746 replies to this topic

[AllseeingEye]

now add up all the time you spent travelling back and forth to school.  plus dead time between classes.  and imagine if all that time you could have spent meeting amazing people in other ways.  imagine spending two 3-week terms each semester job-shadowing a leader etc.  imagine a better use for the thousands of dollars a rural student has to pay for room and board each year at a far-away campus.

 

You're missing the entire point of the *experience*. Besides at UVic I lived a 5 minute walk to the campus. In Vancouver I was barely a 10 minute drive to UBC.  More than time all well spent given the advantages which far outweighed any negatives which, offhand, I can think of none.

 

I got a bit of exercise heading to class at Uvic and then I got the fabulous and invaluable time spent over a coffee with friends and professors at the cafeteria - talking, discussing, laughing about the events of our day or current and world events. Trade all that to stare at a monitor? No thanks. If I'd been doing exclusively online study in 1982 or 1984 or 1989 I would never have met all those people who ultimately became some of my closest friends. That alone all by itself made being physically "there" worthwhile. 

 

I worked at the UVic Sub pub as a doorman for four years and in the process saw and heard of, and participated in, priceless shenanigans and stories you can't get through a web connection. Some of those antics we still laugh about to this day.

 

Again I wouldn't trade any of that for whatever minimal 'convenience' (dubious at best) I would've gained sitting at home munching on Doritos. Not discounting online or technological aids to learning but the "university experience" - at least to our generation - included not only the study and learning aspects but equally critically the social considerations noted above; that included raucous and riotous on-campus parties; one very memorable and quite drunken attempt by the rugby and basketball men's teams to build a human pyramid to scale the women's dorm and crash a party (we got as high as the third floor before it collapsed, with me on the bottom). Great fun, no one got hurt and all these activities collectively created lifelong memories. 

 

At UBC they had a "Storm the Walls" event every September to welcome new students, an all-day laugh-fest sponsored by Molson that involved scaling over or under artificial walls (think military boot camp) and even various buildings. Nothing quite like rope climbing the library with 5000 other people and a draft beer in one hand, then all topped off with a free Sarah McLaughlin concert at Thunderbird football stadium, with yet more free beer and hot dogs. Can't do that sequestered away in a basement somewhere clicking away with a mouse.....

[Nparker]

...Not discounting online or technological aids to learning but the "university experience" - at least to our generation - included not only the study and learning aspects but equally critically the social considerations...

This is also why working from home will likely never entirely replace the traditional office experience, even among millennials and generation Z. Humans are social animals and where we learn and where we work are huge parts of how we interact socially.

[AllseeingEye]

/\......Agree; there are also practical considerations re: work including mandated privacy or security legislation. I've been working from home for about eight weeks, currently involved in performing business acceptance testing and while the odd con call to discuss progress or provide an update is fine, I personally most certainly do get more out of physically being with my team where we can have a quick pop- up huddle or discussion or even diagram out on a whiteboard in our area various ideas and thoughts. More stimulating and - IMO - more productive in the sense its more readily interactive and immediate. 

 

There is also the fact I don't have to worry about dialing into a conference with an outdated code that puts me into a call with some company in the US, as happened a month or so ago, lol...

 

PS - Any idea of how many women's phone numbers I got as a UVic doorman?? Ditto when I did the job for a year at the Pit Pub at UBC?!? I guess some people today are shy and can only meet or relate to women virtually. I'll take in-person any day of the week

[Victoria Watcher]

here's an interesting white-collar profession that has no interest in working from an office daily.  1500 realtors in victoria.  they must have their reasons.  and from what i can tell most of them have fine social skills.

 

now granted they are entrepreneurial somewhat by nature. and none of them wants to settle for a fixed paycheque like most office workers do.    maybe that's the difference - they can practice self-discipline better than many office workers as they have to.  their paycheque depends on it.  maybe some office workers - like some armed forces members - thrive on the regimen of having to "go in" or follow strict orders daily in order to be productive.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 12 May 2020 - 10:28 AM.

