Another recent thread at http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/2178873-impact-of-coronavirus-on-summer-internships-and-jobs-for-new-graduates.html suggests that college students are seeing summer internship offers rescinded. If employers feel that they need to back out on offers that they made and that students have committed to, that suggests that they expect to have insufficient work for their existing college graduate staff that they have neither the money nor the need for (relatively inexpensive) “test drives” of college student interns as a prelude to recruiting them at graduation.
My son was leaning to gap year before all this. This just pushes him further to that choice. I didn’t like the idea of a gap year but I am not going to force him to do one thing or another. He has to decide this. The school’s literature says they will let kids defer if they notify the school by a certain date. I hope they push the date back. I’d like to see how things look closer to the start date.
That said, I teach public school and our district has told us they plan to start a week early because they anticipate having distance learning again in the fall. I have no idea what the time frame for projections are but had the sense this meant November - Jan or Feb or ??? Who knows.
Our district has not taken any break since distance learning started. We had no pause in instruction as we went from in person to distance learning. Our issue is that some kids are not doing their work or much work and we don’t want to make the situation harder for families. We don’t want to push but at the same time, there are students doing all the work who could do more and those who are not doing much. I am very sensitive that many families are struggling. Some of my students have parents sick in the hospital with the virus, many have food scarcity even during normal times, parents who lost their jobs, etc. That said, I’m sure some are just playing video games and etc and blowing off school. I don’t know which are which and I am doing my bet. I’m working way more hours now than I did when school met in person. I have been up super late (midnight) too many times working. I don’t know what online college is like but I don’t imagine professors have a higher % of students who are doing all their work.
We were told there will be cuts at our school district. I hope and think at this time I’m not one of them but moving forward we don’t know. if the town is hard hit economically all bets are off because they may not pass the budget without deeper cuts. I’m sure that’s going to happen across the country. A lot of people have posted here that teaching is a good profession if you want a job. That can be true but I haven’t ever seen teaching as it is talked about which is often as a profession in dire need to hire more people. I have always seen teaching jobs as competitive to come by, sometimes very, very competitive. After the recession, the number of applications per job was in the hundreds, sometimes 800 applying for one job.
I know my D20 will go back to being a hostess part-time starting in May when the “safer at home” restrictions are lifted. Once these restrictions are gone, you will have a lot of businesses back open and unemployment will drop considerably.
In addition, volunteer work should not be compromised much. Many, many businesses will want free labor and the gap year student will get some valuable experience. As I mention, they can take an online class, etc. Creative gap year kids can and will find things to do if motivated.
I for one will not let my 18 year play video games all day if he/she is still living under my roof and this would be the deal if we all agreed on a gap year.
@Knowsstuff right. If it’s an October start, though, it shouldn’t be a problem. Schools can shorten breaks or take away short ones like fall break. Bowdoin’s spring break is two weeks and it could just be one.
As for a Jan start, that is more worrisome of course. When do you all think school would absolutely, positively have to be finished up in order to not affect internships and the start of training programs? July 1? July 7? Schools on quarter systems don’t finish until mid-June already. Maybe colleges really mix it up and shorten their semesters by two weeks or get rid of reading weeks and finals just to scrunch in two semesters.
Some schools must think this possible because they are the ones who have floated the Jan start idea - BU being the most quoted school who has said it’s an option.
Include medical professionals. Right now there’s no elective surgeries. People won’t be in a rush to come back to hospitals or the doctor’s office. Plus with unemployment rising less people will be seeing the doctor due to loss of insurance or higher costs.
Maybe history teachers aren’t impacted today but a year from now who knows. If less people can afford college or they have to look for less expensive options there will be turnover.
^^ re: teaching jobs being competitive. It depends on the district. We have trouble hiring anyone here. Many classes go a whole year without a real teacher. They only have rotating subs who’s only requirement is that they have a pulse. And many hired quit within months. Younger S had one last two weeks and walked out mid class. It’s not an easy job.
I’m beginning to think that there is a day of reckoning coming for higher education.
Students should pay close attention to the types of jobs, and industries, that weather this storm the best.
In my company we’re actively tracking the “pandemic proof” products we’re confident we can count on going forward. The bottom 25% of our products that fair the worst will be eliminated. We’ll make value judgements about those items on the bubble.
I wouldn’t count on that part-time hostess job being there when the all clear finally sounds. Locally we’re projecting 40% of the restaurants shut down by stay at home orders will go out of business if they’re required to stay closed through mid-May. If the orders stretch into June that percentage becomes 50+.
Why is there only pushback at “elite” universities and LAC’s? Do parents at mid-tier universities and LAC’s not care about their students? My D is headed to a mid-tier LAC in the fall (still deciding which one). I’m on several parent Facebook pages and Webinars for these schools and the parents are just as passionate about this issue as any parents of “elite” school students.
@MAmom111 I didn’t call out those schools to offend anyone but those are the types of schools where parents and students are already signing petitions for a semester with no online classes. Plus, at these types of schools, a large percent of families are paying very high prices for tuition and don’t see the value in an online option for $30k.
It seems, when reading these threads, that parents of kids who are at large public schools are more likely to be ok with a semester of online class. It’s not their preference of course but I haven’t seen those parents saying they would have their kids take a leave of absence. That type of comment seems to be coming almost exclusively from parents at expensive private schools.
And…while I understand that families who pay $70,000+ per year are upset (rightfully so) about the possibility of continued online education, let’s not forget that $50,000 is also a lot of money for many families…$20,000 is a tremendous amount of money for many families, etc.
Many families work incredibly hard “just” to afford their instate school. That price tag for online learning is also a difficult pill to swallow.
Yep. They will have to shorten the breaks and readjust the semesters to make it work, I agree with that. No question there is going to be a hybrid of learning and just think everyone needs to understand this. I just can’t figure out how they thin out the dorms. Where do these kids go? It’s not like any college just happens to have like 600 extra beds somewhere… Lol.
Once the states begin to open up, we will naturally see an uptick in cases, but will that necessarily be a second surge? Why are so many convinced that there will be a second surge?
Why do some of you think that a January return would be more optimal than the regular fall return? Why do you think the situation will be more improved in January in the heart of cold and flu season?
My kid’s LAC is holding a phone-information session about covid19 with the university president and parents next week. It will be interesting to see what is said.
Because the ‘flatten the curve’ plan wasn’t to eliminate cases, just to spread them out over more time. If 1M people were supposed to get the virus, 1M will still get the virus but over a longer time line. In all the graphs with a bell curve and 1M people under the curve, all ‘flattening’ it does is push the massive number of cases down the road. There may be better treatments for the symptoms, but people will still be getting the virus until there is a preventative vaccine.
@twogirls fair enough. But, again, every article I’ve read where parents are pushing back on online and requesting the semesters be pushed out for fall have students at the top schools. It’s just an observation. The U of Chicago kids and the Northwestern kids who are signing petitions to move the start date later are specifically stating that they don’t want to pay $30k for online classes. Pomona students are another group speaking out. I never said that people paying less care less. I’m just talking about what I’ve read in the news and I haven’t read stories about state school students pushing back on online classes (yet).
I have friends and colleagues with kids at all kinds of schools…private, public, top, middle, etc.
While I certainly believe you, so far none of them have discussed petitions and I haven’t read about this happening.
I did, however, see what an acquaintance posted on FB about her son’s OOS public university. She’s fighting for money back because she doesn’t want to pay full cost for online learning.