Having attended online classes during my junior and senior years in high school, and now my first year in college, I’ve developed a fair amount of ill will for them. Zoom classes bring with them many difficulties and distractions, and I’ve always found it difficult to adapt to the new challenge of attending school virtually.
While I was in high school, I attended my classes from the dining room in my house. There was nothing wrong with the room, but being in my house instead of in school made focusing a constant challenge. I constantly found my mind wandering, and always felt a strong urge to go back to bed or into the kitchen to grab a snack. Some days, I would just go from bed right on to a Zoom call instead of showering and getting dressed like I would for in person school. These are unhealthy habits, and the lack of a dedicated learning environment that a school building normally provides caused those patterns of behavior.
To prevent the persistence of these habits in college, I only do schoolwork in the library. I find that physically moving to an environment that’s more conducive to focus helps me get my work done in a timely manner. I still have trouble focusing on academics in my dorm room, and I’m sure that many people face the same problem. It’s one of the biggest complaints that I’ve heard about online classes: it’s too difficult to focus in your own room.
At the beginning of this semester, Brandeis students attended classes remotely for two weeks. For many of us, including myself, this flat-out sucked. But, even though I definitely didn’t enjoy going to classes from my dining room, I believe that Brandeis made the right choice by going remote for two weeks.
The decision to hold classes remotely was passed down to students on Jan. 7 of this year. At the same time, COVID-19 cases were nearing their all-time high in Massachusetts. According to the New York Times’ state-by-state COVID-tracker, 29,163 new cases were reported that day. In my home state of New York, 82,094 new cases were reported. The same pattern was repeating itself nationwide, as 900,170 new COVID-19 cases were reported on Jan. 7, according to the New York Times’ tracker. These numbers are staggering. Brandeis’ administration was justified in delaying the return to in person classes, as this step was clearly made with the health of the Brandeis community in mind.
It appears that this move has paid off. As of the writing of this article, Brandeis’ COVID-19 positivity rate is at 0.61 percent according to the university’s COVID tracker. This number is almost 12 times lower than Massachusetts’ state positivity rate, which is 7.13 percent according to Brandeis’ Covid Tracker. It remains to be seen whether the return to in person classes will cause a spike in Brandeis’ positivity rate, but the numbers that are present just after students moved in are very promising. Other than Brandeis’ confusing policy that forces students to quarantine in their own dorm rooms, the administration’s COVID-19 plan has been working as intended, according to the most up-to-date data available at the time of writing this article.
Delaying the return to in-person classes appears to have helped the COVID-19 situation at Brandeis so far, but that doesn’t mean it was a perfect decision. For those who still arrived on campus as planned, they were greeted by limited food options and limited social interaction. For those who stayed home, distractions and less-than-ideal learning environments presented themselves as problems. But, these are minor inconveniences when compared to the possibility of getting COVID-19.
I hope that as we return to in person classes, the investment of those two weeks online pays off. The delayed return was an investment to help keep Brandeis’ positivity rates low throughout the semester, and to keep everyone in the Brandeis community safe and healthy. I hope that people are reasonable with their social interactions, safe in their classes and wear their damn masks.
