Long story short, I’m loving this.
Obviously, the reason we’ve all switched to online classes is severe. Really, what kind of warped human being would gladly wish a global pandemic to be the cause of something they’ve wanted for a long time?
Yes, the world’s current situation is grim, but I appreciate the switch to online classes and the easing up of certain class assignments.
I am not fully comfortable in public places that have high occupancies. Now that we’re in the middle of a pandemic, everyone ought to have such an apprehension.
Switching to online classes has been a great help to me personally.
Removal of the need to come to campus eliminates the need to use money to commute there, allowing me just under $15 extra per week.
Certain assignments have also been modified to require less travel, which, again, is an ease on my income since there’s less reason to commute.
The biggest benefit is also the simplest one: the fact that I don’t have to be in a classroom for the rest of the semester.
I don’t hate the classroom environment. It’s a nice social place most of the time. But what negatives it has are pretty serious for me: the possibility of bad seating arrangements (especially in those tightly-packed lecture halls), malfunctioning tech in the room causing a delay in the lecture (it’s as much a headache for students as it is for instructors) and, naturally, contagious attendees.
Being free of that last problem is actually very helpful to me as a student. In addition to my usual gripes with the contagious population, possibly sick people also pose a threat to my concentration in class. There have been so many times I’d be working on classwork or homework and the sound of a cough, sneeze or even a loud sniffle would make me lose track of the sentence I was writing. None of my homework assignments were ever finished in class, and that’s the exact reason why.
In general, I’ve adapted perfectly to Zoom. It’s basically a mix between the best features of Skype and Discord. Experiences with the switch to online classes differ from student to student.
There might be certain obstacles such as weak network connections, lack thereof or professors who aren’t tech savvy.
However, despite the technical difficulties professors and students might face with online classes, socially distancing ourselves for the remainder of the semester is key to keeping COVID-19’s threat to a minimum.