Ranch dressing – College Life

Weighing Online Courses

For me online courses gave me multiple advantages, regarding flexibility and accessibility. One main benefit is having the ability for people to learn at their own pace and on their own schedule. Flexibility allows them to balance between other courses and other commitments such as jobs, clubs, and family responsibilities. Also, since the course is online you would not have to commute to a physical location, which saves time and money. And the instructors usually give a week to complete assignments and that’s usually enough time to complete assignments during the week.

SMU Global Online and Continuing Education

But online courses also come with their issues. One big concern for me was the lack of face-to-face interaction and consistent feedback from instructors. Because of this I felt like the instructors put too much time in for their in-person courses that they take longer to respond to and sometimes I would completely forget the course for the week because we are not physically meeting. Since online courses are sometime forgettable, students may also wait tell the last minute to complete assignments because they either forgot or they think it is not as important as their in-person courses. Additionally, technology issues can occur such as bad internet and software issues. Although I have not experienced these issues here, I did back in high school when the pandemic happened. Zoom calls would never load, there was no face-to-face contact and overall, the experience was terrible. Furthermore, the absence of structured in-person learning can impact students in a bad way if they aren’t self-disciplined.

Flying Solo

Transitioning from high school to college makes a huge shift in academic and personal responsibilities. Throughout high school there was a schedule built for you. Every day the bell rang after each hour and that is how you know when class was over, when to go to lunch and when the day was over. Also, teachers often reminded us about upcoming assignments. However, in college it is the total opposite. But is college I have to manage my time to see when I can eat breakfast, to see when I can possibly eat lunch, either in between or after class, and then I got to find the quickest way to my second class because it starts right after my first class ends, so sometimes I leave early to make sure I make it on time. I’ve also found it a little challenging having to manage time, keeping track of when assignments were due, and having to find my own help during academic struggles, whereas in high school the teacher’s kind of just carried you along and kept track of what assignments need to be done and what your grade was currently in class. In college nothing is handed to you, you have to work for it.

Along with all of that I also felt like being able to create my schedule was going to be an exciting and scary thing. Creating it myself meant that I am able to pick when and what type of class I want, from choosing an online class, to an in person class. I was able to customize my schedule, so it worked for me. I was able to find a schedule that had a day off built into it, but for high school that was never possible. During high school you had school five days a week with no breaks until the weekend. We also could not create a schedule during high school. We just had to pick our classes and the guidance counselors created our schedules for us. Although we got to pick our classes, we didn’t get to choose the time we wanted and when I was freshman and Sophomore, I had to stay in building all 5 hours with no study hall. But it did get better Junior and Senior year because I was able to get a study hall and Seniors got automatic hour off if they had certain courses complete, which was really nice towards the end of my high school career when life became more serious. Whereas in college you could only have two classes Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then have one class on Tuesday, and Thursday. Only having two to one class a day was very beneficial. I use the free time to complete assignments, and study. After thought, the transition from the structure of high school to the independence of college not only brought challenges but also got me prepared for the real world.