Remote learning is more flexible and accessible to students

Often when I am talking with students around campus, the general consensus I get is that students really dislike online classes. As someone who actually spent her entirety of high school online, I personally find online classes preferable to in person ones. Here are my reasons why. 

Online classes can be taken literally from anywhere. If you want to lay in your bed, in your fuzzy pajamas, while sipping coffee or hot chocolate, you can! It’s a lot more relaxing doing homework when you don’t have to worry about getting dressed or worry about your appearance to others. You can literally look like you just crawled out of bed because you can actually do that and nobody will be around to judge you for it. 

Online classes are truly flexible in their design. If you’re a student who works either full or part time, you can fit your online class within your schedule. Sure, most of them do have weekly deadlines, but that means you are given a whole week to complete the assignments. Compare that to in person classes where you typically will only have two days to complete your assignments or to study for a test as the assignment due dates are always the next class period.

Some online classes actually post everything for the whole semester right away, so you can work entirely at your own pace. I love these types of classes because then, I can use longer breaks or just weekends to work ahead which then alleviates some of my stress later on. You could also just finish the entire class within only a couple of months and wouldn’t have to worry about it during finals week, giving you more time for your other classes.

The other thing I like about online classes is not having classroom meetings. While I do like interacting with people and seeing my classmates, there are some days where I also just want to be left alone. I also tend to work better alone rather than around other people. So, having a class that requires no in-person meetings is really helpful for getting my work done. 

What about the social aspect of online classes? If you are someone who is more sociable and extroverted, you may struggle with the idea of not having any classmates. Well, one of my favorite solutions to this is to take your laptop and notebook with you to a coffee shop, cafe, library, or whatever interests you. This way you can still be going to class while also being around people. You get more freedom on what your classroom looks like. You could even bring your friends along and do a whole study session together without the interruption of in person classes. 

I personally think that online classes just alleviate a lot of the pressure that comes from having a scheduled class. If you didn’t get enough sleep the previous night, you can just sleep in and not miss anything from your class. If you are sick, you don’t have to leave your house to get your work done. Online classes just give that flexibility that isn’t possible with an in-person class. 

I am not saying that we should fully convert to fully online universities, but I do think there needs to be more options for students out there. I think that for almost every class there should be an online option. Obviously this idea wouldn’t work for classes that you need to have in person like science labs and workshop classes. However, classes that require absolutely no in-person participation to succeed could have an online option to them. 

I think having more online classes available would make college more accessible to students and could actually increase a university’s enrollment because they could get students from all over the country and the world attending their university. This would mean more money for the university and a lot higher of an attendance rate as well. Online classes are not such a bad thing and they should become a little more normal.