BLOG: Fears arise amid spreading of COVID-19
EDITORS NOTE: 5/2/20 – Post has been updated to include a reflection blog by the author.
April 6, 2020
The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has taken over the lives of many people. There are many businesses that have temporarily or permanently closed because of COVID-19.
With businesses closing, there are many people who cannot work or have permanently lost their jobs. I work at the front desk in Hunter Hall – the new residence hall at the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL). Fortunately, Hunter Hall is still open for the time being.
While I may still have a job during COVID-19, I know that there are many people who have lost their jobs, their income and their normalcy. It is heartbreaking to witness peoples’ lives in turmoil.
I may or may not get COVID-19, but I have to be especially cautious when I am at home because my father is immunocompromised due to having Crohn’s disease and brain cancer.
For school, when I received the news about classes going all online, I was fairly upset. I had a lot of questions, but little answers. Some of the questions I had included course load, deadlines, as well as Blackboard connection and success. I did not think that a university could manage going solely online.
Academically, I perform better when my classes are in-person. I am taking one online class, and it comes with its challenges. With online classes, students have to teach themselves the majority of the time.
Personally, I feel that students, including myself, do not learn as well with an online class as we would with an in-person class. As a whole, it is easier to make deadlines and be structured in an in-person class.
In online classes, students are more likely to miss deadlines and not be as structured in their classes. Students have to be self-disciplined, which is hard for many who work and have other responsibilities in addition to their classes.
I have some lingering fears with COVID-19 as the cases continue to climb in Houston.
I fear that Hunter Hall will close, which will leave me without a job. I fear how my classes will operate if UHCL decides to stay closed. I fear a shelter-in-place order and what that will look like.
There are so many unknowns with COVID-19. I may not be personally impacted by COVID- 19 yet, my heart goes out to anyone who has or is going to be affected by this nasty disease.
May 2, 2020
For several months now, COVID-19 has been a serious problem. The number of positive cases continues to climb throughout the United States.
While there have been many people who have recovered from COVID-19, there are many who have not. People have had to shift their lives to accommodate for COVID-19.
This pandemic has led to people learning what “new normal” consists of.
On March 11, UHCL President Ira K. Blake sent out an email to students and faculty stating that all classes will transition to an online format.
The weeks leading up to this email, I knew that UHCL would most likely transition to remote learning. I noticed many universities transitioning, and I suspected that UHCL was about to do the same as these other universities.
When I first received the email from President Blake, I was scared. I am the type of person that academically and personally, succeed better if I am taking a class in-person.
However, I have taken online classes before, but I have not 12 credit hours within one academic semester. Online classes take discipline. With online classes, one has to motivate themselves, and that can be hard. My main concerns with classes transitioning online were course load, deadlines, as well as Blackboard connection and success.
Now that classes have been online for a while now, my classes have not been as challenging as originally thought. Personally, I have been able to stay on top of my school work, so as to not fall behind.
I can only speak for my own classes, but the only challenging class was one that was already online. My other classes have been a cakewalk.
However, I have seen other students struggle with the transitions of online classes, which is understandable. Depending on the classes one takes, online classes can be very challenging.
I have learned that it is better to not procrastinate than to wait until the very last moment to complete one’s assignments. It is easy to push back assignments until they are due. However, to help one’s stress, one should try very hard to stay on top of assignments to the best of one’s ability.
One advice that I would give students is to stay disciplined and stay focused. The goal for college is to graduate, so one should push themselves towards that goal. Another piece of advice I would give students is to prioritize homework assignments. Meaning, if something is due first, make sure to do that assignment before others that are due later.
