My least favorite class used to meet for hours on end but now the lectures are cancelled and I have so much more free time. I feel like I can actually be productive and efficient for this class and my others. My motivation is better because now I can take ownership of my own work. There were some personalities I was working with before who I really didn’t agree with, and it’s refreshing to have that separation.
Overall, I’m not learning anything. At all. It is a huge waste of time and money. I’m lucky I’m still in my undergraduate because the upper level classes that I’ll need to eventually take do not translate well online. I wish I could still be living at school, seeing my friends on a daily basis, being involved on campus, going to the gym, going out with friends, having movie nights, etc. I miss the way my life was. It was perfect. I had all my shit together and in a blink of an eye, everything that mattered to me shifted so drastically it was unrecognizable. I even miss my two on-campus jobs. I miss the routine of everything, the feelings of accomplishment I would get after having a successful board meeting for one of the organizations I was involved in. If classes are online for another semester, assuming it does not affect my scholarships or financial aid, I am highly considering taking a semester off until everything is back to normal.
I loved all my classes before we shifted online, and now I can’t focus or get myself to do the work. It’s not the same because all these classes require active participation and discussions. Our syllabus has been shifted around, certain things are no longer counted, and attendance is not mandatory anymore. I’m just not motivated to do anything. It’s not the same when you can’t discuss in person, and when you don’t have a room of your own to go to for class or work.
I have no motivation now and don’t have the same support nets as before to get help on engineering projects. My motivation is like 5% of what it was before.Thinking about doing the work makes me want to cry and hurt myself. Can’t focus, work routine disrupted, can’t go to normal study places.
It’s really difficult to stay focused on the material when there are so many other distractions in the house. Also, casual communication with my professor and classmates is almost impossible (everything is a formal email or a video call), and so instead of being exciting the work becomes a slog of trying to do the normal course load digitally. I lose focus so easily. I take notes with a pen and paper specifically so that I don’t have the distractions of my computer, and now I can’t avoid going to class.
My favorite class was Chinese and I used to pass with 105%. Since the switch to online classes, I’ve failed out and withdrawn from the course. It’s absolutely miserable trying to speak a foreign language over video call in my opinion, so I stopped attending. Online classes gave me no structure and I pretty quickly lost all semblance of a healthy sleep schedule. Pretty soon I found it impossible to get out of bed for an 11 AM course and slept in. Then as soon as I’d missed the first one, I didn’t care anymore and missed another one. Then I felt like I was so behind that attending made me anxious because I knew I’d be called on and embarrassed, so I skipped three whole weeks of online meetings and failed out.
I have to spend 100% more time studying and combing the material to write my essays because I am on my own. Study time was about 6-8hrs a week with in-class, but is now at least 16hrs, sometimes as much as 24hrs per week, with online. Perhaps this is making me a better philosopher, but due to limitations of time I literally spend all of my waking hours either working or doing homework, and a lot of the menial tasks I would do on weekends don’t get done now.
Something interesting is that so many schools have insisted that almost all classes have to be on campus which has actually caused large limitations for the disabled community. This pandemic has shown not only is it possible but rather easy to have classes online. I’m hoping after this more universities and colleges open up to more online options, so that those of us who can’t physically attend can have the same access and opportunities as everyone else.
