Hi Everyone! Thanks for stopping by. Today I will be taking the time to share what my experiences have been like as a student who has had to transition taking all of my classes online.
Unlike any semester, I began my senior year sitting behind a laptop in my makeshift “office space.” I am hundreds of miles away from my friends and the campus community and while I am already about to enter my fourth week of classes, I still haven’t felt like I’ve fully acclimated to my typical school-year routine—but that’s okay! I feel that most students across the country going to class (remote or not) have felt that we have had to quickly put on our school hats and forced to put everything else going on in our lives on the back burner to make time for our new schedules. But as I’ve come to realize, maybe we don’t have to. Maybe instead of making our lives around our new schedules, we make our new schedule fit into our current reality.
During the first week of classes I remember trying to fit in all these meetings, wake up early, be 100% attentive with my camera on all the time for my classes, and take advantage of as many of the virtual programming that my school or clorgs were offering. However, it hit me rather quickly, that this model wasn’t sustainable for me and my mental health. I really needed to take a step back and redefine what “productivity” meant for me in the age of remote classes and virtual programming. So instead, I’ve been putting myself first more times than not these past couple of weeks. I’ve slept in, exercised, made time to talk to my friends on Facetime, hung out with my cat, cooked meals with my grandma, went on safe socially distanced walks, turned off my camera when I needed to for classes, stretched and said no to virtual programming when I knew I was “all zoomed out.” It’s been worth it. While I’ve kept up with the work that I need to do for my classes it has felt amazing to spend time doing things that I love do to instead of living in the background noise of assignment notifications and work meetings. As cheesy as it may sound, I think now more than ever it is important for all of us to put ourselves first and take time out of our days to do the things that we enjoy.
Until next time
-Aby