Skip to content

Stories

Peterborough, ON

My workload was too high to have any life outside of my school work. If anything, working from home has been a relief since the fact that I no longer have to attend physical lectures gives me more time to work on assignments and has allowed me to have a little spare time to enjoy my hobbies. My mental health has improved substantially since the shift to online.

Wilmington, DE

My theater class was already a little weak to begin with. The professor would go on sometimes incoherent tangents and the class as a whole was bored and unengaged. Over Zoom I think the students are given a better setting to pay even less attention, and now some of the more physical elements of the class are totally void. It’s almost comically bad. We no longer have “warm-ups” (which involved some game or physical exercise we were supposed to do at the beginning of the class), we can no longer see the plays we were expected to attend (we were given movies to watch instead), and the monologues we were expected to memorize and recite were performed over Zoom instead, which allowed students to just read theirs off their screens.

New Haven, CT

My favorite class is much worse. I’m an Honors student and most of my classes are discussion-based, and discussion boards definitely do not generate the same level or depth of discussion. Also professors who were rather hands-on before the transition online are now taking a more hands-off approach which equals students being forced to teach themselves subjects instead. Ultimately, it typically becomes just a lecture after 20 minutes since students either aren’t as inclined to participate online or because they cannot due to environmental noise. It’s emotionally draining in a way that going to class isn’t. Honestly, Zoom calls go on for way too long and very little gets accomplished or talked about. It’s a waste of time and energy.

Seaside, CA

Zoom is hit or miss, as it is always disconnecting when I am attending online lectures. My wifi also disconnects when I am doing serious school work and/or online tech support. I share the internet with two others who are also working from home, so that is also an issue.

Rochester, NY

My favorite class was Greenhouse Management. 90 percent of the class was group lab-based. No greenhouse or even plants at home, so now the class is just looking at pictures of plants and reading PowerPoint notes.

Elgin, IL

My production methods class used to be very fun because we did a lot of physical projects. The switch to online classes made it harder and overwhelming as my professor did not ease up on course work. We now had to digitally respond to classmates’ work instead of in-person critiques. We also used to have required field trips but they were turned into required reflections on certain videos and articles.

West Lafayette, IN

The online format is not teachable. My entire major should be hands-on, in-person, and interactive in order to learn anything useful, but now class work is just busy work to pass out a grade.

South Bend, IN

My professor has been going on fewer tangents during class. I don’t have to have my Zoom video on, so I can fidget as much as necessary during class without feeling like a distraction to others. Also, if the material starts to become dull, I can run to my kitchen to get a snack for some energy, or just stand up by my laptop to try to wake my system up.

South Bend, IN

I hate Zoom. It is controlling my life. I feel coerced by learning this way.

South Bend, IN

I hear the information and “learn” the information, but it doesn’t mean anything to me.