MIT Moves All Classes Online For the Rest of the Semester (mit.edu) 62
In a letter to the MIT community, President L. Rafael Reif says the university is moving all classes online for the rest of the semester to slow the spread of COVID-19. Here's an excerpt: The overall plan is this:
1. All classes are cancelled for the week of Monday, March 16 through Friday, March 20. Because the following week is spring break, this will allow faculty and instructors two weeks to organize a full transition to online instruction.
2. Online instruction, which some units are already experimenting with this week, will begin for all classes on Monday, March 30, and continue for the remainder of the semester.
3. Undergraduates should not return to campus after spring break. Undergraduates who live in an MIT residence or fraternity, sorority or independent living group (FSILG) must begin packing and departing this Saturday, March 14. We are requiring undergraduates to depart from campus residences no later than noon on Tuesday, March 17. Please see below for details on graduate students.
4.Classes will continue this week as we continue to prepare for this transition.
We are taking this dramatic action to protect the health and safety of everyone at MIT -- staff, students, post-docs and faculty -- and because MIT has an important role in slowing the spread of this disease. As at any residential college, our residence halls and FSILGs put students in close quarters. What's more, the intense and free-flowing collaboration MIT is known for comes with close contact and shared spaces, equipment and supplies. These characteristics, which we cherish in normal times, increase the risk of COVID-19 spreading on our campus. Our plan follows directly from state health guidance that universities take steps to reduce the density of the population on campus and increase social distancing. By doing so, we are doing our part to reduce the spread of the disease overall, while directly reducing risk for our own community -- for departing students, of course, but equally for those of us who continue to work on campus.
1. All classes are cancelled for the week of Monday, March 16 through Friday, March 20. Because the following week is spring break, this will allow faculty and instructors two weeks to organize a full transition to online instruction.
2. Online instruction, which some units are already experimenting with this week, will begin for all classes on Monday, March 30, and continue for the remainder of the semester.
3. Undergraduates should not return to campus after spring break. Undergraduates who live in an MIT residence or fraternity, sorority or independent living group (FSILG) must begin packing and departing this Saturday, March 14. We are requiring undergraduates to depart from campus residences no later than noon on Tuesday, March 17. Please see below for details on graduate students.
4.Classes will continue this week as we continue to prepare for this transition.
We are taking this dramatic action to protect the health and safety of everyone at MIT -- staff, students, post-docs and faculty -- and because MIT has an important role in slowing the spread of this disease. As at any residential college, our residence halls and FSILGs put students in close quarters. What's more, the intense and free-flowing collaboration MIT is known for comes with close contact and shared spaces, equipment and supplies. These characteristics, which we cherish in normal times, increase the risk of COVID-19 spreading on our campus. Our plan follows directly from state health guidance that universities take steps to reduce the density of the population on campus and increase social distancing. By doing so, we are doing our part to reduce the spread of the disease overall, while directly reducing risk for our own community -- for departing students, of course, but equally for those of us who continue to work on campus.
Are they going to refund any tuition fees? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Came to write that. You can't possibly simulate all lab assignments, despite virtual labs existing.
Not all. But many classes, such as just straight lectures, can be videoed and watched online.
Instead of meeting everyday, classes could only physically meet once or twice a week. This would cut down on commuting and also enable many more students to be enrolled since they could be physically on-campus on different days of the week. This could help to reduce the cost of a university education.
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I took a few video and online classes in college, admittedly way back in the dark ages around the turn of the century. They were intensely boring, and I felt like I learned far less than in person. I'm sure it'll work if you're extremely self-motivated and into the subject, but so would anything. Definitely not worth paying anywhere near as much for.
MIT in particular has long offered a lot of free online courses. If paying MIT a fortune gets you exactly the same as you can get from MIT for free, the benefit
refund room and board + other fees? (Score:2)
refund room and board + other fees?
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Yep, room and board will cover about $100. But you still get that $119900 piece of paper at the end which is the only thing you actually paid big money for, so that's not refundable.
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.
