Leanna Coy
News Editor
Beginning March 19, Northwestern State University transitioned classes to an online format in response to COVID-19. Now, over two weeks since the transition, students are still adjusting to having their classes online.
Mikayla Deloach, junior, said the workload in her engineering classes has felt worse since transitioning online.
“It doesn’t feel like I’m in school, so it makes it harder to keep up with classwork and deadlines,” Deloach said.
Many classes have utilized Cisco Webex and Zoom Video Communications to try to ease the transition. Deloach said Cisco Webex has helped, but it is still hard to see the work her professors put on the board, making it more difficult to learn the material.
“My classes have added more work, and the tests that we took in class are different than the ones we are taking online,” Deloach said.
Sarruf Monroy, senior, said most of his classes used to be face-to-face, so he was used to the professors being able to go into detail about certain topics.
“As a music major, some of my assignments are harder than the others because it is not the same as being in a real classroom where you can ask something if you don’t understand,” Monroy said.
Although he said he has not had to deal with internet problems himself, Monroy said he knows some professors have.
“My flute professor is giving us lessons through Zoom, Webex and Facebook messenger, and she had to switch from her iPad to her computer because she was having trouble with the internet,” Monroy said.
Although there are plenty of students that have taken online classes in the past, many of them have never had all their classes online at the same time.
Dawson Ferguson, junior, said he felt like he could handle a few online classes but didn’t want them all to be online.
“Not only is it hard because it’s a new way of learning, but people are trying to focus on their families and loved ones with this pandemic going on,” Ferguson said. “It has definitely made it more difficult to try and keep up.”
