The Duality of Distance Learning by Kyle Pritchard

 The Covid-19 pandemic catapulted our society into an era that we have been anticipating for years now, the era of online centralization. Over the past decade, our society has slowly begun to shift into an online world, changing the way businesses, people, and communities interact with one another. Some people were accustomed to doing everything online, making the transition a near non-issue. Other people were not ready for the change that our society was adhering to. I met with Andres, a best friend of mine who is also attending college, to discuss how the pandemic has affected our ability to learn and ultimately our student outcomes.

We have taken different paths through college, but we share a similarity in the fact that we are returning students that walked away from college before. So in essence we both have had a decent amount of experience in schooling. I have taken about half of all my college courses as online-only classes and a majority of the others offered an online aspect. Andres on the other hand has never taken an asynchronous online course, only in-class courses with online aspects. With colleges converting to solely online over the past year, you can assume which of us two had issues with the transition. Andres was not used to scheduling his classwork on his own time and his most difficult obstacle was not having the interaction that classrooms provide. He is an engaged learner that enjoys examples and interactable lessons. Andres commended his professors for doing their best, but it just was not working for him. With multiple stresses and his difficult experiences, he backed out of his courses for the time being.

There are many other students like Andres that backed out of school once the pandemic hit, for one reason or another. This exodus has a cascading effect that can affect schools for years to come and I hope more students return this fall. After communicating with other students, I've come to the conclusion that it truly is a mixed bag when it comes to distance learning. Many students loved that they had less overall work to do to complete a class, but other students complained that they don't feel as if they are learning as well as before. I personally benefited from the switch to online-only because it deleted a 30-minute commute out of my day and it allowed me to cater my schoolwork to my work schedule. The options and opportunity that is presented from campuses opening this fall will truly help the education system and students statewide.