Same thing is happening at $tanford and Harvard too. Why is it the most expensive schools are fine with ripping the rug out from under their
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Why is it the most expensive schools are fine with ripping the rug out from under their students?
Many smaller/cheaper colleges are doing the same thing. They just don't make the news.
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College dormitories are petri dishes for respiratory viruses. Now that schools like Harvard and MIT have set the precedent, I expect that most universities will be closing their dorms and sending students home for the rest of the semester. Once COVID-19 starts showing up in the undergraduate population, the floodgates will open.
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+1. I'd be furious if I'd spent the big $$$ for MIT tuition & housing and the school pulled the plug like this.
You didn't pay $$$ for MIT tuition and housing. You paid $$$ because the American education system bleeds students in an effort to get their degree. You only lost a few $ lunch money out of all of this. Your course goes on, your learning goes on, and you will get your expensive piece of paper at the end and retain all the value you paid for.
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+1. I'd be furious if I'd spent the big $$$ for MIT tuition & housing and the school pulled the plug like this.
I'm sure that MIT will have to refund all the Room and Board fees, and possibly some course fees if students cancel their course enrollments due to the change in the offering; As
MIT won't be delivering on the housing and meal plans that students had paid for... its just that simple.
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Chinese culture accelerated the propagation of the coronavirus from China to the rest of the world. An analysis [nytimes.com] published by the New York Times explains how the Chinese tendency to hide the truth allowed the coronavirus to spread quickly.
Get more info [blogspot.com] about Chinese culture.
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There's a huge difference between classroom-led teaching and merely emailing a copy of the presentation out to everyone.
Yes there is which is why they aren't just doing the latter. You should actually try taking one of MIT's online classes one day. They have some free ones, your mind may actually be blown by what is involved.
We are in the same boat at NYU (Score:2)
Panicky idiots (Score:3)
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you'll probably get it eventually.
Really? Does everyone eventually get the Flu?
The R0 for COVID is higher than the flu (Score:2)
Homeless (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sudden homelessness in Winter
Calm down. It's not like students are magically homeless every summer break.
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Yes, but they have the whole school year to figure out what their living arrangements are next summer.
From all appearances MIT is closing the dorms and giving them a week to GTFO.
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It'll be fine as the greater Boston area has done ample job keeping up with the increasing housing demands for the area so there's lots of places they can move into on a moment's notice that are affordable. /s
Maybe this will finally force communities to come to terms with a need for significantly more housing. Cambridge sure needs to if they're going to complain about car traffic from all the companies they're allowing in.
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Sudden homelessness in Winter...
What hell do you live in, bro? It is 68 degrees, sunny, with a light onshore breeze and 6-8 ft swells here today... Oh, but California is a total shit-hole, please stay away.
Unprecedented (Score:2)
We should be concerned that they took this action because MIT doesn't do this lightly. Heck, until the Blizzard of '78, they didn't close the campus for anything.
Re: Unprecedented (Score:2, Insightful)
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Came here to say this. I usually get modded down to hell when I do, though. This literally is mass hysteria. Next thing you know everyone will start thinking the T is emitting noxious fumes.
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We should be concerned about their susceptibility to mass hysteria
Except literally one of the things you should do is avoid large gatherings if you can. That's not mass hysteria, that's following sound advice.
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From a purely selfish point of view, it's all a bunch of mass hysteria. If you refuse to avoid large gatherings yourself, you're extremely unlikely to suffer for it because there isn't a pervasive pandemic right now. But from society's point of view, people like you avoiding large gatherings is the only way to make sure there continues to not be a pandemic that could kill off a significant fraction of the elderly.
The problem is that society cannot wait until there's a pandemic to act -- because by that time
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It already is a pandemic, they just aren't calling it one because of politics and the desire to avoid stoking the hysteria. The WHO refused to declare the H1N1 pandemic as such, and that infected something like 20% of the world population. At this point we might as well consider them to have discarded the term as a matter of policy.
Where do they go? (Score:4, Insightful)
For the people living on campus, where are they supposed to go?
