SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC NEWS) — This week, Syracuse University students are starting a new routine. Instead of getting dressed and going to class, many will simply wake up, and open their laptops. The university joined many schools across the country last week and switched to e-learning for the rest of the semester.
The announcement last week was met with some mixed tones from students. For SU freshman Siobhan Grabski, a music education major and member of the ROTC platoon on campus, the shift has been bitter sweet.
“I am very happy to be, to be with my family, and reorganize what was a very busy schedule at school,” she said, “But the hard part about that is this e-learning platform online is not a particular favorite way of learning for me.”
Grabski told me she looks forward to the downtime. Two of her ensembles are not possible to have hosted online, and her participation in ROTC also will be scaled back, with a class in leadership getting reduced to just once a week instead of three times a week.
The hardest part for Grabski though is the inability to build personal connections with classmates and teachers. She said, “Personally I am an extrovert, so interpersonal communication is my best way to learn, and that is kind of eliminated now.”
Grabski also lamented the lack of feeling real deadlines for school work, “That’s a struggle for me. Really understanding that these are real deadlines, when its all online, it doesn’t register as much as that they are real deadlines for me rather than if I am seeing (teachers) face to face.”
Grabski and many other SU students hope to make it through the semester, and be back on campus ready to go in the fall.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of the people participating in a class online in 2017 was around 6.7 million students. Many cite flexibility and more centered feedback than in the classroom setting for reasons of taking an online class. Click the link to find out more on e-learning.
For more information on COVID-19, how to protect yourself, and keep others safe, visit the CDC website by clicking the link.
