It’s been almost a year since the global pandemic of Coronavirus has changed our lives and our realities. People are forced to stay at home, businesses are closed or working in online bases and most students had to experience a form of online teaching. From preschools, to universities for the last 9 months, students worked from home, even partly. I have seen many videos on social media about people telling their opinion about online studying during the Covid-19 pandemic and now I would like to express my experience.
Personally, I found productive and very informing the way our university developed the courses. During the first few months, I even found myself more keen to express my opinion and participate during class. In my personal view, the way Richmond the American International University in London has handled the online classes is remarkable. On March, when I found out that I had to do my classes online, I was afraid that I was going to miss something from the courses and the university experience. My fears were proved to be mistaken. Not only I did not miss anything from my courses, but I was able to read more and focus better on my assignments. As for the university experience, the people who work for the university, are doing their best to keep us informed, connected and be part of the “university community”.
Of course, someone might say that I am a postgraduate student and I am focusing on different matters and instead an undergraduate student would like to live more exciting experiences in London and be able to meet their classmates. I am not arguing with you, I would love to be able to go to the university and get in-person courses, but given the situation we can’t have that, at least not yet. And as for the postgraduate students who just came in for one year and they want to exploit every opportunity in London, hand in there friends, I can feel you.
One minor grievance I have is about the duration of my (one for this semester) course because it lasted only three weeks, and everything had to be done during this time. We had classes every day, which was ok, but after the end of the course I felt like there was nothing else to do. I don’t know if all the courses ( undergraduate and postgraduate degree) were scheduled in the same way and if this pattern is serving a purpose, but if I had to evaluate and suggest a change about our online classes, that would be it.
I hope you guys stay safe and we can all meet very soon in our University campus.
Eirini Pantelidou
