I feel terrible for those enrolled in college right now, during the pandemic, who are paying tuition and yet are mainly just attending classes on Zoom.
Seems to me that “distance learning” is only one step up from watching free lectures on YouTube.
More importantly, college only lasts for a few years, and there’s so much to it that really depends on in-real-life interaction.
I don’t know the details of life in college under the pandemic – what folks can and can’t do – and it probably varies a lot from place to place. But if I were a college student right now, I’d be tempted to take a year or so off, if possible, and resume studies when life gets back to normal.
Maybe those of you who know more than I do about college life today can weigh in.
I agree with your general sentiment, have only two comments.
Even though video lectures are far from ideal, they are often complemented with additional discussion sessions and other means of interaction, which elevate them above a pure Youtube video.
Furthermore, students won’t take a year off, as there is nothing else to do. You can’t travel, go to festivals, practice sports, work. College is at present one of the few feasible activities, even in its current form.
My archaeology/geographical computing degree from Unisa is not one step above Youtube. The work done was of equal worth to my geology degree studies at conventional university.
I agree that distance learning needn’t hinder the academic experience. But I feel terribly sorry for students who are not getting the full experience offered by moving to a strange city, setting up home for the first time, meeting loads of new people. It’s a huge part of the university experience.
In the US, at least, some people were paying something like $60-70,000 annually for in-person education but getting the Open University experience. And so much of the college experience happens outside the classroom.
Online (and hybrid online/in-person) classes have been a thing since long before the pandemic started. They can work quite well, but it depends on the student, the subject, and the way the class is run.
And, yes, they’re not the same experience as in-person classes, not to mention all the other experiences involved in attending college in person.
A lot of people go to uni right in their hometown, and possibly still live with their parents, and their university experience isn’t any lesser for it.
I’m with you on the meeting new people, though if the extrovert thread taught me anything, it’s that not everyone is into that.
And if the millenials in my life are anything to go by, online friends are just as real to them.
I agree the fee structure needs looking at. But that’s a problem with the fees, not the online learning itself.
Different, sure. Lesser? Naah, that’s some privileged bullshit. You can gain as much life experience having to navigate being an adult at your childhood home as you could at some dorm or, god forbid, frat house.
But anyway, my point is that for a lot of people, that already was the uni experience.
In the US, there tends to be more of a perception that starting one’s “adult” life requires a living situation with one’s peers rather than one’s family. IME living at home while being a university student is considered perfectly normal and usual outside the US, but a bit weird or over-sheltered at American colleges.
At the (US) college where I teach, currently most students have access to a mix of in-person and remote instruction depending on their circumstances. A lot of us faculty are also upping the individual contact with students through more virtual office hours and so on, as well as meeting in-person in compliance with health protocols when we can, so there’s a strong effort not to let the experience devolve into just an impersonal form of “distance learning”.
Despite the circumstances, there’s still an overwhelming preference among students for being on campus—even with periods of depressingly limited interaction—rather than living at home.
(About the fees issue, which definitely needs reforming in general, I’ll just point out with regard to this particular topic that students who aren’t living on campus aren’t getting charged for room and board, which is a big chunk of the full yearly sticker price. Note also that the larger the full sticker price, the larger the percentage of students who are getting some form of financial aid to cover part of it.)
I attended a residential college as well, but most college students don’t, instead commuting to college while still living at home. But that may be skewed by the large numbers of adult college students. Anyone know what percentage of students go to residential college right out of high school versus those that go the commuter route?
Parent of 2 college students at the moment chiming in…
My daughter went out of state for college and is in her senior year now. She lives off-campus, and her major requires her to be in-person (Nursing), so while she does have some Zoom-type activities, at this point a lot of what she is doing is hands-on, and not necessarily at the school itself. She got to have that “going away to college experience” prior to the pandemic. Truth be told, she’s ready to be done with school anyway and get on with her career. It’s unlikely she will have a traditional graduation, sadly.
My son is a freshman, and chose to attend our local State U and live at home for the first couple years of school. The pandemic denied him a real HS graduation, as well as a commuter college experience. He is looking forward to being able to go there and see people and interact and participate: he has several friends on sports teams that he would have otherwise been able to go see play, etc. Since he does not know any better than attending college from his computer in his bedroom, he does not know how it would otherwise be. He is using this time to get ahead/stay on schedule tho, and as pointed-out above, taking a year off will mean just falling behind his peers, as there is no travel, not much work etc.
This is not what any of us wanted or envisioned at this point, but they both know college is temporary and are keeping the long-view of their lives in the future.
Maybe the problem is the tuition fees, then, and not open or distance learning. The “problem” with distance learning isn’t the platform; it’s how it’s used, and it’s also a symptom of how hyper-capitalized higher ed in the United States uses (abuses) adjuncts and short-term instructors, hired from term to term with no job security, and then told to teach distance ed without any assistance in terms of course development or utilization of the technology.
Here at Oregon State freshmen were required to stay in a dorm unless they met certain conditions. I think living in a residence with immediate family within 30 miles of campus was one of them. Currently this requirement has been slackened a lot due to the ongoing pandemic. The university submits that this requirement is designed to improve the university experience, but many feel it’s just a way to collect as many housing fees as possible.
I’m in my third term of online coursework. It’s manageable but definitely a step down from traditional instruction. Some teachers have done a better job adapting than others and save for one case all of them at least seem to be trying their best. I had been looking forward to commencement but that’s been cancelled for a second year. I graduate in June and it’s weird knowing I could never set foot on campus again. My diploma will be mailed to me. I don’t feel any connection with my classmates. They’re a bunch of names in the Zoom chat since nobody turns on their camera or even puts up a profile picture.
I’m griping a lot but I understand that’s just the way things have to be in times like this. Can’t be helped.
Yes, lesser, in the sense that, for many who did have that as part of their college experience, they would tell you that their college experience would have been lesser without it.
In a similar sense, many of those who were college athletes—who were on their school’s soccer or volleyball or track team while they were a student—would tell you that their college experience would have been lesser without that opportunity. Although there are plenty of other students who have no interest in athletics and wouldn’t miss it if it weren’t available.
And I could say similar things about plenty of other aspects of college life.
There is no universal answer to the thread title’s question, because there is no single “real thing” for all college students. Especially in the U.S., where there are so many different kinds of colleges/universities and kinds of college experience.
They have no basis for comparison, so their opinion is worth squat.
I’ve had both the on-campus-residence and the stay-at-home uni experiences (at the same uni, not the distance learning one). They were different, but neither was lesser than the other.