There are two wolves inside of me. One hates online classes — it complains about asynchronous courses, forgets to hand in assignments, and convinces me to sleep in for just a few more minutes. The other hates in-person classes — it curses at bad drivers on my commute, avoids class discussions at all costs, and won’t stop screaming at me to wake up or I’m going to be late! Which wolf will win? …Probably the most sarcastic wolf.
Online classes are the worst.
Instead of waking up bright and early to attend class — starting my day right with a morning jog and a cup of coffee — I have to stay in the comfort of my own home. Ugh.
There is nothing calmer than driving during morning rush hour on a two-lane highway, listening to a scratched CD from 2009, and trying to remember who Aristarchus was for ASTR 103. Are you telling me I have to skip the wonderful commute when I’m taking online classes? Instead, I’m stuck eating pancakes while I attend Zoom class. It’s an outrage.
On top of that, I can no longer feel the rush of adrenaline by taking lecture notes in-person, never knowing if the professor will click through the PowerPoint too fast to write anything down. It’s terrible to have the option to pause my lecture or listen to my professor at 2x speed. Who wants to hear their professor talk like a chipmunk and therefore get their class over with faster? Not me, that’s for sure.
In-person classes are the worst.
Instead of sleeping in until 10:30 a.m. and half-listening to a video lecture on the couch, I now have to leave the house and act like a functional adult. Attend morning classes so I have the whole day to be productive? See other human beings I like? Study with my friends in the library? Forget it.
Personally, I’d prefer to waste away and watch Saturday Night Live clips on YouTube rather than join club events I enjoy and futsal intramurals to keep me active.
Do you know the worst part about in-person classes? I can’t forget assignments. Assignments aren’t hidden in eight different folders on Blackboard like they were with online classes. Instead, the professor just has to remind me during class when papers are due. I swear my professors are trying to combat my procrastination issues for some reason.
Now that I’m back to two in-person classes, Mr. Procrastination has definitely packed his bags and taken off. Textbook reading? Pssh, I finished that a week ago. Midterm paper due on Tuesday? I totally wrote an outline and did the research for it already. Um, The Cascade article about in-person classes? I’m definitely not writing it the night it’s due.
Let me tell you something! Deadlines have a whole new meaning now that I’m back on campus. With online classes, I could always see that midnight deadline on Blackboard tick tick ticking away (thank you, technology. We love your looming, invasive presence in our lives). Now, I have permission to pull all-nighters and discover the magic of Redbull while I finish assignments the day before they’re due.
I don’t know if I’ll ever decide which type of class I prefer. There is one thing I do know — university classes, whether in-person or online, have made me a more sarcastic, short-tempered person. I should have majored in Sarcasm with a minor in Eye-Rolling. Great. I have a new four-year degree to try.
Image: Danyka Van Santen/The Cascade
Danaye studies English and procrastination at UFV and is very passionate about the Oxford comma. She spends her days walking to campus from the free parking zones, writing novels she'll never finish, and pretending to know how to pronounce abominable. Once she graduates, she plans to adopt a cat.
