I have taken both online classes and face-to-face classes while I have been a college student. For this semester, I did all of my classes online and I finished my last paper two days ago. The semester officially ends October 15th but I was able to finish three weeks early! It sounds crazy, right?
For this post, I want to talk about the pros and cons of doing online classes versus face-to-face classes as a college student.
The pros that I have noticed of doing classes online are:
- You get to work at your own pace.
- Most teachers open up all of the assignments since they know they have online students that will want to work ahead.
- If you're a parent who has to work and take care of family, online classes will help you out more since you don't have to drive to campus to do a face-to-face class.
- You have access to everything online as you're learning a new topic compared to learning it in a face-to-face class.
- When you succeed at an online course, it helps build understanding and certainty.
- It encourages the students to be even more responsible for their education.
Now, all of those pros sound great, right? Well, now we have to talk about the cons of doing online classes and they are:
- Students can easily get distracted doing online assignments when they have constant access to TV and their phone.
- Wifi can go out and cause a student to lose all of their progress on an assignment that they're working on.
- If a student has an unhealthy studying habit, there is a possibility that they can fall behind in class.
- Students can get confused about activities they are supposed to do online or get confused about deadlines.
- There is a chance that students may feel isolated or alone from their instructor and other classmates.
- If you have to go talk to your instructor at their office on campus, they won't know what you look like so they can get confused easily.
- There are some classes that you want to take that aren't available online.
- It can be harder to ask for help from your peers in an online class.
So, we understand and know the pros and cons of online classes. For some people, online classes work out for them perfectly and they're totally okay with it and can work around the cons of it. But for others, there are some students that need that face-to-face interaction with their instructor and classmates. And without further ado, we are now going to move on to the pros of face-to-face interaction.
- Students who need that face-to-face interaction will be able to get it.
- The teacher will become familiar with you and you'll become familiar with your teacher. This means that they know who you are and you know who they are.
- You can ask teachers any questions you have in that moment.
- Networking isn't complicated.
- Teachers tend to provide you with resources that will benefit you on your midterms, exams, and tests for the class.
- You can make friends easily.
- You're able to become more familiar with the campus and other surroundings.
Now, let's talk about the cons of face-to-face classes.
- Depending on the time of the class, you may have to wake up early in the morning to make it to class on time.
- It can conflict with your work and taking care of family (if you are a parent).
- You have to go by the teacher's pace for the class, not yours.
- You have to make sure that you attend every class so you don't miss any information.
- Other students in the class can cause distractions by talking or being on their phone while the teacher is doing their lecture.
- Some teachers do notes by voice or powerpoint and if they move too fast, you may miss out on some important information that you need for a test or an exam.
- You have to be able to make it from that class to your other class if you have classes back to back. It can be troublesome walking from one part of campus to where you need to be.
- Some classes that you want to take face-to-face aren't available.
I hope that these pros and cons for both online classes and face-to-face classes help out any future college students for how they will want their class schedule to be like. My recommendation for you would to at least have your first semester be all face-to-face classes that way you can become familiar with your campus. This will also be a good way to help you make friends in your classes and they will be able to help you out on assignments if you need it. When the second semester rolls around, take maybe one or two online classes to see how you feel about it. For some students, it works out but for others, it doesn't but that's totally okay. Because now, you know what works for you as a college student which will help you out more in the long run during your four years at a university or two years at a community college. I understand that there are some classes you can't take online and vice versa but that can be easy to adjust to.
留言