Why You Should Still Go to College This Fall (Even If It’s Only Online).
Many universities, with a few notable exceptions, have announced that they will be holding most classes in-person this Fall. But as rising freshmen review their schedules, they may notice that many of their classes in-person classes have nevertheless been revised and are now online. Even if the semester starts in-person, many will abruptly go online once more and more faculty and students become very ill and some even die. This situation leaves some questioning the value of going to college this Fall. Many seem to be opting instead to take a gap year or pursue some other non-academic activity. The question many young people are confronting right now is as follows: should I “go” to college if all, or most, of my classes will be online? The answer is “yes.” Here are a few good reasons why.
First, there is the fact that the academic skills you've honed up to now will begin to fade if they are not exercised. In the United States, where long summer vacations from high school are the norm (due to vestiges of an agricultural society that needed young people to be around to help with the summer harvest), it’s a well-known fact among educational theorist and policymakers that it takes teachers a month each Fall just to bring students up to speed from their time off. Imagine what a year will do.
Next, you will be missing out on a shared cultural experience. I’m not going to sugarcoat it: online classes don’t hold a candle to in-person classes. They are less engaging, lead to lower retention, and lack all of the non-academic social activities and experiences that make college fun. But if most people grin and bear it while you spend your time wasting away you will have missed out on simultaneity of mild misery that makes for a generational memory.
Finally, you’ll have something new and challenging to devote yourself to at a time when there is a real dearth of engaging long-term activities to be had (unless you're a virologist). Will it be as fun as the traditional college experience? No, of course not. But it might be the least worst option. There is a comfort in doing something with stakes and clear marks of progress to it. There is solace in having a project, a purpose, a goal.
Should you heed my advice, you ought to know that passively attending online classes - treating the class like a not-very-exciting youtube video that you let wash over you - may do you little good. Staring into your webcam while some teacher you've never met holds forth about an essay you’ve not read will indeed be excruciatingly dull. You should go to college this fall, online or not. But going to college this fall will mean investing the time, energy, and attention required to make low-bandwidth lectures vibrant, to make tinny-sounding seminars lively. Successfully attending college online this fall will require you to be an active member of the classes of which you are a member. It will require you to reach out to your professors when you don’t understand. To zoom with the TA to discuss your essays before they are due. To comment on the class discussion boards as if they were your favorite subreddit (you can’t be a lurker). It will require developing a command of soft skills to complement the hard lessons you want to learn in a manner that is actually interactive. You will need to improve your scholastic EQ, not just your technical IQ.
If you are able to devote yourself to online classes this fall you will not only learn the lessons taught by the professors, you will also acquire a valuable and highly transferable set of skills and character traits: resolve, determination, discipline, and digitally mediated interpersonal skills.
Online college classes won’t be easy for most students. But those who make a virtue of necessity and decide to attend will look back on the 20–21 academic year not only with relief but also with pride at having done a difficult thing well and improving themselves in the process.
For more on how to get the most out of the college classroom (online or off), check out www.habitusedu.com, @habitus_edu on Twitter, habitus_edu on Instagram, or like Habitus on Facebook.
