The Pros and Cons of Online Learning
Covid-19 turned our world’s around at the start of last year; it swept through our lives and showed no forgiveness. In fact, it still runs rampage around us. But you probably don’t need me to tell you that — we’re all living through it after all.
A year on, and like the rest of us, students are still feeling the aftermath of Covid-19. Unable to attend classes on campus, most students are attempting to do their courses from their bedroom.
It's a situation that's still as bizarre as the first day it started — there's no getting used to zoom lecturers with a classroom of black, empty screens. Sure, at first, it was kind of nice to take our classes in bed and not have to worry about being late for our train into university. But now? It's just a bit depressing and hardly motivating.
Jack Loudon, a third-year architecture student studying at The University of Strathclyde, said: “One major flaw of online learning is that it's very challenging to create a good work/life balance. There’s no time in the morning to mentally prepare yourself before beginning lectures for the day. You have the easy option to be lazy and wake up only moments before the class starts.
Rimsha Aamir, a third-year biomedical student also studying at The University of Strathclyde, agreed with Jack and added: “It’s hard to manage your space since your home life interferes with your academic life.
Online learning is also a completely new concept, and staff still don’t know how to use the online materials, so it feels very disorganised at times.”
Rimsha Aamir and Jack Loudon studying at The University of Strathclyde Library.
Whilst, Rimsha and Jack, have their qualms about online learning, they admit that there are some positive aspects to it.
Rimsha said: “The pre-recorded lectures really helped me this year as they allowed me to re-watch lectures when I needed to.
“Online lectures also save me money as I don’t need to travel into university.”
Jack also found the subtraction of travelling to be advantageous. He said: “I've been able to eliminate travel time to and from the university, which has meant I've had more time to focus on my studies. That has proved invaluable as my course is very content-heavy, so I've used the extra time to work instead of sitting on the train.”
But a central issue for Rimsha and Jack is feeling alienated from their peers that they used to attend lectures with.
Rimsha said: “Online learning is much harder because there is less communication. I often feel alone, and if I’m struggling to understand something, I’m unable to ask a friend during the class/lecture like I could on campus.”
Being isolated from his peers’ also made parts of Jack’s course challenging. He said: “My course used to dedicate a lot of time to group work in the design studio, which has been a very difficult element to replicate through a computer screen.”
Still, the last year has been enlightening and taught us all a lot about ourselves. For Rimsha, she discovered she prefers to separate different aspects of her life.
She said: “I’ve learnt I like to compartmentalise my life. I like to have my university life and home life separate, and when it’s all mixed together, I find it hard to stop thinking about studying when I’m trying to carry out my daily home activities.”
On the other hand, Jack learned a vital skill during online learning that will help him now and in years to come.
He said: “I've learnt that I have to be more critical of my work as I've not had the same opportunity to present it to others. I've also had to be more self-driven as it's much easier not to attend a lecture and blame it on "technical difficulties" than it is for campus lectures.”
I think we can all agree that online learning has been a learning curve for us all: from students to lecturers to parents, we've all struggled through it and learnt a lot along the way.
But we’re all desperate for some normality now. Even if there are some pros to online learning, Rimsha, Jack, and many other students out there would much rather be back on campus. That doesn't mean they want all elements of online learning to disappear: Jack would like to see some lectures stay online whilst Rimsha would like on-campus lecturers to be recorded so she can watch them again later.
But seriously, who would've thought that all it would take was a pandemic for students that normally love a day off to be begging to be back in school? The things we take for granted, eh?