AnonymousBy Terra Paige
To Chancellor Yang and All Affected by UC Santa Barbara ‘Going Online’
You have a crisis on your hands. A crisis of confidence.
As a senior at UC Santa Barbara, I had looked upon my last quarter with melancholy. Here I have had the support of instructors that invested in myself and other students with the remarkable reputation that UCSB had earned.
I was a transfer student; I studied at both Santa Barbara City College and Allan Hancock College before transferring. I am a non-traditional student, and with this comes a great deal of experience. I have had a long history of brick and mortar college instruction followed by three solid years of exclusive online education. Last summer I was able to take two online courses within the UC system, one at Berkeley and the other at Irvine.
There is a public petition, with close to seven-thousand signatures at the time I am writing this, from students and the families of students circulating with the demand for a reduction in their spring tuition fees. “I feel I am paying to teach myself,” and “Our tuition is the same, but the learning experience is sub-par” are some of the comments left on the petition. I cannot agree more. The infrastructure of the online learning experience compared to that of the local community colleges, or even local high schools, has been sub-par. This rush to implement inadequate software coupled with poor instructor communication under a strict quarter system threatens to tarnish your reputation. However, more importantly, your student population is severely underserved by your inadequate systems.
In one course, I have only received blocks of text on Gauchospace. This course has only had one failed Zoom meeting with no follow up. I have not heard from the instructor in four days since, though I have emailed three times politely asking for office hours and an update.
I fail to understand why UCSB did not support the bare minimum of online software for its’ students/instructors, such as Canvas? I can’t understand the implementation of Zoom, rather than simply uploading audio files and powerpoint with forum discussions. I have never experienced a more disconnected classroom than I am now. Within the bounds of a research university, connection should be the emphasis.
The UC experience is to be one that aspires to deliver a, “dynamic environment that prizes academic inquiry and interpersonal connection to inspire scholarly ambition, creativity, and discoveries with wide-ranging impact.” (UCSB website) When students are met with broken links, overloaded systems, deliverables that are disjointed and confusing – you should expect us to ask why and demand better of you. We deserve an explanation.
As the system stands now, already possessing our spring tuition fees and grades nine weeks away, how do you – UC Santa Barbara – rise to the occasion and provide us with the educational experience we earned?
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Speaking of Dari, I’ll bet he’s going to go through a challenging time for the next 3-6 months with his tenants and then either trying to evict them in the ned or find new ones for his slum lord rents. Any word about this low life slum lord lately? Is the City still looking the other way because he means property taxes they need? Talk about a case of doing what is right to the people or taking care of your own aka the City coffers.
It’s a global crisis. Millions affected, many will die, millions losing their jobs. Just suck it up like the rest of us.
This post is about college fees.
The university is in a very awkward situation. If they do a good job of educating students remotely, the brick and mortar university is less necessary. If the on-line classes are a failure, the existing remote classes should be discontinued.
I agree. There is a difference between the university and the professors however. I am not a teenager, I am almost 50. I have a very unique perspective given that I have attended online classes previously and am incredibly frustrated that the university didn’t prepare for this situation sooner. Online classes are not new. Students are paying anywhere from 6-20,000 for substandard classes right now. I believe this is simply the fault of the university not giving faculty time and resources to prepare for this quarter. (Poster)
The effectiveness is going to depend a lot on the coursework and on the teacher. I attended “distance” classes in the 1990s. A television / telephone “video” class. It was pretty successful, but it was math/ operations research. Hands-on classes will be harder. There needs to be a little bit of patience. Our children are going through the same thing, and the teachers are still getting paid. I’m not getting a property tax reduction. This is a hard time.
UCSB students are learning a valuable life lesson. The U.C. system, like most businesses only care about ca$h.