Perhaps those professors wishing to teach remotely could agree to a pay cut. Consumers (students and parents) do not value the online experience you wish to offer at even close to the rate they are willing to pay for an in person teacher, so if you are offering less valuable services, your compensation would drop accordingly
Am I the only parent of a high school senior that can’t imagine my kid’s first college experience being successful online? What am I gong to do with this kid if I have to keep her holed up here for the next 8 MONTHS? Taking classes online from home with restrictions is not going to work for most freshman.
I do have faith in testing and American ingenuity. I keep saying that. Was it only 7 weeks ago that we started this stay home stuff? Mid-July is 10 weeks away and mid-August is 14 weeks away. ALOT will change before then - hopefully for the better. We can’t go on like this forever.
Are your teens working? Sleeping all day? Miserable? Mine is still upset about losing EVERYTHING good about senior year - prom, graduation, senior spring, trips, etc. I can’t deal with the lockdown much longer because of the teenage angst. We can manage just fine as adults, but keeping this senior non miserable is getting harder and harder.
Well said. Same boat with our senior. He’s bummed about missing his senior spring sport, spring senior year, all that… We are really struggling with the fall. If it’s online, he’d be miserable and we don’t want to pay full freight for that either. But I can’t imagine a gap year in this climate. Additionally, can colleges grant thousands of freshmen gap years? How would that work?? This all stinks.
I’m in the same position times two, I have twin seniors who are miserable about the loss of senior spring.
These are good points.
I’m unconvinced by the things-will-be-largely-normal in the fall arguments.
It’s all about the rate at which people infect one another - the R. When people are in close proximity, particularly living together (on cruise ships, in prisons, or in college dorms), there is a higher R. On the evidence from infected Navy ships, this occurs as readily in young people as in older people.
Now you might argue, so what? But imagine an outbreak in a campus dormitory. Does anyone believe that the college would not close? I suspect bringing students on to campus and then sending them home again would be considerably less popular than not bring student on to campus in the first place.
Students do not have to live in dormitories, or indeed be on campus, to do many classes (with the obvious exception of lab-based work). We might not like the online learning, but it is the least worst option.
I’m also not convinced that Michigan could beat Ohio State in football, but this is a different thread…
@suzyQ7 that’s the dilemma, right? Incoming freshman have to decide between two bad options (paying and starting their college career in online classes, or taking a gap year and staying home doing close to nothing). Sure, this is simplifying and we all hope that college in the fall will be something more than staying home with online classes, but it just won’t be the same as a typical college year or even close to it.
I personally would push for starting college, but realize that money is a huge factor. And I have the benefit of two in college, so we know what we are dealing with already, and they are invested and already on the path. It’s very, very hard for seniors and their parents. There isn’t a great choice. You just have to do the best you can with the bad hand you’ve been dealt.
I read that even a light version of this virus might cause lung damage, even in young, healthy people. I forget where it was, but it was probably on one of our threads. It was something about divers, I think. Anyway, my mother had permanent lung damage from a lung disease she had when she was 5. It affected her for the rest of her life and caused the condition that led to her death. So I wouldn’t brush off the risks for college aged kids. Getting even a light case may have lifelong consequences.
In some ways have the kids come back to the dorms a month earlier than classes begin, (or have the freshman start, with orientation and getting acclimated if most upperclassman are off campus.). Likely this thing will spread, and since most of those who would agree to this are likely healthy, it could be possible that after a month most have herd immunity then. i read about a prison, or detention center, where 70% tested positive, but very few had symptoms. By keeping this kids locked up in their homes, (to protect others), its really not helping them. There will be a few that will get real sick, but classes would not have started yet. Also by the time class starts, the chance of it spreading around campus is greatly diminished. My D got real sick from mono ,flu, pneumonia, while at college, but we never panicked. WE are panicking here because of the spread of this, and how it will affect others (professors, staff, people in the college town) . I dont know why we are being so protective of the young people. Also as August comes, we likely will have more treatments available.
