8 AM lecture on Monday mornings always seemed like the worst part of the week, and all of the sudden having anything to walk to was the most exciting part of my day. The transition of going in-class to fully online in the Spring 2020 semester was tumultuous for me and the millions of college students having to go through the same experience due to Covid-19.
I was skeptical and anxious for the transition going strictly online, especially being an international student and being in such an uncertain state. But we all quickly learned that online classes were fully doable mostly because of our professors' hard work and creativity.
From my experience, SBCC did an amazing job transitioning to online learning, I think the transition was made within only a couple days. With the 5 classes I was enrolled in, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that all of my classes went online with little to no difficulty. The classes were structured better than I expected and the actual workload was pretty much the same as in-person. Group work was done in separate channels, and there were time-spots divided for each group.
Between my five classes, two were mandatory to attend through Zoom, one had lectures posted on YouTube and the other two were transitioned to fully online. I actively kept up with the two that had mandatory attendance in the beginning since we were listening to the lectures through Zoom, which made it easy to ask questions and interact with our classmates. Having so much freedom with structuring my classes was a pleasant surprise as this left more time to focus on studying and more flexibility when handing in assignments. Most of my professors’ office hours were extended significantly in order for them to be more available and flexible to respond to our questions and needs. I also felt like they were very encouraging and understanding if we had difficulties keeping up with the material.
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| Sunset in East Campus |
Although, in the beginning I was struggling with successfully structuring my time-management to succeed. I quickly realized I had to set up a daily schedule and follow a strict timeline to be able to structure the online transition. Some of my most crucial tips that worked for me was to wake up at the same time every day, sit at a desk or table and take notes during class to make it feel like I was attending an in-class lecture. It helped to start early in the morning and to include personal activities during the week such as working out, groceries and hobbies. The most important part of succeeding in online school was definitely discipline and the hardest part was not getting caught up in distractive activities.
SBCC’s efforts to make the hit of the pandemic as pain free for their students as possible was proven successful, especially considering the title of top #10 Community Colleges in the nation. The professors acted quickly and effectively to the transition while the school provided ChromeBooks, hotspots and textbooks for those in need. SBCC Students, including myself, who were affected financially by the pandemic received relief grants to provide for food, housing and child care. On April 1st, SBCC Food Pantry remained open and was operating safely to hand out weekly bags of food to plenty of students including myself. After all their tireless efforts, SBCC was finally able to honor 1,736 Associate Degrees and Certificates at the end of the Spring Semester, and although we had to do a virtual commencement, it was so rewarding to finally graduate after such a tumultuous semester.
