An Atypical Fall Semester
Those are hard weeks, we all know it. The pandemic has changed our lives and, most noticeably, it has changed the way we think about our future. Sometimes, I believe this is not necessarily a bad aspect. During quarantine, we are all forced to literally take an unexpected break and to reflect on what would be coming next…
Personally, I’m facing a dilemma on the minds of nearly all liberal arts college students. What’s next is a big decision: doing a year of Zoom classes or taking time off to explore new opportunities in a gap-year.
The problem is that it is so hard to make defining choices when the information we all have is imperfect. We don’t even know how long we will be away from college. Yet, I would love to share with you some reflections on how to approach the coming year and on the implications of taking online classes.
First of all, we have to understand what doing an entire year of online classes means and the consequences that this choice can have on motivation and personal enrichment. College, as stated by Harvard itself, is meant to be a “transformative experience”, in which we grow by constantly learning, experiencing, and engaging. In this regard, it is important to recognize that the foundations of this experience are human interactions between students, faculty members, and generally the whole university’s community.
Unfortunately, recreating this environment virtually is incredibly challenging. There is no such thing as walking through the campus corridors virtually or sharing a meal with friends at the dining hall or having an engaging discussion at 4 AM after a long night spent working on an assignment with a heroic study group. Moreover, there is no such thing as being always there, always in the loop, always around college buildings.
Most importantly, college life doesn’t have an “end meeting” button which, when inevitably pressed, teleports you back to your homeroom and makes you realize that you are in another city, in another state, or even in another country with a 6h time zone difference (this, unfortunately, is my current situation).
Yet, there is some value in an online experience as it is still possible to be academically challenged and, with the right flexibility and motivation, I am confident that certain students will be able to do equally well in this different environment. Furthermore, colleges are trying to adapt and to make the online experience more engaging by changing the way students interact with faculty members and by adapting the lectures to make them better suited for an online environment.
Therefore, although taking online classes, from an academic perspective, can be similarly valuable, it is important to recognize that it is going to be an entirely different experience. Hence, this year is inevitably going to be atypical as the college experience as we know it won’t happen, at least for the time being.
In this light, the gap year idea is less radical as it appeared. Thus, I encourage all college students to at the very least explore potential opportunities and to compare them to the perspective of online classes. Then we can all make a choice with the goal of making the most out of this year.
To further help you make your decision, we’ve published a special podcast episode, “To be or not to be enrolled” wherein we discuss other important factors to consider as you think through your options. We hope this can be helpful to you and alleviate some of the stress surrounding the fall semester. We wish you the best of luck!
