Joanna Orban

Staff Writer

I know I’m not the only one who was completely blindsided by COVID-19 and all of its repercussions. After ISU moved all classes online, I was packed and moved home in a matter of three days. Everything happened so quickly that I wasn’t able to say goodbye to most of my friends. 

It was weird to move home, without knowing when I’d be back to Pocatello. 

The biggest thing on my mind was my classes and what my professors were going to do. I’m a secondary education major and this semester was pretty important for me. I’m in a class that requires field work and placement into a school for observation and experience. Due to COVID-19 and the school closings I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with my observation. When I went into Alameda Middle School the day I moved home, my cooperating teacher was only able to sign off on half of the hours I was supposed to have. I was worried about all of my classes, but this one especially. 

Thankfully, my professor reached out quickly and assured my class that alternate arrangements were going to be made so that we could still pass the class without the experience in schools. This pandemic has given my education class the opportunity to focus more on online learning for students and has given us some real world experience.

Even though my education class was top priority in my mind, I was also worried about some of my other classes, especially those that would be moving completely online. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with online classes. They helped me graduate from high school early, but I miss the in class discussions and scheduled time to be in class. It’s easier for me to be motivated in my classes when I know that I have time set aside to do them. 

That was one of the things that I struggled with the most when I moved home was the way my routine was completely upended. 

To help myself out I’ve tried to do my class work at the same time during the day that I would have had class on campus. However, this is hard when I want to hang out with my family, walk my dog or just do anything that I didn’t have time to do at school. There’s so many more distractions at home than there was at my apartment or on campus. 

One of the things that has helped me to stay motivated the most while I’m doing school from home is my Zoom classes. I’ve always been someone who thrives off of a set routine and doing some of my classes via Zoom has given me that routine. 

But Zoom does have its disadvantages. It’s hard to focus on it, with all of the distractions in my room and my house. It also gets a little boring at times to have to sit and stare at my computer for that long.

Even though Zoom has mostly worked for me, it isn’t perfect for everyone and for all majors. I have a friend who is currently a music major at the College of Southern Idaho. As a music major, Zoom has been hard for her especially during her private lessons when her professor isn’t there in person to give feedback, etc. 

When news of this pandemic broke out and schools started to get cancelled, one of the first things I thought about was my friends who are in lab classes and won’t be able to get the hands on experience they need. I have a friend who is in three lab classes at the College of Idaho and his labs have moved to online simulations instead. These simulations, while convenient for this situation, don’t give my friend the same experience as an in person lab would.

Even though there are a lot of negative aspects about doing school from home, there are some good things about it. 

I love being home with my family and being able to do things with them. Doing school from home doesn’t cause me nearly as much stress as normal school does. Doing school in a comfortable environment helps my stress a lot. School from home also gives me the opportunity to do things I didn’t have time to do in Pocatello. 

Even though it’s great to be home, it’s hard as well. Like I mentioned I don’t have a set routine yet, and my job here at home is closed for the foreseeable future. I feel a little disoriented with so much free time and nowhere to go. For example, some of my friends live just a few miles away and I can’t see them. 

It gets a little lonely even with FaceTime.

COVID-19 has been an interesting experience to say the least. Even though it’s been hard to do school from home, I have to keep on reminding myself that my family and I are healthy and I have access to resources like WiFi and a working computer, something that many other students might not have right now.

Doing school from home has been a new experience and I am eager for things to get back to normal. I never realized how much I appreciated in person classes and a campus to study at until those things were no longer available to me. So, while this experience hasn’t been ideal, it has taught me some valuable lessons.