Transitioning into Online Courses

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Photo by: Freepik

Michael Conway, Reporter

The past few weeks have been absolutely crazy and stressful.

The transition to online learning at Misericordia has been interesting, to say the least. I feel like I’m in a unique situation with one of my classes being a hybrid online/in-class course, one being a class about building and designing websites and another being a painting class. In addition to all that, I have an internship with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

My business seminar class is a hybrid course. So, that transition hasn’t been too tough, other than the fact that there is a lot of group work. In the class, we go through business simulations online and each person has a specific job within the company, such as a Chief Executive Officer, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer. The start-up is the part that takes a lot of teamwork and that has been somewhat difficult to do through the internet.

Photo by: Freepik

My web design and production class is about building and designing websites. This one has been more difficult because we use different programs, some paid, to do our work during class. The professor had to change the course so we can use free programs. This can be difficult for some students, but because the professor is available to help with questions or difficulties students are having during a project and she is available to video chat where the student can share a computer screen with her and she can help with whatever is needed, some of the burdens have been alleviated. We also use the Blackboard Collaboration online classroom for our meetings throughout the week.

 

My painting class, which is normally a two and a half hour night class, is very different. Instead of meeting online as a class, the professor posts videos of her demonstrating how to do a specific type of painting. We are to then follow along the video and do our best to use the right style and techniques to complete the painting. We are supposed to take progress pictures as we go with the painting and, once we feel our painting is complete, we submit well-lit photos to Blackboard to be graded.

My internship with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, where I am a social media and graphic design intern, is unique to me. This has been one of the weirdest parts of my semester because the team’s season is suspended until further notice. This means that I no longer have games to go to or office hours to complete my hours for credit. The Penguins have made drastic changes to our social media planning and content. Previously, most of the content was about games, whether it be promoting games beforehand or covering the games. Now, the content is mostly about random things, just something to take the fans’ minds off whatever is happening. This has been difficult because it’s very hard to be able to do things without the games being played.

My job search has been halted. I want to work in sports, specifically college football in creative content and marketing, but all sports have been suspended. A job search shouldn’t be impacted much for the average student, but because colleges and college athletics are completely shut down, the schools are losing money and I’m worried they won’t hire anymore, especially since creative content isn’t on the high side of importance for most colleges. This is something that had been extremely stressful before the coronavirus happened and it has become a much bigger issue in the wake of this pandemic.

I have been significantly impacted by coronavirus, even though nobody I know has it or has been around it. Now that the remainder of the semester has been moved to online and graduation has been canceled, I’m going to have to deal with the new world we live in, try to focus on the last month and a half of my college career and stay positive in my job search.

Stay safe, folks.