Imagine setting an alarm 5 minutes before class is supposed to begin. You quickly throw your hair in a messy-bun and roll over to click the link to the ZOOM call and there you are. A face on a screen, surrounded by all your classmates who are just as relaxed and as comfy as you are. The professor starts the lecture the same as always. Greeting everyone with, “Hi, how are you today” and drags on for the remainder of the class period with information we already got from the previous readings or instructions for our next upcoming assignment. After it’s all over you feel so mentally drained trying to stay focused and listen that you just go back to bed until it’s time to do it all over again.
Is this really supposed to prepare us for the real world? I mean don’t get me wrong it’s extremely nice having the opportunity to attend classes online, but at the same time it makes it that much harder to return to normal. This semester has really beaten me up. Going from hardly having to get out of bed to now having multiple in-person classes a day, cheer practice, work five days a week, radio shifts, homework, and having a social life; has absolutely destroyed me. My sleep schedule is entirely messed up. I go to bed at 3am and attempt to get up at 8:30, but a lot of times it’s the waking up that kills me. I find it so hard to fall asleep after working until 11 then finally getting to eat supper and then I begin my homework after that.
So, how have online classes completely changed the college culture? Morningside student Emma Endrulat said, “It has been so hard to even function this year. After that extremely long break it’s like my brain gets tired much quicker and I lost skills like time management and prioritization.” These are both very important skills that will be needed by every single student in order to succeed. It’s crazy how what becomes a temporary new normal can completely destroy what we once used to possess.
Madison Nicks, student from Iowa Central Community College, said,”It’s almost like we went on this half-way break for way too long and now we can’t get back to normal. I find myself completely unmotivated and especially just trying to jump back into things full-force is extremely overwhelming.” This is a great point! As students, we were not eased back into the classroom setting and work environment. It was just one day everything started back up and we were expected to adapt immediately.
Thanks to the global pandemic college culture has changed from being the best years of your life to a stressful, unexpected mess. We were once able to make friends in class that we had never seen before and now we can hardly tell who’s siting in the chair next to us with their face covered. We lost the mental capacity and academic qualities we once used to have and now more than ever college students everywhere are struggling.