Elementary schools, middle school, high school and college students across the United States had to switch from face to face classes to all online in a blink of an eye because of the Coronavirus outbreak.

Some people might love that they do not have to go to school anymore. They do not have to wake up super early anymore and they can most likely do their schoolwork on their own time now.

However, others are missing face to face interaction with instructors.

There are definitely pros and cons to online classes for sure it just all depends on what kind of person you are and what you prefer as a student.

I personally do not like this whole online classes situation because I am a very hands-on person who likes to listen to professors speak to me in person to help me fully understand what they are trying to teach me.

Growing up with a comprehension disability which causes me to sometimes to have assignments read to me for me to fully understand how to do it. With online courses its hard to get that if your professor does not use Zoom, even if they do its still sometimes not enough. Sometimes you just need that real face to face conversation to fully understand things.

I cannot wait for the day we all can get back to the normal face to face classes again.

I interviewed three people to see how this sudden change to online classes has made an impact on their schoolwork and mental stability.

The first person I spoke with was Eric French a 23-year-old senior at Drexel University. I asked him how the switch from face to face classes to all online affected his work and mindset.

He went onto say, his online classes are going pretty much as he expected. He is currently is a senior at Drexel University as a Mechanical Engineering major, so most of his course load to end his college career is mandatory electives or high-level engineering classes.

French also said that some of his professors have held live classes on Zoom that vary from being just as effective as a traditional face to face lecture to completely useless.

There are certain aspects to in-person lectures that you simply cannot capture via Zoom or pre-recorded lectures he said. It is sometimes stressful for him as well as not getting that face to face interaction in a real classroom that he truly loves and misses dearly during this pandemic.

French went onto say, the transition to online classes for him has been a bit tougher than he originally thought it would be. Retaining information well is one of French’s strong suits, he can sit in class and pay attention with little distraction, but at home that is very hard to do. Watching a two-hour video and absorbing it as if it were an old school college lecture is tough.

However, he said this is made up with easier online exams and projects. There is little stress for him over exams since many of his classes have chosen group projects instead, or simple multiple-choice online exams which French loves.

Overall, French said the work has been easier for him to do online but he still truly misses that traditional face to face interaction in the classroom.

I then spoke with 24-year-old Bryan Reheil a Virginia Military Institute graduate who majored in History. Reheil is now currently taking classes for his master’s degree.

Reheil talked about how he feels about his online master’s courses, he said the transition to an online schooling method has been easier than he anticipated but not without its own challenges.

He said since starting his online graduate program amid his working from home situation, his day is a lot more segmented than it has been used to in recent years.

Reheil sometimes has trouble focusing on what his professors expect of him to study and read for his classes given all the other things he has going on during the day with work and other obligations.

He makes up for this though by being very on top of his actual assignments and picking and choosing what he needs to read to succeed in his classes. Since he does that, he acknowledges that his grades reflect this decision, but in a positive way.

Reheil also noted that his school has been very supportive and offered many resources to students who may need it in these uncertain times.

Taking courses at an online school mostly already, there was not much he planned on having to affect him in any way. However, it is good to know that they are taking the necessary steps to ensure their students have the tools they need to succeed in the end.

The third and final person I talked to was 22-year-old Ashley Fairchild who graduated from Bucks in 2019.

She currently is still at bucks though for the 2020 Spring semester to re-take one Math course that will enable her to transfer to Temple University.

Fairchild’s thoughts on the transition from face-to-face classes to online was that, she was very fortunate this time around to have a great professor for her last and final math course.

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, she said her professor was thankfully able to transition the course remotely onto Zoom in a way that she felt was surprisingly very similar to the face-to-face class for those who don’t prefer or aren’t used to online Math, like herself.

Fairchild did mention one thing she was nervous about with the now online math course. She said all of the tests will now have to be online which did make her a little nervous at the start, but she explained to me that her professor’s ability to proctor the class through Zoom and respond to any questions anyone had right away was very reassuring to her and after the first test she became very comfortable with the new online tests.

As a result, Fairchild said if she’s being honest aside from the online test scare a majority of the homework and additional assignments that contribute toward their overall grade were already online in MyMathLab so it was really just a matter of keeping up with those as usual.

All in all, Fairchild had a great last semester regardless of the unforeseen circumstances the whole college has faced and was able to adapt to online learning with little to no stress.

After speaking with these three people, you can now truly see how some things about these online courses could cause people to stress out. In the end, though people will. A lot of people are different in how they take certain things and just by interviewing these few people we have seen just that.