The 3 Biggest Struggles of Being a Remote College Student
I have been to school in many different forms. I have been a high school student at school 24/7, I have gone through school in the Army, I have been a full-time college student while playing sports, I have been a part-time college student with a full-time managing job, and recently I have been a full-time college student with all online classes. While I have experienced a lot, being a remote college student, this past year was one of the most difficult forms of schooling. Not to mention, all the times I thought my microphone was off but found out later that I was being heard by the whole class! The biggest struggles for me being a remote college student were not leaving the house, learning new information and remembering due dates, and video fails.
1. Staying Home
While you might be thinking that I did not leave the house because of COVID-19, I just did not feel the need to go anywhere because I sat around all day having class and doing homework. I shortly realized that I was missing out on my entire college experience that included but was not limited to meeting up with friends for study sessions, grabbing a bit to eat with my family, and having the occasional girl’s night out.
The struggle I felt was starting to feel lonely and lazy. Finally, after a whole semester went by, I decided I needed to work out and referred to a blog post I wrote which was 5Ways to Get Motivated for the Gym. I soon started to feel a lot better about myself and wanted to get out of the house more.
Lesson Learned:
It was easy to stay home and not do anything with myself. Then I wanted to see myself succeed and accomplish more than just my homework, I wanted to learn more and grow my personal brand. I was craving the college experience that I saw in movies but all I had to do was stay home for my online classes and homework and then get out to start experiencing more.
2. Learning New Information and Due Dates
I am the type of student that wants to be face-to-face for classes. This helps me to take in new information and keep me focused. I found it hard to pay attention virtually because I had more distractions that I anticipated. One of these distractions played video games and constantly yelled in frustration. For a while, my go to spot for class was in my closet but soon I realized that my college house was not made for actual people to live in it. It was either too cold or too hot and constantly had bugs or mice crawling around (yuck).
The struggle I felt was not being able to learn what information we were being taught and getting frustrated when working on assignments. Also. I had to get used to writing down assignments in my planner and checking off assignments that I complete.
Lesson Learned:
While we usually had a class lecture, I found myself re-watching the class for any information I missed and clicking on every extra document to help me complete homework assignments. I also researched some things on my own for more clarification. An example of a project that my class completed while I was a virtual college student was a TikTok video to educate others about different job titles in the marketing field. This project involved me going through the process of re-watching classes, going through extra documents, and doing my own research.
Here are two places on my website to find more about the project: Blog Post and Sample of Work.
3. Video/Audio Fails
This is by far the most embarrassing struggle of learning virtually. In some classes the instructor can have the settings set to where you enter the room with no sound or video. I learned the hard way that some classes I entered with sound. I also figured out to always wear clothing that is appropriate for class too. There were times that I found myself wearing a robe and quickly had to throw something else on.
Lesson Learned:
I learned that I need to dress appropriate for each class in case I needed to turn my video camera on. Also, for audio I learned that I just needed to turn off my cell phone and stay quiet during class unless I was talking. While these are a few things I should have known right away, I suppose I wanted to be more comfortable and unprofessional. Now I know that I must always assume that people can see and hear me.
Closing
At first there were certain things I had to get used to like hoping on the computer for class or working different video applications. Now I know what to do and what not to do during a virtual class. This is a valuable skill that I will continue to use and learn more about. This skill can be found on my resume. I encourage you to think about how you overcame some of the struggles of remote classes and feel free to comment.