What College Life is Like in Quarantine

Insight to a few difficulties and hardships of online school for some students

What does it feel like for a student to transition from lecture halls filled with 300 or more students to sitting in your room alone with a camera? I can only describe this transition as one of the most unmemorable and confusing experiences of my life.

I’m a full-time student at the University of Pittsburgh and I was a sophomore during the fall of 2020. When my university introduced their plan for students to choose whether they wanted all online classes or have some in-person interactions, I knew that I needed to get to campus and have as many in-person classes as possible. However, after some time, many of my classes began to transition to strictly online since the in-person interaction of students was causing increased numbers of infections from COVID-19. Except for a single class, all 5 of my other classes had transitioned to all online.

Depending on the professor, an online class could meet at the designated time on the schedule or they would record the lecture for the day and the students would be able to access the class at any time during the week. In addition to these lectures, there would always be the usual homework assignment that professors would give to be due at some point throughout the week. I feel that most students including myself had a well-planned routine for their classes so that they could live a healthy lifestyle and make the most of their circumstances in the online school environment. However, most routines are usually broken in our lives and this school routine was no exception for me and many other students as well.

I had 6 classes in my schedule including Organic Chemistry, Statistics, Bio Lab 2, Introduction to Performance, Scenic Painting, and Microeconomics. I am a student mostly in the STEM field and as such, most of my classes are formatted as large lecture hall lessons filled with information. Because of this, many of my classes can meet asynchronously. This means that I could tune in to any of my professors' lessons at any time that was convenient for me since they would be recorded. For example, my statistics class would be live at 12 P.M. every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday but I would wait until Friday to watch all 3 lectures since I had a quiz that day. It was very easy to form bad habits such as this if you have ever felt tired before a lecture and just wanted to deal with it at a later date.

The only time I ever left my apartment was to go grocery shopping which was every other weekend or if I had my in-person class. I had scenic painting in-person every Thursday from 11 A.M. to about 1 P.M. and it was my chance in the day to have a reason to walk around outside. Besides these days that I am required to go outside, I will sometimes enjoy a leisurely walk to the park and spend a couple of hours outside or take a trip to the gym to try adding in some kind of physical activity to my unhealthy lifestyle.

During the fall 2020 semester, I felt almost trapped in my own apartment. In the fall of 2019, the University of Pittsburgh was filled with students hanging around outside and there was never a shortage of things to do. Clubs were in full session and opportunities to meet new people were everywhere. During my online classes, it was almost claustrophobic to be surrounded by the same 4 walls of my room every day of my student life. Even though I lived with 2 roommates it still felt extremely lonely in a sense. The place where I slept, ate, and relaxed began to stress me out as there was no separation from my place of learning and my place of relaxation.

At first, online classes didn't seem so bad since all I had to do was roll out of bed and turn my computer on, but it was because of this mindset that I had become even lazier with taking care of myself and school work.

One thing that was apparent to me was that many of my professors seemed more understanding and helpful in the online format. Online learning was not only hard for the students but the technical issues for the professors were also quite discouraging.

With most of my classes being online, staring at a computer screen for almost half of the day was never a good idea. With zoom being the main source of communication between student and professor there was no way to avoid looking at your computer for multiple hours in the day. Personally, I do not get many headaches from viewing a screen all day but I had an acquaintance that would always get a headache after listening to just a couple of lectures during the day. This format of learning became quite difficult for them and they had to opt for just listening to the lecture as sort of an audiobook rather than a viewable lecture.

Our exams were all online but were administered in different ways depending on the professor and the subject. At first, I thought the only feasible way to administer an online exam is to make it fill in the blank or multiple choice. However, professors began to find ways to provide pdfs for students and have them upload their answers digitally. Luckily for me, I had an Ipad to complete my exams and quizzes so downloading and submitting things such as this were quite easy for me. But I knew that without this resource my exams and other assignments would have been much more difficult. To me, the use of this piece of technology was almost essential as it saved much-needed time during exams and quizzes.

I began to dread this way of learning and topics that use to excite me quickly became boring and mundane. Because of these feelings, it became even harder to pay attention to the lectures that were online. The lack of attention led to a decrease in learning efficiency and while my GPA remained at about an average of 3.75, it was much harder than before to maintain. It is extremely difficult to find the motivation to learn in this kind of environment and it is almost unbearable to think about the future of online learning.

While online school has its difficulties I would say there are also many advantages that students can find when going to class online. Now that I am a commuter student with a 35 minute drive to school, having online class options is not the worst idea in the world especially when road conditions are not looking favorable. I think for many, the nostalgia of in-person classes can not be beaten but allowing students the option to attend classes online has also been shown to be a great alternative to those who are unable to attend every day of the week. Online school for me was nothing short of an experience that I will never forget and for many I believe will share the same opinions that I have spoken here.

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