College Online: Highlighting the Good
I still remember the shock I felt waking up the day before Spring Break 2020 to see that my class’s South Africa business trip had been cancelled. COVID-19 cases in the United States were rising at an alarming rate and the administrators had to make a quick decision on the fate of our trip.
Over a year later and I haven’t spent another full day at UNC Chapel Hill. I opted to take classes online for Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 for a few reasons primarily centered around safety concerns and financial savings. And while I am a rising junior who has only spent about a semester-and-a-half at UNC, I’m still grateful for some of the good that online school brought. I’ll highlight some of that good in this article but if you’re looking for a TLDR, check out this Twitter thread I posted:
Online works well for some classes and that should be acknowledged
Online schooling does work. Granted, this factor can heavily depend on your learning style, attention span, professors, and your major. I’m a computer science and business student at UNC, and I’ve personally experienced both sides of the online learning argument.
For one, online courses are convenient–complete your class from your own living room, a coffee shop, or anywhere in the country. That flexibility has value. During my freshman year, pre-COVID, I had a class all the way across campus–a 30 minute walk and at 8 AM on Mondays and Wednesdays. 8 AM classes are notoriously looked upon as a pain by college students, who often stay up late studying just to have to wake up early, get ready, shower, and catch the bus (if lucky).
Being able to reach across your desk, enter your login information, and be in class is super convenient. But that convenience is double-edged. I’ve seen my fair share of people on Zoom calls sleeping or even driving during class.
Aside from convenience, there is significant value for certain courses. Sharing my screen and collaborating with TAs for office hours was easier than ever for my computer science classes. I had full control of my computer and could highlight the lines of code I was having issues with. I didn’t have to again go to a different building on campus in-person for office hours help.
Online also often meant that my classes were recorded so students could watch back recordings. This eliminated concerns of not writing notes fast enough or missing an important instruction as students could watch back the recording. I personally took full advantage of this ability for my web programming class–recorded lectures allowed me to watch recordings on my own time, often times faster if the professor was speaking slow (1.5x speed for the win!).
So, is this the case for just computer science classes? I would argue no. I was also enrolled in a consulting and finance course this past semester. My consulting class had the opportunity for students to attend in-person but…students didn’t. Our professor was genuinely confused why people weren’t attending in-person but the reality was that most people didn’t see the value gain from an in-person class as significantly better than the value of an online class, where you can easily screenshot slides and type notes.
I believe some departments are starting to recognize this value too. One of my computer science classes next semester is online, and I’m happy that professors are recognizing that there may be more strength in hosting their courses online. Tailored courses are preferred over a one-size fits all system.
Remote internships provide flexibility
This was probably my favorite benefit of doing college online — I could intern anywhere in the world remotely. Location was no longer a major determinant of whether you could work at your ideal company. I interned throughout the school year at a startup based in San Francisco, California and had an amazing experience.
The flexibility of interning via Zoom was also compounded by online classes as many would operate their classes asynchronously, giving students choice in their schedule. I often did work for my internship during the day and focused on my asynchronous classes over the weekends.
I’m extremely grateful for remote internships during the school year — I’m not quite sure students will be able to intern during the year without taking a gap semester with in-person internship. Nevertheless, the good that came from remote internships and the fact that many companies adapted their programs rather than cancelling them should be praised.
Growth of online communities connecting college students from across the world
The shared experience of online school brought the rise of incredible online communities dedicated to providing free value to students. Ladder and intern.club are two communities that create free career networking events and career workshops for college students. I joined Ladder back in Summer of 2020 and I still use it to this day. The website has various communities for different careers — consulting, software engineering, design, political science, etc. — where students post asking questions and sharing resources. It’s extremely friendly and people often provide free advice and help out of good will. They also host many events with industry leaders and job boards to help students find jobs or internships.
These free resources and events personally helped me meet new people from across the world and learn more about industries like venture capital and product management that I previously knew little about.
These are just the career and educational benefits I experienced with online school. I also socially became a lot closer with a few friends which is something I am really happy about.
There are obviously some negatives to each of these points — online school can be hard to focus in and it’s pretty difficult to connect with other students in the class across a computer screen (we’ve all experienced countless silent Zoom breakout rooms); remote internships don’t offer the same immersion that an in-person internship does (I constantly wished I could visit in-person for my internship); and many people generally weren’t exposed to the online communities that have emerged.
Does the good outweigh the bad? I’m not quite sure about that claim, but I will say that there were some definite highlights that made college online bearable. And those should be acknowledged.
