In one of her first weeks of online classes, Alexandra Schwartz opened her laptop and panicked. The device she now relied on to complete her final assignments for the year was broken.

“When I opened my computer, I had a panic attack. I was so nervous that I was going to fail this class,” she said. “I knew all the Apple stores were closed, I lost my job so I wasn’t in a place to spend $2,000 on a computer. I was so paranoid because I’m so dependent on technology.”

Schwartz, a senior majoring in biology and forensic science and minoring in chemistry, is one of thousands of SU students who have transitioned to online classes for the remainder of the academic year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Coronavirus causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has infected at least 1.6 million and killed at least 95,000 worldwide. SU announced March 16 that all on-campus classes would be suspended for the rest of the semester to curb the spread of the virus.

Many students have since returned home and are now completing the remainder of their classes remotely and digitally. While the transition felt necessary, students told The Daily Orange that it has been hard for them to take classes while at home and in new, mostly uncharted online environments.

Although Schwartz understands how stressful the transition to online classes has been for everyone, she wishes her professors were more understanding of her situation at home.

Many of Schwartz’s science classes use systems that she only knows how to operate on a Macbook computer. She’s the only person in her family who owns that type of laptop, and she found it extremely difficult to complete many of her courses after hers broke.

When Schwartz initially told one of her professors about her broken computer, they said she still needed to turn in an assignment due that night, she said. Schwartz had to rush to her mom’s office and complete the assignment, even though there was a mandatory quarantine in her area, she said.

“My professors have not been helpful at all,” Schwartz said. “I need that professor to tell me that they believe in me and that I will succeed. I need a professor to be there with everything going on.”

Students also said they’ve struggled to focus on their online courses due to home environments and health conditions.

Zoe Hansen, a freshman studying magazine journalism, has severe attention deficit disorder. It’s been hard for her to stay engaged in her courses while not being physically on campus, she said.

“Having a routine and having a space to study that is not my room is really important for me,” Hansen said. “It’s been hard trying to readjust my schedule so I can really focus on things.”

Returning home revived old struggles with mental health for Candice Bina, who left familiar, colorful spaces at SU for a new room in a new house her family had only recently moved into.

The abrupt change of place at first felt strange and suffocating, said Bina, a sophomore television, radio and film major. The experience has left her with less motivation to accomplish the work she needs to do each day.

“I really really loved my room at school,” Bina said. “I put a lot of effort into decorating it and making it a space I can flourish in. Now, I’m home, and my room is completely dead.”

Bina also left most of her belongings on campus, including textbooks that professors expect her to continue to read and reference from, she said. Although she was able to repurchase some books digitally, the additional expenses felt unnecessary and frustrating, Bina said.

Elena Murphy, a freshman political science and international relations major, has had her own frustrations. She experienced a sports-related concussion her senior year of high school and it’s been difficult for her to look at a computer screen for long periods of time since then, she said.

Having online lectures back-to-back makes it difficult to focus on her coursework, a common side effect of severe concussions, she said.

“I usually handwrite all my notes and I don’t usually use my computer in class,” Murphy said. “I’ve been adjusting a little bit, but it’s still a struggle because I have to sit there and stare at the computer for four hours.”

Murphy’s also easily distracted when she has to work completely from home. She said it’s harder to feel like she’s still in school.

“Seeing your professor there and able to see you is a whole different level than sitting there watching on your computer,” Murphy said.

Schwartz, who has a single mother and a brother also home from college, said being home adds stressors that make focusing on classes difficult for her. In addition to her course load, Schwartz has many responsibilities around the house. Her mom is continuing to work, and Schwartz knows her family struggles financially.

“It’s definitely a lot of stress, a lot of tension,” she said. “I’m stressed out about not being able to get my work done. My mom’s stressed out about doing work or not having work.”

Schwartz also said she worries about her classmates’ home environments. SU should be more understanding of students’ situations at home and make proper accommodations, she said.

For senior Paola Gonzalez, it’s difficult to stay on track with coursework when electricity isn’t a reliable constant for her and her family in Puerto Rico. Many Puerto Ricans still don’t have access to basic utilities due to slow reconstruction efforts since several hurricanes devastated the island in 2017.

Electricity may come and go for hours at a time in Gonzalez’s home — a precarious situation that challenges her ability to keep up with classes, she said. Gonzalez, who is studying international relations and modern foreign languages, works from her bedroom while her father uses the only available desk in the house for his own work. The family does not own a printer.

Gonzalez has not spoken to her professors about this yet, she said.

Online platforms have already significantly disrupted her foreign language courses, where one-on-one conversations are harder to facilitate, Gonzalez said. One of her professors transitioned the course entirely to instead schedule five-minute FaceTime calls with each individual student for the rest of the semester.

“They’re doing the best they can,” Gonzalez said of her professors. “So, I’m just trying to make the most out of it right now, and I don’t really want to make their lives any harder than it probably is right now.”

Many students said they wish SU would have an organized response to COVID-19 more similar to other universities across the country.

SU announced April 1 that students could choose to take any course pass/fail this semester and extended the deadline for dropping, withdrawing or switching a course to pass/fail to April 10.

The university is unable to extend the deadline further, as course changes must be recorded before faculty submit grades, said Chris Johnson, associate provost for academic affairs, in an SU News release. A delay in submitting grades would also delay degree certification for graduating students, he said.

Murphy said her cousin, who attends the University of Notre Dame, is allowed to choose by the end of the semester whether he would like to take a class pass/fail. She wishes SU would consider taking a similar approach.

“Having to choose by April 10 — you’re not going to know what your final grade is. You may not even know what your midterm grade is,” she said.

Schwartz said her brother, who attends the Rochester Institute of Technology, has the option to switch any class from the spring 2020 semester to pass/fail up until they graduate.

“I wish that we were given the choice after we finish this class to see that grade and say ‘I don’t want that in my GPA,’” she said.

Gonzalez hesitantly chose to switch one of her courses to the pass/fail grading system, which somewhat helped ease her stress about classes, she said.

It’s a decision she hopes she ultimately won’t regret, Gonzalez said.

Bina expressed little optimism for the rest of her spring semester experience. Despite her initial plans for the remaining weeks of class, Bina said that now, with online classes, she only wants the semester to be over.

“I wish that (professors) would take away a lot of the workload,” Bina said. “I can’t really expect them to, but in a perfect world they would. But in a perfect world we wouldn’t be doing class online in the first place.”

Published on April 10, 2020 at 1:19 am

Contact Marnie: ammunozc@syr.edu