Not everyone has a happy relationship with mom and dad. Moving in with them may not be an option.
How are they supposed to get there? Some students are out of state, or even international. Not reasonable to expect them to front this unexpected and university mandated expense.
Overall, this is bullshit.
Re:Where do they go? (Score:4, Informative)
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For the people living on campus, where are they supposed to go?
Not everyone has a happy relationship with mom and dad. Moving in with them may not be an option.
So that affects a handful of the entire student population. What do they do over summer break? I'm sure someone clever enough to get into MIT has the necessary problem solving skills that this wouldn't be a problem. If it were, now would be a good time to drop out.
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The difference is that summer break is on the schedule and can be planned for before you even apply to attend the school.
The other difference is that you can arrange your summer housing far in advance, rather than all of the sudden, with no notice, along with thousands of other people in the same predicament.
Harvard just did the same thing (Score:5, Informative)
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"sorry folks, dorm's closed.
noose out front shoulda toldja"
So much for lab courses (Score:3, Insightful)
So how's online organic chemistry taught at MIT? Just use your parent's kitchen?
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"So how's online organic chemistry taught at MIT? Just use your parent's kitchen?"
They teach them evolution instead, in action.
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"Here'a your organic chemistry!" shouted Dad, and a loud and very bass tone emitted from behind the door.
Has nothing to do with slowing it (Score:3, Insightful)
this has nothing to do with slowing the spread of the disease, and everything to do with limiting the liability that MIT may be exposed to if it continues to have classes on campus knowing that some students may get sick.
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Thank you.
OK, why aren't they closing all winter for the flu (Score:2, Informative)
OK, why aren't they closing all winter for the flu?
I'll hang up and listen to your answer.
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Because COVID-19 is between 20 and 50 times as deadly as flu, and spreads more easily.
You can hang up now.
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The seasonal flu's death rate is 0.2 for the ENTIRE population. That 0.2 percent includes 70 and 80 years olds. The mortality rate for young people is in the
COVID-19 is 0.2 for people up to 50 years old and then starts to grow exponentially.
So, even for younger people it's roughly 10-20 times deadlier.
* Data comes from: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcent... [biomedcentral.com]
Re: OK, why aren't they closing all winter for the (Score:2)
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No one wants grandma to die, but from a logic stand point, there's nothing for
Re: OK, why aren't they closing all winter for the (Score:1)
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OK, why aren't they closing all winter for the flu?
Because people don't make decisions based on your ignorance.
I'm an MIT parent... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What does this accomplish? (Score:5, Informative)
One thing it will accomplish (according to some) is to "flatten the curve". Yes, most of us will eventually get it, but if we can limit the peak number of infections and spread them out over time, we can keep from overwhelming the medical system. Doing that will reduce the number of eventual deaths from the virus.
Re:What does this accomplish? (Score:4, Informative)
Because the US cannot handle everyone getting sick at the exact same time. The idea is to spread out the span of time as much as possible in which people get sick. If 500 people showed up at the hospital tomorrow, the hospital's ability to function will absolutely collapse (see Italy for an example of that). If 500 people showed up at the hospital over a span of two months, then the hospital's ability to function stands a bit of a chance.
We're not going to stop it, that's for sure. But there is a finite amount of ventilators in this country and if too many people at the same time get sick and we run out of available ventilators, doctors will begin to have to make calls on who gets a ventilator and who gets wheeled to the morgue. So the entire point of all of this, is an attempt to not absolutely collapse our healthcare system completely like Italy did theirs.
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The entire US will be exposed to this virus, the same way we're all exposed to the flu.
False premise. We're not all exposed to the flu.
Lots of similar stories (Score:2)
This coronavirus disruption is going to continue to be big news for a while. Some of what we're see
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yea many east coast schools have cancelled, Purdue also just posted a notice for all the instructors to start prepping for online only classes and once spring break ends all classes will be online until the end of the semester with on-campus students being allowed to choose between staying on campus or going home
Refund? (Score:1)
Given that direct interaction is a part that was paid for.
Additional Charges? (Score:1)