A College Senior’s First Online Class
For the past eighteen years my life has primarily revolved around school. Monday through Friday, September to June, I’ve spent more time in school than almost anywhere else. I’ve had many unique experiences in my schooling, too many to count, some positive and some negative, but for eighteen years I’ve done the majority of my learning in a classroom. As a senior in college with only 11 hours left to meet graduation requirements, I entered registration for second semester classes with only one thing in mind; take as little class as possible.
I was not unique in my thinking, countless friends had, like me, switched their enrollment status to, “part time;” taking less than 12 hours, and saving a significant amount of money paying by the class and not by the semester. After much planning and digging through the database of course options, I found what I thought was the perfect schedule. One economics course required for my major, one psychology course I was genuinely interested in (taken as pass/fail), and a film studies class that was notoriously easy (the rumors were not wrong, can you say GPA boost). Three, “real,” classes, but I was still 1 credit short. That is, until I saw a golden opportunity, 1.5 credits, only half a semester, and online. I had never taken an online course before, but everything I had ever come to know and assume about them led me to believe that this would be an absolute cake walk. I finished registration with what I thought was a perfect second-semester, senioritis schedule.
My initial thoughts on an online class involved me sitting in my bedroom, movie on in the background, working through a week’s worth of work on a Sunday night that was due on Monday. I didn’t expect to interact with anyone, or even know the names of my classmates. The reality shattered my expectations.
The first thing that shocked me was the amount of administrative work that went into designing the course, and for that I say hats off to my professor. Each week had structured assignments with due dates, participation requirements, and video responses that encouraged every student to watch, listen, respond, and collaborate. I think the most interesting aspect of the course setup was the grading system. It was almost entirely participation based, with clear expectations for an A, a B, and a C. I found this system of grading very unique but I appreciated the transparency, and felt somewhat liberated that the grade I received in the course was entirely up to me and how many assignments I wanted to successfully complete.
The course started out a bit rocky; I frequently forgot to check the website every day for what assignments were due, and rarely commented or responded to other students’ posts. We had assignments due 3 days a week, which I found almost less liberating in terms of time management than my in person classes. In the later weeks, I got used to the set-up of the course and started to enjoy viewing, commenting, and responding to other students’ posts.
In the end, I felt as though the course was just as much work as an in-person class, and actually tapped into the same skills that would be required in an in-person course; time management, collaboration, critical thinking, and general organization. I would say that as long as professors are willing to put in the time to design the structure of the online class in such a way that encourages group connectivity, collaboration, and a sense of community, then online classes are just as effective as in-person classes. In fact, we are seeing this trend of online-courses become more and more engraved in upper-level education in America. One thing that may be tainting the reputation of online courses, is the rise of for-profit colleges who market themselves to students who are looking for an exclusively online learning experience. According to US News, enrollment in online classes at for-profit institutions fell, while enrollment at private/public institutions grew in 2014. I think that in coming years we will see reputable institutions begin to offer a wider variety of learning experiences; in-person, online, and even a hybrid of the two.