Courtney Stevens
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The best aspect of online is the flexibility that didn’t come with traditional school because it allows me to form my own schedule around my schoolwork.
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– Courtney Stevens
Throughout the summer, I was uncertain about my schooling situation for the 2020-2021 school year. The rising COVID-19 numbers scared me and eventually in July 2020, my mother made the decision to move me to online school. I didn’t want to be on edge on going back to in-person or inconsistent education my senior year. COVID-19 was the only reason why I picked online school for my last year of high school. If there wasn’t a pandemic, I wouldn’t be in online school right now.
Online courses, as they are different from in-person, did impact my life in these aspects: academic performance and personal development. My academic performance actually improved in an online environment. I think the lack of distractions in my house compared to my old brick and mortar made me understand the material better. As for personal development, my leadership and communication skills improved a lot throughout this year. The leadership opportunities at my school like my art club and art show provided great chances to improve my leadership and communication. My art club has taught me how to host a fun online game, like virtual pictionary, and how to get students to talk. Another example is that in my art show, I learned how to advertise it by creating a flyer with a link for teachers to hand out.
Learning in an online environment is completely different from a traditional, in-person one. The first thing I noticed is that it’s harder to make connections with the students and get to know them. Online schooling also cuts back on time significantly. There are no passing periods, chit chat, grabbing stuff from your locker, etc. that doesn’t occur in an online environment. It cuts out most of the social aspect of traditional school only. This leads to online schooling being a lot more focused on the material than traditional school. I spent around eight hours a day dedicated to traditional school (not including a good two to three hours of homework).
The social time cutting in online though cut my time spent from eight or more hours per day to around four to five hours per day. I have a lot more time to myself and time to enjoy things throughout the day. I can get away with working on the weekdays or go to Taekwondo class during the middle of the day as a break. The best aspect of online is the flexibility that didn’t come with traditional school because it allows me to form my own schedule around my schoolwork.
Looking into the future, despite not wanting to do online, I think it’s for the better. My leadership opportunities like my art club, art show, and National Honors Society wouldn’t have happened if I stayed in a traditional school. My grades probably wouldn’t have increased to all A’s per semester. My online school also weighs Honors courses 0.5 points higher too so my GPA increased by several points. Instead of a 4.0 GPA at my traditional school, it increased to a 4.57 GPA with all my weighted honors courses from traditional school. My GPA also helped my class rank to improve to the top thirty to top ten students. Along with that, my online school transition allowed me to improve as a student because I finish my schoolwork quicker and procrastinate less. It taught me better time management skills and how to balance schoolwork, Taekwondo, and my job. These skills will only help me in the future. Ultimately though, I will most likely continue taking online courses throughout college because I enjoy how they are structured in my concurrent enrollment classes. I will take courses I don’t enjoy the most like math online while my favorite type of courses, social studies and fine arts, will probably be in-person. Online learning has opened my eyes to different types of learning and I won’t forget that.