Written by Lexi Underwood

Published on April 3, 2020

Do you know what’s worse than a breakup? Taking online classes. Now, don’t get me wrong.  For most students, online classes are ideal; but if you are someone like me, this adjustment can become overwhelming.

I don’t have to take online classes to know that they aren’t meant for me. I like to learn in a classroom setting, face to face with my professors and peers. So, when I now have to transition that to my computer, it doesn’t have the same effect on me.

With HCC going completely virtual this semester, the biggest struggle I know I’ll always deal with is procrastination. I can push things back until the last minute and then stress about completing my work on time. It’s bad enough that I am already stressed out with the Coronavirus outbreak; balancing school as well as work has been a challenge.

Before the outbreak, I was working two jobs while going to school. Now I am only working one of those jobs. This may sound like my workload got smaller, but it hasn’t. My schedule isn’t set like before, where my work schedule never changed for either job. Since the outbreak and only one of my jobs being considered “essential,” I do not have a set schedule anymore. I usually have classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, so if I happen to work on those days, I make sure that I start and complete my work once I get home.

However, I am an easily distracted person. I recently got frustrated with an assignment I had for my Nutrition class and to relax my mind a little, I logged on to Instagram. 10 minutes quickly turned into a half an hour, which turned into 2 hours, and now I am 2 hours behind on finishing my work.

I do have to remind myself that, as this is an adjustment to me, this is also an adjustment to my professors. Each class day something else changes to help ensure that we are not only able to understand, but complete the given work too. 

I received an email from school, which isn’t unusual anymore, about the new grading rubric. What I think was supposed to be calming to students actually gave me more anxiety. 

For some reason, to me, online classes feel more overwhelming than having to come to campus two days out of the week. Every day, there’s another email, change, or assignment I still have to complete on top of other assignments.

By the end of the first official school week, I came to a conclusion that being stressed will get nothing done. So I decided, instead of doing everything at once, to finish one class at a time. 

I reread the announcements left by my professors on Blackboard to remind myself of how class will be moving forward. What I learned is that I can finish my Acting 2 and Dance work first because all we need to do is our daily check-in work. Once I am done with those two classes, I can move onto my Publications assignments. Because that class requires me to actually write articles, I do need more time to complete it. My Nutrition homework and quizzes are due every sunday before midnight so that gives me time to study. 

Even though the semester isn’t close to being over yet, I still have time to improve my work ethic. By taking it one assignment at a time and always making sure I am mentally okay first, I do believe that I can get through this semester of online classes. 

If I had to give any advice to anyone going through this change or to anyone scared of taking an online class, it would be to always set a time and day to do your work, and start off with the easy assignments so the majority of your week can be focused on the harder work. I will not let this outbreak ruin my chances of passing this semester.