Pressures From Online Classes
A brief look at how students can manage COVID-19 and their studies.
The pressure to keep up with schoolwork, your social life and assignments all while reminding yourself to eat or breathe can be difficult. As students in higher education, it can get rough, and that’s not even mentioning the global pandemic.
The anxiety from it all will have you checking your social media every five minutes. You do this in hopes that you aren’t missing out on your friend’s activity or what a celebrity has posted on Instagram.
Social media is not to be blamed for this when we’re all cooped up in the house. For college students, this brings on anxiety paired with lots of overthinking and impulsive behaviour.
We are filled with doubtfulness, beating ourselves upon if we made the best decision, even going beyond questioning our own accomplishments.
Social media can be the catalyst that worsens anxiety. However, what you choose to do with social media really changes how your actions and emotions manifest. As education becomes more digital, the lines between surfing the net and studying can become blurrier.
As a college student, this semester is different. Way different from any semester the average college student has ever taken.
The campus is either a ghost town or people are throwing off-campus parties. Classes are now remote, and confusion is rife due to a lack of clear instructions or in-depth information.
Tears are brought on from fear of failing or doubtfulness kicking in. Music may help, but it could be temporary. You might miss your friends, face to face interactions that we once took for granted like hugging and dapping each other up.
Now, every time we want to see a friend or go outside to get our vitamin D, we have to wear a mask. Half of us have chosen to stay home out of fear of bringing the virus home to family and loved ones.
Recently, a friend of mine and I have been keeping each other posted about our mental health. We FaceTime and reassure each other when one of us is going through a mental pandemic of our own.
We even check to make sure we have written out our daily affirmations. We do this to make sure both of us are doing okay, regardless of the digital barriers.
The best we can do is communicate with each other through texts and calls. Within this past couple of weeks, we’ve gotten to know each other a lot better. I think we have held a better connection and learning more about each other in these trying times.
Who would have thought in tough times like this FaceTime and honest, open conversations through phone calls would take us away from our worries and anxieties of the world right now?
Our relationship before COVID-19 was not great. Through our new dialogue, we have had the opportunity to address our issues and even laugh about how bad our communication was. To realize that the friendship and connection we share now is a lot better than what it was before.
As much as college students miss seeing our friends in person and sharing a laughing face to face, we must power through this.
As a college student, it is terrible to hear the older generation tell us; “If you can Snapchat, and tweet, what is so hard about taking these online classes?”.
The reality is that everyone learns differently. This correlation of social media being the same as learning is a thin comparison.
Students and even faculty are still getting used to these online classes, the flow has changed. The normal getting up and ready to go into a building to learn almost a thing of the past.
If you had a 10AM start, you might roll out of bed 15 minutes before joining your video lecture.
Students aren’t yet completely comfortable with getting used to these online classes or even have the drive and motivation anymore to be plugged into online learning. Even the professors and teachers from grade school are still trying to find ways or gear themselves up for online classes.
University students all the way down to grade school kids are struggling, wondering how they’re going cope going forward into an uncertain future.
So please, check in on your friends give them a call, send a text. Try to even send them a meme letting them know you are thinking about them and you can want to help them in any way you can.
For more of Chris K’s work, check out the podcast and ForTheHomies hosted by Chris K, Dre and Rocky on Spotify here. Also, check out their merch site.