[spanky123]

You're missing the entire point of the *experience*. Besides at UVic I lived a 5 minute walk to the campus. In Vancouver I was barely a 10 minute drive to UBC.  More than time all well spent given the advantages which far outweighed any negatives which, offhand, I can think of none.

 

Agreed. I wonder how long UVIC thinks that they will be able to extract $5K/$25K (foreign) a semester from students sitting at home watching a bunch of online videos. I am sure that Harvard, Waterloo and a handful of other higher profile brands can charge for the name, but is a piece of paper with no real education or experience to back it worth anything from UVIC?

[Victoria Watcher]

^ i'm not sure how they plan to get foreign student money.  the reason wealthy chinese send their kids here is for the culture also.  and to increase the chance of them immigrating.  will they still come live here but do courses online from their apartments?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 12 May 2020 - 10:36 AM.

[AllseeingEye]

Agreed. I wonder how long UVIC thinks that they will be able to extract $5K/$25K (foreign) a semester from students sitting at home watching a bunch of online videos. I am sure that Harvard, Waterloo and a handful of other higher profile brands can charge for the name, but is a piece of paper with no real education or experience to back it worth anything from UVIC?

 

Good points, all. In Addition re: Chinese international students I'm sure that is also impacted to some degree by the tenuous state of China-Canada relations.

 

Back in the day I certainly considered doing a PhD in Britain at Kings College in London, until I worked out the cost which was significant even in 1989-90, and I was already carrying significant loans from my time at UBC. Wealthy Chinese or other international students of course have no such concerns. In UVic back in the day it was mostly Iranian ex-pats - the children of parents with lots of dough, escaping the Ayotollah - who were predominant on campus at that time.

 

Offhand in terms of my professional colleagues I am aware of only one individual from my Coast Capital days who forked over the dough for a largely online MBA from Durham University in the UK, which like the others you mentioned is highly prestigious internationally, being the third oldest UK institution of higher learning after Oxford and Cambridge. Beyond him I'm not aware of any colleague in the last 15 or so years who has undertaken that educational route.

[UserofVic]

As a current UVic student, I really dislike online courses. Sure there's some positives in stuff like profs recording lectures and my nocturnal nature isn't disrupted commuting for an 8:30am lecture, but my learning will suffer. It's harder to ask questions to friends via text, harder to focus at home, very difficult to make new friends, and it's far easier to let myself get distracted when lectures are on Zoom. And I'm far enough along that I've developed study habits and stuff to get by, but first year me would utterly fail. Even ignoring the social stuff, there's a lot of resources for academic success that just don't transfer to an online course. A lot of small questions can be answered studying with friends in person that become troublesome remotely. It's not as easy to quickly convey information via the internet as it is in person. It's hard to build an academic and social support network remotely.

 

I imagine the ease of collaboration is part of why software companies haven't already entirely given up physical office space despite fully remote workers being a thing. Yeah sure everything can be done online but you miss those short spur of the moment conversations where you can discuss problems. Though I admit my experience here is still slightly outside the field, but I'll hopefully be able to give better incite sooner rather than later. Time to compete for fall semester Co-Op work terms wooooooo

 

I'm not the only one who feels this way. There's a small amount of people who are happy sure, but most people are already dreading remote classes for fall. It's simply harder to learn, there's a good reason online schools never exploded, they don't work too great. Sure there's plenty of shortcomings in a traditional university setting, but going fully online just makes it worse for most students. Certainty the option could be nice for some courses and for those who enjoy remote studying, but it being mandatory sucks. I just want COVID to magically disappear so I can do normal classes again, or even just to study in a library with the friends who're still on the island. Online classes suck basically.

 

Then there's also people who ended up trapped in their hometowns with their abusive families. Isolated, stuck in a bad spot. Aside from school the sudden loss of service and tourism jobs doesn't provide a lot of opportunities to escape and actually afford food and shelter.

