Q&A with Sandra Myer

A college senior who has seen every variation of the classroom and hopes for the online option to stick around

New York University senior, Sandra Myer, has had a rollercoaster ride of a college career due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She spent her first semester and a few weeks of her second semester of freshman year in Florence, Italy, until she and her classmates were asked to immediately go home. Meyer returned to her family’s home in New Jersey where she ended up completing her freshman year fully online. An estimated 14 million U.S. college students were fully remote during the same spring 2020 semester.

Sophomore year had more hybrid options, but Myer opted for fully online classes until that option dissipated in her junior year. Even with school and work returning in person, Myer chose a hybrid internship this past summer with Weichert Realty. Life for Myer has been a mix of remote and hybrid classes and internships the past three years, but now that everything’s back to fully in-person, there’s a lot of adjustment and little flexibility that’s come with that shift.

The rest of this piece has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Could you take me back to what your experience was like with online classes, and how the transition was coming back in person?

I enjoyed Zoom school. I know most people didn’t like it, but I enjoyed it because it allowed me the freedom of doing anything else I wanted to do throughout my day instead of devoting my entire day to attending school. Like for example when everyone got sent home and we began online learning, I actually went to live in Florida for a few months instead of in the city because the mobility of being online allowed my family to all just go to Florida and that was a really great experience.

When things became hybrid, and people were starting to go on campus again, I still chose classes that were online because they allowed me the freedom of doing what I wanted with my time. Personally, I am more of an individual learner who learns at my own pace so it’s not always helpful to have such a structured in-person curriculum. It depends on the subject, but I do prefer to work to my own rhythm. So I enjoyed the experience. I would go back to it even. I would probably do grad school online, just somewhere else in the world if I still have the opportunity to.

I see you’ve listed a lot of positives to remote classes, what do you think may be the biggest con of fully remote classes?

The biggest con was feeling very disconnected. It felt like there was no student body for me to rely on and felt like I had to go through hoops to be able to actually speak with my professors. I relied a lot on GroupMe, which is not something that I enjoy. And I was also just more isolated and unable to be social in a meaningful way because I wasn’t seeing anybody.

Do you think that the option of being remote should still continue to be an option for students?

Yeah, I think that online school should continue to be extended as an option, especially for people who might not have the accessibility of coming to campus. Especially for international students. Then we could have a more international community.

And you also worked remotely? Can you tell me about that experience?

Yeah, so remote work was great. I only had to go into the office on Mondays. I was there from nine to five, and my online hours were also from nine to five throughout the week. However the freedom of time was even more noticeable during work over school. When I went into the office with my coworkers, I did probably one hour of actual work and nothing else for the entire day.

When I was online the rest of the week, I still had my nine to five hours and would wake up early enough and make sure that I was accessible to the computer. But, like I said, I had an hour and a half worth of work every day, so I would get that done and then be able to do anything else I wanted with my day. I didn’t have to do the 45-minute commute that I had to do on Mondays, and wasn’t forced to stay in some random building in New Jersey.

And with the freedoms you said you had in this remote job, were you able to travel during that time?

Yes actually. I was able to travel to a bunch of different places, because I was remote for most of the week. I went to Florida again. I also did a road trip to Ohio, and none of these things even got in the way of being able to complete my work because I allotted a certain amount of time to get my things done. So I wasn’t falling behind in work and still had the freedom to have an individual life outside of… capitalism.

And would you prefer to work remotely in the future?

Absolutely. I would prefer to work remotely. I would like to go back and live in Italy. I would like to live in China. I would like to live in many many different places and that would require a job in order for me to live my own personal, preferred lifestyle. I would need a remote job. So I’m hoping that that’ll be possible in the future.

Along with the increased availability of online classes and work, what do you think of the increased accessibility of healthcare online?

I think it’s great. I go to therapy regularly, remotely, and it’s very convenient. I’ve also done therapy in person and I do feel like there’s a slight difference in care as my provider does not have the ability to see my body language.

But overall the experience is still very effective, even though it’s online. I’ve also needed to have urgent care before and all of the in-person doctors that were available to me, within my insurance, did not have availability within the coming days. So I opted for a remote doctor’s appointment, and I’ve done this multiple times over the past year and they’ve always resolved my problem.

I think healthcare needs to be accessible in pretty much every single aspect, but it’s nice that the remote aspect was opened up because of COVID.

What do you think you get out of remote classes and work that you maybe can’t solely in person?

There’s pros and cons to both but, for me, school has never been the most important thing going on in my life and when we have to go to school and attendance is counted then it is forced to become the most important thing in your life. So online school aligns with my personal perceptions better than regular school because then the more pressing and important things that I have going on in my life can actually take the spot of being first priority rather than school forcing itself to be.