@Knowsstuff I’ve heard the same about the huge increase in assignments. At first, I thought it was just an issue of more challenging classes but it seems to be a broader theme with the college students I know.
Agree with those above. D19 has seen a drastic increase in the amount of readings required, as well as the number of assignments.
My D19 is also seeing a much greater workload. Says she feels like she’s teaching herself in just about every course.
Yes it seems some professors are having difficulty judging workloads. Students are supposed to have a 1 hour lecture but the professor puts up a 3 hour unedited lecture that the students need to watch before tutorial.
One thing DS does like is the ability to play lecture videos at faster speed.
OMG S19 cannot even imagine having a greater workload than he normally has. I hope Bowdoin figures this part out for spring. The guy burned the midnight oil all of freshman year and I don’t know what having more to do would look like for him.
I have a lot of compassion for you, NJSue, it must be very stressful to teach at a college where you don’t feel safe–I’m assuming by the fact that you are not happy about teaching in person there that there are a lot of positive cases (because of course there are other ways to control spread besides frequent testing, such as rigorous adherence to social distancing and mask-wearing, and from your post I’m guessing you still don’t feel safe so there are probably a lot of cases).
But as far as cost of testing goes, I think you can look at it many ways. We all know that Broad Institute is charging $25 per test. Most schools have a shortened semester, sending kids home by Thanksgiving, so that’s barely more than 10 weeks on campus. So for schools doing 1x per week testing, that’s roughly $250 per kid for the entire semester of testing, for 2x, that’s $500 for the whole semester. Of course when you multiply that by the number of students, that’s a very big number. But I believe that if my child’s school had asked us to pony up an extra $250-$500 to contribute to an optional covid-testing fund, knowing that the more we contribute, the more testing would happen, the vast majority of full-pay parents would have done it (given that they are already paying over $35k in most instances for a semester, and everyone was nervous about their kids getting sent home early–this would be a wise investment). And I think people on partial financial aid would have also chipped in what they could for this added security. So a large portion of this cost could have been defrayed if necessary, I believe. Additionally, there are schools using the Yale protocol for a saliva test that I think is only $5 per test??? Even more manageable. Anyway, I think administrations could have gotten creative about funding these costs–I don’t think you need to be a “rich school” to make it happen, you just need people who are willing to pay the $250 per semester “insurance”, which does not seem insurmountable. Kids could work a couple of nights babysitting to raise the money (I babysat at least once a week in college, and even in the dark ages I made $70 per night). Sure, no school would get close to 100% participation for a variety of reasons, including that a lot of people are struggling financially right now, but if half the people chipped in, that would only mean $125 per student to get everyone tested once a week for the entire semester. A lot of schools could handle the difference by cutting some other expense (no ice cream bar for the semester!!). To me, this was a worthwhile investment on the part of schools.
@homerdog Is Bowdoin’s Spring semester shortened? If so, I would assume they will be piling on the work, too. What has been difficult has been no real breaks so it’s chugging 7 days/week with all the homework, projects, and online tests.
He might consider taking one fewer class, if possible. Or at least sprinkle an easy one in there.
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100% Correct. My daughter is at U of SC.
D20s school (large state flagship) just formally announced their Spring plans. Hybrid model continues, dorms open and increased mandatory testing to 2x per week (up from once per week) for anyone accessing campus for any reason, start one week later than usual (Jan 25th) and no spring break. It’s a long stretch again. She is definitely homesick right now, but making the best of her experience.
George Washington University just announced that they will allow 1,500 students access on campus housing for the spring term.
I’m fortunate in that I’ve taught my current online/in-person course many times already. They are synchronous online for lecture and in-person for labs, but the assignments are pretty much the same as always.
That said, agree with NJSue that students are either doing reasonably well or sunk altogether at this point. Not even going to ponder the reasons for all that. Right now, just a battle to survive the semester.
Not a shortened semester as far as I can tell but I have already talked to him about maybe asking around and finding one class that maybe isn’t as intense. Even as a math and physics double major, he didn’t take any entry level classes as all last year and jumped right into higher level humanities and stem classes. Some intro class may be in his near future. Lol.
Testing for testing’s sake is wasteful and pointless. Testing should be targeted toward higher risk individuals who either present with symptoms or who have been in contact with those who have tested positive. Testing everyone weekly may catch kids who were infected 2 to 7 days ago, but it won’t catch the person who contracted it yesterday (in most cases).
Real management and contact tracing will do more good than scheduled testing, and simultaneously save the ice cream bar (have you no heart for the struggles of those on campus?).
Totally disagree. Testing reduces size of outbreaks. Twice a week testing is the way to go. 1 asymptomatic positive can infect a dozen people in a few days, without knowing. But once that person is positive, contact tracing helps stop the exponential spread and helps squash the outbreak before it’s hundreds of people.
Yes not having breaks. They should have a long weekend to get their mental health together
This isn’t the place for a debate, but my position is that most of the testing done on campuses is wasteful. Look back at how many tests your son/daughter/friends etc. have had, and how many have turned up negative. If someone feels fine, has been careful, and doesn’t know anyone who is positive, testing that person is almost pointless. Sure, the “positivity rate” looks good, but at what cost? No ice cream? Why bother being on campus?
You can not test your way around an outbreak…you have to aggressively manage them the moment they appear. If Asymptomatic people are following the rules, we may never know they were infected. If that’s the case…it’s OK. In reality, there are very few asympomatic cases.
IMO - You’re about to see several “well managed campuses” struggle with outbreaks. It’s not that schools have thwarted the virus with their testing, it’s a matter of luck and timing. I hope I’m wrong.
Wanted to add that MIT’s numbers include testing of anyone allowed access to campus buildings. Grad students, undergrads (only seniors & special cases), staff (custodial, nutrition svcs, medical, public works, etc) researchers, professors; quite literally ANYONE allowed access to campus. Curious Jr. tells me of the 61 positives this semester, only 5 were students. Therefore the student case rate & positivity are actually much lower than appears on the school dashboard.
Are those positivity numbers for other schools including the greater community or just students?
If everyone followed social distancing rules, then there would not be outbreaks. But we know that not everyone follows social distancing rules. Testing is an attempt to find those who are contagious without knowing it, although currently available tests have a lot to be desired in this respect (too inconvenient and expensive to use daily, and results often take days to be returned instead of immediately being able to telling people that they are contagious and therefore must stay away from others).
Actually, a large percentage of cases are asymptomatic, and symptomatic cases have a few days before symptoms start that are asymptomatic but highly contagious. That people can give the virus easily without knowing that they are contagious is the reason why COVID-19 is a major public health problem, unlike the related SARS and MERS that are not highly contagious before symptoms appear.
It might have done SUNY Oneonta some good. I think they had wastewater testing plus some limited individual testing, but it wasn’t enough.
Mandatory testing twice a week keeps students honest. If they violate gathering rules, they will be found out when clusters of positives will emerge. The mandatory testing also prevents them from ignoring mild symptoms and carrying on (thereby infecting others.)