Schooling During a Pandemic
By: Alyssa Garcia
A college dropout didn’t seem like such a bad idea to me during these hard times.
ADAA.org
The coronavirus has taken over our daily lives. We can’t go to gyms, eat inside restaurants, or even simply attend class in person.
Schools across California have transitioned to online learning. I know it has been a struggle for students off all ages.
I constantly hear talk of struggles that parents are facing with their younger kids. Like finding the time to help their kids with schoolwork, having to take off time from work because no one can watch their kids during the day, and also making sure their kids stay on track. However, I hardly hear talk on how college students are handling their transitions.
College students are expected to complete their coursework, study, attend zoom meetings, study some more, and go over the course material again because a zoom meeting isn’t enough to learn the material.
They have to do all of this while still maintaining relationships and sometimes even working part-time or full-time jobs.
Let’s be honest, online learning is not the same as a traditional face to face setting. Personally, I have always struggled with online learning. I can’t concentrate and need hands on experience to learn properly. I have struggled more than ever with my schooling during the switch.
Due to my bad experience with online college classes I carefully scheduled my whole semester to fit in with my work schedule so I can still attend in person classes. Unfortunately, I got the terrible news in the middle of that semester that I would have an entire schedule of online classes.
Yikes, well I had two options either drop out or tough it out. Now, I’m working the poles. Just kidding. I stuck with the other option and payed the price.
Switching to online schooling in the middle of a semester was exhausting. I couldn’t seem to keep up the coursework, some of my professors decided it wasn’t necessary to ease our workload during this hard transition.
I put in my best effort, keeping up with five classes while working a part-time job and trying to take care of my mental health This took a toll on me and my grades. Despite putting so much time and effort into my classes I had failed to get the grades I was use to. For the first time in my entire schooling I failed a course.
Clearly I was devastated and to this day I’m still angry about it. It wasn’t fair to me or any students to be expected to preform well and keep up with the in person workload while switching online out of no where. Especially during such a stressful time where we are so worried about our health.
So, the school decided the best they can do for us is give us the option of a credit/no credit option on our grades. That’s nice, it still doesn’t change the fact that I had put so much time and effort into one single class to try and keep up just to end up with no credit on my transcript. Now I have to retake a class to make up for it, putting me behind schedule to graduate.
Lesson learned, I am not fit for online learning. This is my only option and I’m not happy about it. However, I have pushed through it and am doing better my current semester.
Schooling during a pandemic is not ideal but students across the globe are trying to adjust and should be given credit and recognition for what they are doing.
