By: Julianna Valdivia
Los Angeles Community College District students are not adjusting well to online learning and would rather return to in person classes for Spring 2021.
Many students would rather not continue with online classes for the upcoming spring 2021 semester.
The pandemic caught everyone by surprise, forcing students to halt future plans they had for the upcoming semesters.
Students are not receiving the same amount of attention or feedback that they would be receiving inside a classroom. Students are now isolated in their own rooms and teaching themselves a lecture.
With the progression of online learning in the spring, many students are dying to go back to normal.
Not many of them are getting the same hands-on experience most planned on receiving before the pandemic struck. Thus, creating a crack in people’s workflow.
Students at ELAC are having a hard time relying on immediate feedback from their professors through online classes. They must manage on their own when trying to review their assignments. resources are much since the pandemic started.
Adriana Resendiz, who is a sophomore, said that this pandemic affected her because it stopped the in-person appointments that the resource center at ELAC has to offer. There is a difference between talking to an academic counselor in person versus online. Resendiz also said that scheduling an appointment has been much harder than ever.
Online classes have not been smooth sailing for both professors and students. Internet access has not been reliable for every student at home. Especially for the students that relied on free access on campus.
The pandemic has caused trouble and stress for everyone that is now doing online classes.
Everything is much more difficult to keep track of.
No one knows when colleges are going to allow in-person classes for the upcoming semesters. There might not be that option if the area around the schools is still high in COVID- 19 cases.
Students are unsure if they will be getting the same experience as they would when taking online classes to reach the requirements that are needed for their specific majors. Communication is difficult to obtain with everything online.
Many are uncertain if things will ever go back to normal. Angela Sanchez expressed that she began to feel overwhelmed when everything went under lockdown. She could not understand what was happening and how it got this bad in the first place. Seeing everything disappear was also very scary for her.
Feelings of being overwhelmed are at its peak during the pandemic. Students do not know when this will end and are dying to go back to normal.
The pandemic has taken a mental toll on students. ELAC students are now at home with their families trying to learn what they would be if they were in a classroom. Going on campus at school is what helped many students stay in their active learning mode. Being at home does not help students at all when they are trying to learn.
Sanchez said that being at home while her entire family is also there is very stressful and makes it hard to focus.
She said that she is out of motivation for her classwork and wants to have the social interaction that she used to have before the pandemic started.
Online classes for the semester are not ideal for every student and are affecting them in different ways. These students need to go back on campus to feel like a real student again. To help them feel like they are actually taking a college course again.