places where they sometimes eat.
There’s no student housing in town to speak of b/c 97% of students live on campus. The college has its own on campus apartments for upperclassmen. Students probably could barely afford to live in the town, tbh! There are some apartments typically rented by young professionals, I think, that they might be able to get access to.
I think the college would only tell students not to come back if the town was making that request as well for public health reasons, so I don’t see this being a town/gown issue.
@sylvan8798 how a school responds to this crisis, both in its online classes and in every other way, is a testament to how well the school is run and how they treat their students. It also might be a matter of how much money the school has to produce good online classes quickly. Financial strength of a college is super important right now.
Some colleges do have on-campus living requirements for at least some students (even if it is only something like “traditional-age unmarried frosh who do not already live within [some distance] of campus and do not require medical or disability accommodations not available in campus housing”). But these should be known before matriculation; it would be unusual for a college to (try to) add such a requirement on students who are already attending.