 

Also there's plenty of international students who aren't that wealthy. Plenty of Americans end up at UVic because it's cheaper than comparable in-State options even when we charge international tuition above the break even mark. Subsidizing international tuition yeah maybe not the best, but treating all international students as cash cows with infinite money isn't really great either. There's certainly some very wealthy international students, but there's a lot who are scrapping by too. Which is also where the resistance to last year's international tuition hikes came from, with a healthy side of sudden blindsiding. UVic lacks in several areas, and there was no clear improvement set out for a sudden and immediate tuition hike. I talked to an international student who was entirely fine with the price increase, but would've really appreciated like an extra year or two of warning so it didn't muck up anyone's financial stability.

 

Also UVic raised domestic tuition $10/course starting this online summer semester. $100 more for international students. Bad timing UVic.

 

Oh and they refused to refund summer parking passes on a really shaky reason, and now there might be a class action lawsuit lol

[Cats4Hire]

Personally I don't want to give an opinion on online learning as my only experience was the clearly rushed last 3 weeks in March but the only positive I can think of is lack of commute. I agree with the distraction bit. For some reason lectures felt like podcasts to me which I usually put on when gaming or writing so I found myself slipping into those during my lectures.
I also agree on it being easier to get quick questions answered in person

I'll give a more proper opinion in December (if anyone actually cares lol) but currently I'd say I prefer in person and don't see myself wanting to stay online only in the future.

[Cats4Hire]

 

 

UVic student sues school over refund for unused parking due to COVID-19

https://www.timescol...d-19-1.24134128

[GetLisaSomeHelps]

https://www.timescol...d-19-1.24134128

 

UVIC's rationale for keeping the money of is "well you saved a lot of money already by buying the pass instead of the day rate!!!" is almost as crooked as when bank customer care departments use the rationale of "they should've updated their student status and/or questioned the transaction!!" when they refuse to refund a student they've been charging $100+ a month when the student status expired on their pay per transaction account (source: Former employee of a bank)

[lanforod]

This isn't a new policy; the volume is shining a light on this issue, and that's a good thing. It didn't make sense before, and still doesn't. This policy has affected me a few times where I wanted to cancel a annual pass (staff, but same policy as students) a few months early but found out that I'd get no refund if I did so. UVic needs to change the policy (and make it retroactive for Sept 19-2020 passes).

[Nparker]

Based on the divisive language that seems to make up a lot of UVic's communications lately, I am not entirely certain they are the best co-host for this event.

...The University of Victoria and the Senate of Canada are hosting a two-day virtual forum on Nov. 13 and 14, to examine issues under the theme of “bridging divides in the wake of a global pandemic.”...

https://www.vicnews....victoria-forum/

 

[lanforod]

https://www.reddit.c...ht_now_at_uvic/

[Jackerbie]

https://www.reddit.c...ht_now_at_uvic/

 

For reference, it's the demolition work for the new residences

[Nparker]

...it's the demolition work for the new residences

For all the students who will be attending classes remotely.

[UserofVic]

For all the students who will be attending classes remotely.

Doubt that'll still be the case by 2022. 2025 if we really want to go in a worst case scenario. Buildings last a lot longer than pandemics do

Edited by UserofVic, 08 June 2020 - 04:17 PM.

[Nparker]

Doubt that'll still be the case by 2022. 2025...

I realize the housing won't be completed for years. It's just the optics seem a bit strange; adding additional residences to a currently empty campus.

[Cats4Hire]

I realize the housing won't be completed for years. It's just the optics seem a bit strange; adding additional residences to a currently empty campus.

Wouldn't now be the best time? They're clearly knocking stuff down so they don't need to worry about less space this semester and if no one is there working isn't going to disturb anyone.

[Nparker]

Again, this is probably true, but to the casual observer they will see construction of residences on an empty campus and wonder if it's actually needed. The fact that it will be years before completion will be lost on many.