COVID-19 has introduced various challenges for students that have chosen to learn online rather than going to campus.

“Switching to e-learning has caused me to spend an increasing amount of time at my computer, sometimes up to 10 hours,” freshman Daniela Marrero said. “In some aspects, it is a lot more stressful than learning at school. Because of COVID, they also changed to block schedule meaning that we have to learn a year’s worth of material in a semester.”

Even though she knew it was going to be hard at first, she said she felt it a better choice to switch to e-learning.

“I knew it might’ve been challenging because I was not used to it. I still felt like it would have been way more important to keep myself and others safe,” Marrero said. “It was not like I would have known who had the virus and who didn’t so I just decided to not risk it.”

Freshman Ethan Bergman, who has experienced both online and real-life learning, has a different opinion.

“E-learning gave me much more time to sleep which I really liked,” he said. “I had way more time to do other productive activities such as working out and cooking.”

Although he liked e-learning, he decided to return to campus shortly after the year began.

“I definitely feel as if going to school was a better idea for me, during my [e-learning] classes I noticed I would go on my phone and get distracted easily,” Bergman said. “I also missed socializing with friends and having lunch with them.”

By Nishna Patel