This is just my ideal world thoughts, yeah, not going to happen, but I almost think the Swedish approach is not the worse. They likely wont have to worry about stop/start/stop/starts. Yes , I think about my DH and if was to catch this and die. (pre-existing conditions), but I got tested for antibodies as I was sick in March and was disappointed they were negative. I know immunity is not guaranteed and who knows for how long, but its better than nothing until there is a vaccine that may or may not work. In the meantime the mental health of our youth is going downhill real fast. Neither of my kids have anything now for the summer; both were going to be working at camps.
I totally agree with this. My kid is very shy on-line, but pretty personable in person. She has not selected a college yet (deadlines have moved to 6/1). She has joined the Facebook groups for her choices, but has not made a post or responded to any posts. I don’t see her making virtual friends not having great relationships with professors she’s never met. I see her “stuck” in the fall. Doing on-line classes with complete strangers, trying to still hang out with her HS friends but some of them will have made college friends on-line and will have started moving on from their high school relationships. It is going to be miserable in my house. Her remaining choices are mostly rural LAC’s so hoping there is a chance they will be in the dorms in some form. Honestly I would rather them go and get sent home after a few weeks. At least then they would have some ties to the college and would have at least met their professors and made a few friends
@MAmom111 I just found out that some states (well, at least one, Maine) is considering making out of state residents to quarantine for 14 days if they enter the state through the end of August. That’s a problem for colleges in Maine. I would check out the states’ Covid summer plans for the colleges on your D’s list. It’s still so far away from August but, if the state government is considering very conservative rules through August, that might affect back to school.
I don’t mean to minimize everyone’s feelings and I am right there with you, the situation sucks real bad.
But try to have some perspective - the kids will be fine. A year of emotional hardship will make them better off in the long run. Will make them appreciate life even more when things go back to normal. They have a roof over their head, a loving home (from what you all are sharing here, you seem like amazing loving parents), food on the table, online classes to take (or not), internet to entertain themselves, video to see their friends, Netflix to chill, etc and etc. …
This isn’t the end of the world, as my daughter always reminded me “this sucks, but it’s not cancer”.
Life years lost due to coronavirus average 13 for men and 11 for women, university of Glasgow study finds.
Full study here:
https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75
Helpful study. Interesting that for those victims with no long term conditions at age 80, the researchers expected them to live well into their 90s, hence the finding of 13/11 years lost.
Agreed. My girls are bummed, for sure. But we will all get through this and will hopefully be stronger for it. We find ourselves talking about things like how it must have felt to have been Jewish in Europe during the Holocaust. Perspective.
Agree. We have reread snippets of Anne Frank’s diary when she is looking out the window. Definitely perspective.
As someone who works with an organization dealing with suicide prevention, this is not necesarily true. The mental health fallout from this pandemic is going to be catastrophic, espceially for teens. For kids who already suffer from depression, this can be as deadly as cancer. For kids who have never before suffered from depression, this may be a new feeling that they have no way of knowing how to deal with. Many parents will just chalk it up to sadness over what is happening, but it can be something much more serious. The consequences can be tragic. If your kids are handling it great, that’s awesome, but just be aware that not all kids are going to come out of this unscathed.
Perspective about “it could be worse” is good but also it’s okay for kids (and parents) to be sad and disappointed over what they’re missing out on.
DD’19 does have a great life in general. But many times when she was sad or disappointed about something in HS, her friends dismissed her feelings and outright told her she couldn’t be upset because * obviously * their problems were worse. That bothered her that her feelings weren’t legitimate, apparently.
(BTW Her college friends are not this way and she’d really like to get back to them!)
Absolutely!
This is why I’ve always found the flippant response “1st world problems” totalling annoying.
Colleges are getting creative.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/stanford-might-hold-fall-classes-in-tents-to-prevent-coronavirus