Divided by a digital ocean, students seek hope a year into remote learning
Alliance for Excellent Education licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
A year into the pandemic, college doesn’t look like it used to.
Yesenia Alvelo began her Spring 2021 semester in an Italian language class at Brooklyn College. Being a native Spanish speaker, she thought it might come natural, and help lessen the load of an already exhausting school year — then she met her professor. “It was basically an hour-long class, every Tuesday and Thursday, and he spent half of the class arguing with students.” said Alvelo. He demanded students include specifically cropped pictures of themselves with every email they send. When she reached out with a question on the class content and failed to express herself in his complex email etiquette, he dismissed her. He told her if she couldn’t follow “basic elementary school skills”, that she could expect to fail the class. When she reported him, the school initially wasn’t helpful, until she was finally able to replace the class with another.
“He even referred to his class as a prison, stating that if you do not do what is to be done, you will be punished.” said Alvelo.
In March of 2020, all CUNY colleges went online, in response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This meant all campuses and in-person college services were temporarily closed until further notice, including student social life, and just about everything involving interpersonal interaction on campus. For many students, it has not been an easy transition. For some, the adjustment hasn’t ended.
“In the past, I feel like most of my professors have stated that they’re here to help in any way possible. My professor this semester really has not done that; he just throws material at us and expects us to learn it, grasp it, and be able to engage in class,” said Calvin Bent, 23, a first-year graduate student at Brooklyn College.
On top of the usual challenges students face in pursuit of a degree, being abruptly pushed into an unprepared online schooling operation is, at minimum, an added weight. According to Georgetown professor Bryan Alexander, the sudden shift to online education has impacted at least 14 million students, and likely more. Further, the in-person community that once united and powered students and professors through an underfunded public education system like CUNY has fractured. Now, even remotely-reachable expectations are going unmet. Bent, for example, relies on the collaborative aspect of discussion boards to make meaning and worth of his studies.
“From doing that, I feel like I was able to learn from other students, learn from what they’re doing in their projects and incorporate that into mine. Whereas the class I’m in now, like, I don’t even know what other people are doing for their research projects. I have no idea. We’ve barely talked about it. And there’s just like little to no student interaction,” he said.
It is said that it takes a village to raise one, and learning is no different. The university was the village, classmates were its residents, and with the mentorship of their educators, there was community, and it cultivated beautiful connections. But the village is gone now, at least as it once stood, and it’s all too often left to the discrepant efforts of students to attempt to recreate that community.
It can be hard though, seeking to connect with and unite unfamiliar peers in the rare and restrictive pockets of Zoom calls led by professors with full plates, unseen pressures, and only so much attention to divide. While professors’ tireless efforts may often go unseen, so do students’ needs.
Alvelo recalled the onset of the pandemic, and how after dragging herself to finish the semester amidst the virus circulating her household, she didn’t want to return, “I wouldn’t sleep at night, and I wouldn’t eat, to add school stress onto those panic attacks where I’m like pacing back and forth — And I had to take medication — I decided to just let school go for a little break.” She explained how after working up the courage to return to school this Spring and complete her degree, the hurdles she faced weren’t the ones she expected.
Alvelo elaborated on how in dealing with a professor more concerned with putting students down than teaching them the course material, the same issues that first appeared last year began to resurface for her, “I had to leave that [class] because I was beginning to experience that really bad anxiety that I never experienced in my life [until last year]. Having him as a professor, I felt like he was going to make it come back and I’m afraid of that feeling. I remember that feeling. I don’t want that feeling.”
For a higher education system that embraces majority progressive stances, a full year into the pandemic, there hasn’t been significant attention placed on making university mental health services accessible to students.
While a sparsely viewed Youtube video from November 2020 vaguely announces the hiring of more personal counselors, Brooklyn College’s Personal Counseling webpage remains untouched since before the pandemic, noting that “Initial appointments for services must be made in person.” Despite the administration’s arguably superficial efforts, there is no denying that the shift to remote learning is affecting the mental health of students.
“I have no motivation,” Student Sydney Goins told Teen Vogue. “I don’t have in-person professors or classmates to motivate me, just myself, and I’m depressed. Discussion posts are piling up, and paper deadlines are closing in. I have nothing to say or think about. My brain is foggy.”
According to a nationwide survey of over 32,000 college students collected online during the Fall 2020 semester, half of the students screened positive for depression and/or anxiety, and 83 percent of students said their mental health had negatively impacted their academic performance. Additionally, results revealed that two-thirds of college students are struggling with loneliness and feeling isolated.
When asked if he felt supported by his school, either by his professors or advisors, Bent replied solemnly. “In a way, I am bearing this all alone,” he continued about his advisor’s vague and delayed emails, including not informing him of any dates or basic instruction around enrollment, a process he was new to as a first-year student and newcomer to the CUNY system. Despite his absent advisor, Bent figured it out on his own, and enrolled in a mix of courses that still had open seats for the upcoming semester. He dropped one, to manage mounting workloads amid the pressures of working retail and interning simultaneously.
At the midway point of the semester — the second fully online one Brooklyn College has had — the real trouble is what Bent has already accepted about remote education, “I don’t really know if [my professor] is out there to help me. But, you know, I guess that’s part of Zoom.”
As the Chronicle of Higher Education puts it, “To thrive at a time when we’re spending our days behind doors and in front of screens, students need connections more than ever, connections that recognize their lives beyond the classroom.” That recognition cannot be met alone.