A Positive Outlook on Virtual Classes

Why Staring at a Screen for 12 Hours Might Be Worth It

This fall semester brings on a multitude of challenges for everyone — from essential workers, senior citizens, to college students. It will be a time of firsts, of change, discomfort, and dread. Consequently, a positive outlook is necessary to overcome these negative feelings. As an incoming junior in college, I’ve speculated whether virtual classes are worth the cost, especially as an engineering major (with lots of lab classes). Debating internally every night in bed, here’s a list of the benefits that I’ve come up with for online learning:

1. The biggest reason is to view this as an opportunity to try new things, and explore new passions and interests. Since almost all schools have moved online — so have their classes — and accessing them (for free!) is easier than ever before. Special programs have been created during this pandemic, such as Yale’s infamous class on “The Science of Well-Being”, a finance class from the University of Michigan, or even Rosetta Stone’s offer for free access to their resources for 3 months. This pandemic does not need to lead to boredom and binge-watching of movies, but can be a time for growth, learning, and peaking of one’s interests.
2. Virtual learning pushes for less emphasis on tests and numeric scores, but more emphasis on actually learning and understanding. Similar to how colleges are drifting away from ACT/SAT requirements, in today’s society, numbers are not everything. Since all students will have access to their computers during tests, there are two options: schools rely heavily on an honor policy, or they steer away from finals making up 50% of a student’s grade. I believe that many schools will choose the second option. Essays, word-problems, and other projects that require creativity, planning, and show true comprehension will become a priority. In my opinion, the student’s effort and willingness to learn are more important than a student’s ability to crunch numbers in their calculators and produce error-free code in an unrealistic amount of time. Colleges that put more emphasis on growth will result in more successful students in the long term.
3. A huge positive for virtual classes in college is that they will mostly be pre-recorded, since students attend universities from all over the world (and thus have different time zones). This means that you can access lecture videos at anytime; it’s not necessary to drag yourself out of bed 5 minutes before your 9am lecture. You can also stay in the comfort of your pajamas, forever. Or mute yourself as you eat cinnamon toast crunch. The possibilities of virtual lecture watching are endless.
4. Lab classes will require more creativity! As an Electrical Engineering major, it was devastating to find out that lab classes wouldn’t be held… in lab. However, on the bright side, this will force professors to become more creative, and figure out how to make their labs online. They must modify or redesign the labs that they often use year after year, and having a bit of ~spice and new content wouldn’t do any harm. Not only will instructors be more engaged as they must develop more relevant and pertinent content, but students will also be more interested and intrigued with the new teaching methods.

In the end, virtual classes this semester are going to be what we make of them.

It was not something that any of us were expecting or ready for, but it is something we must overcome, and grow from. Who knows? Maybe we’ll learn that online classes work surprisingly well, or maybe we’ll learn that online classes is the worst idea of this generation. Either way, we’ll learn something from them!