University students gear up for rest of semester online
Some campuses closing until February
Greg Blandford did school online before this semester. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March and bumped universities and schools throughout the country online, he said he was ready for it.
He was ready, but this year has been different than any other. Luckily, he said he adjusts to things quickly.
“It’s been going well. I’m an adapter, I’m an innovator,” Blandford, of Hobart, said. “I’ve been prepared for this situation now for half a decade.”
Blandford completed his associate degree primarily online at Indiana Wesleyan University, received a bachelor’s degree in 2019 and just began his first year as a continuing student at Indiana University Northwest pursuing a second bachelor’s degree.
Two of Blandford’s IUN classes were completely remote earlier in the semester while one was a hybrid, but now he, along with most other IU students, will continue the semester online until Feb. 8.
Though Blandford was prepared for a move to online learning, he said there are some things he continues to miss.
“I am missing the campus culture,” Blandford said. “Student population is way, way down, some of our campus traditions have been adapted … I live a dull life, I go online to do campus scholarship, but I go to campus to do work.”
As students, faculty and staff adapt to the year, IUN Executive Vice Chancellor Vicki Román-Lagunas said she thinks it is going far better than expected.
“(It is) absolutely amazing. A lot of people rejected being remote, rejected teaching online,” Román-Lagunas said. “We all have learned so much about new ways to teach and new ways to learn and new ways to operate at work. We’ve been successful.”
Faculty throughout the university was given thousands of hours of training in the different modalities for classes prior to the beginning of the semester, and she said it has helped the year go the way she hoped it would.
The university has seen fewer withdrawals from individual classes this semester, even with the challenges of learning remotely. In fact, a very small percent said they withdrew was because of the modality of the class, Román-Lagunas said.
“Every semester students pull out, that’s normal at every university,” she said. “We had less withdrawals from classes this semester than we did last year at this time, and last year at
this time we were fully face-to-face.”
IUN isn’t the only university in the area moving online. Purdue University Northwest is also making the switch after Thanksgiving break, though student housing will remain open.
“While our students, faculty and staff collaboratively have done a tremendous job of keeping the number of cases at PNW relatively low, we know that the number of positive cases in the community has risen dramatically in the last few weeks,” said Kris Falzone, Associate Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communications, in an email. “PNW will move the remainder of fall semester class meetings and finals to virtual or 100% online modes, with limited exceptions.”
As universities and schools gear up to go fully remote, IUN student Angad Sidhu noted the semester itself has been difficult for everyone, regardless of the switch.
“This period is going to be the most difficult for students,” Sidhu said, talking about moving to remote learning until Feb. 8. “Winter months are usually the hardest regarding mental health … we definitely recognize the struggles that are going to be coming with this.”
Sidhu is a senior biology major and the Student Government Association president at IUN. This year hasn’t been too bad, he said, but he can’t say if it’s shaping up to be what he thought it would be, because he wasn’t sure what to expect.
“Everything moving online in the spring, that was super, super sudden, it kind of threw everybody off,” Sidhu said. “Even the entire summer there was a big question for how things were going to turn out to be. With that, I didn’t have any expectations for the fall. I was kind of like, let’s just roll with the punches.”
Sidhu’s classes are online, but he finds solace in returning to campus on Thursdays and Fridays to work on an independent research project, even if the laboratory is limited for safety reasons.
“Comparing it even to a normal year of research, it’s independent at the end of the day, but it’s still a little different,” Sidhu said.
As the year continues and students gear up for some time fully online, Sidhu said he thinks schools and students are making the most of a difficult situation.
“It’s tough across the board for everyone, there’s no doubt about that,” Sidhu said. “I’m so happy that they took the advice of medical professionals and scientists and everything when coming up with the fall 2020, spring 2021 plan for everything.”