SMU Students Struggle to Transition to Online Classes
Students discuss their experiences with the move to digital learning during the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Currently, the world is a place of unknowns. Along with the rest of the population, college students did not expect to have to move into a virtual work environment.
Arielle Lode, a junior from Southern Methodist University (SMU), believes that the shift to online courses has not only mental consequences but physical ones as well.
“It is more difficult to concentrate while doing online classes since there are more distractions around me and I have felt physical repercussions from staring at a screen for hours every day,” Lode said.
Lode is thankful for Zoom as it is very easy to use and helpful during this time. Zoom is the only way classes have been able to go on-line and conduct courses to a similar caliber of what they were like on campus. Lode’s professors haven’t had any issues thus far.
But Lode said that online courses “detract from [her] learning and do not facilitate the contributory and communicative environment in-person classes have.”
While this is a tough situation for all college students, some have been worse off than others.
“The pandemic has caused a lack of motivation for me and taken away a lot of opportunities for myself that I cannot get back,” Lacey Longo, a junior at SMU said. “Students are limited to online communication which can cause a lot of issues for people who suffer from learning disabilities and mental health issues.”
Longo thinks that SMU’s tuition is worth it when taught on a beautiful campus with qualified teachers. But, since we moved online, “we’ve lost the in-person interaction with our teachers and peers, and therefore we lose a lot of value.” She believes that now classes are like those of an online community college and are nowhere near how they should be.
She believes that her education is being hindered during this time. She knows that this is a difficult situation for everyone but thinks that “SMU has been one of the slowest schools in their crisis response communication to their students and faculty.”
“SMU should have a response team that is working day and night to provide us the answers or even just what is being discussed in the moment in order for us to feel included in the conversation,” Longo said.
An SMU senior, Ilse Arevalo also had a rough time with the transition to online courses. For her, college is quite difficult right now, not only does she have to get used to her courses being on Zoom but is also searching for a job. “We are leaving school and starting adulthood in one of the worst job markets ever, it’s hard to find a job and stressful to enter the real world with a majority of companies on hiring freezes,” Arevalo said.
Some of her professors have added assignments as they believe that since students don’t have anything else going on, they should study more. But in reality, students have to work extra hard to secure a job or internship given the current situation.
Arevalo is thankful that SMU is giving students the pass/fail option. And believes that “given the situation, it’s a unique one and SMU tried their best.”
She hopes that SMU has a game plan for the fall semester. She thinks that the university should have multiple plans should schools have to go online again.
SMU intends to re-open this fall. The university wants to go back to on campus classes and resume the enriched education SMU offers. President R. Gerald Turner has appointed a Task Force to ensure a healthy re-opening. According to the email Turner sent out to SMU students faculty and staff, this task force “charged with the important mission of bringing our students, faculty, and staff back to campus safely while ensuring high-quality instruction, academic rigor, meaningful research and campus engagement — all of which exemplify the SMU experience.”
