college student – Bridget's Eng 200 blog

This week’s blog I will just be talking about what I have been doing the past couple weeks. I have been trying my best to keep up with all my school work, except it feels like it is all piling on and is hard to learn when most of my classes never have online meetings so I’m struggling to try and teach myself. Other than school work, my sleep schedule has been so messed up I think I’m nocturnal now. Clearly being away from campus has changed many of my habits, and my routines have been so messed up but I’m trying my best to make it as normal as possible back home. I have been keeping in touch with my friends from school as much as possible, we try and zoom every week, play games and just catch up. It seems like every week we are betting on if we will be able to go back to Dayton in the fall. This just sucks so much right now because I live out of state, and so do most of my friends so none of us are really close to each other, and we don’t know when everything will calm down so we can’t plan any future time to meet up, so there isn’t much to look forward to at the moment. I have zoom meetings every week for my job in housing, and for SGA so it’s nice to be able to see the same faces I would be seeing if we were on campus. It’s hard for me to find something productive to do with my free time though, I only have a few friends back home that I’m still close with, and I don’t have a ton of hobbies either. I have been cleaning my room everyday because I feel like I at least accomplish something. I have tried painting, working out, sewing, watched just about every series on netflix, and I’m running out of things to try. I’m worried for the summer, since I won’t even have school work to be doing. I will have so much time and nothing to do with it, so I think I need to discover some new hobbies or try and get another job.

This week’s blog post I’m going to be writing about how the transition from in-person classes and normal everyday living to remote learning and stay-at-home orders has changed my everyday life. Since Dayton has announced we will continue to have remote learning for the rest of the semester it has been super difficult for professors and students to figure out how to make their learning experience as normal as possible, but it has been a very tough transition. The one thing I am surprised about since I never thought the university would be willing to do this, is the decision to allow students to decide if they want to have a pass-fail grade or regular grades for each class this semester. This has alleviated so much stress off of me and my peers and makes it a lot easier to just try my best and not be worried about how my GPA will be affected. Other than that the transition has been a tough adjustment, to say the least. I live in a different time zone, so I have to remember all my due dates and class times are actually an hour early. Learning through zoom chats, or not even video chats at all just isn’t the same education we were getting before and I feel very unconnected from my friends, professors, and Dayton community. It is disappointing, and I understand the need for social distancing in order to flatten the curve, but I just wish there was still some sort of community intact or that Dayton was offering more than just a housing refund. I pay to go to school out of state for a reason and to have professors that I interact with every week. Our tuition goes towards more than just classes, it goes towards our rec plex membership, counseling services, the health center, maintenance, the library, facilities management, and so much more which we are no longer receiving being sent home. I just really hope Dayton tries to do good with their students and offer refunds for services no longer being provided or finds a way to be able to provide these things. Not everyone can waste that much money to not be receiving many of the things that help students keep on with their school work and support their mental health. I just hope the school figures everything out and does good by their students during this difficult time.

Tag: college student

What I have been doing the past few weeks

How Remote Learning is Going