Week 2

Last year I had to take two online classes over the summer- Math 103 and Bio 110. I decided to bring up both of these classes because I had completely different experiences with each one of them. I usually like online classes, especially the fact I can work on the assignments from my bed and not having to go to class. However, there are some things that I don’t like such as having to go through the material on my own without having someone to previously explain. For these two classes, I didn’t have any other choice but to take them online.

As mentioned in the previous blog post, I am a big numbers person. I simply enjoy dealing with them and I also memorize them very well. For the fact, when I was younger I used to remember all of my primary school friends’ phone numbers. Sounds a little crazy, isn’t it? Let’s get back to my Math 103 online class. As someone who really likes numbers and who never had any issues with math classes in the past, I expected this class to go smoothly. It didn’t go as expected. That was also the first time I enrolled in the online math class. Turns out to be a big difference.

I was not as organized as I used to be in my in-class math classes. When you’re in class, the professor goes through examples and they show you how they are done. If you have questions, you go up to them and ask. For my online class, I wasn’t disciplined enough to do all the examples on my own and I didn’t organize myself to do a few things every day. Then, the assignments would add up and I wasn’t able to them all at once correctly. At the end, I ended up with a B in that class. Not saying that was bad, but for someone who has always had success in math classes this came as a little disappointment.

On the contrary, Bio 110 went very good. Since I am not a native English speaker and this class included some writing, I knew this class might be a little more challenging for me. Unlike with my math class, I organized myself better and started working ahead on my assignments. The teacher also gave us some detailed information about what she expected of us for each assignment. That was of big help for me and something that I really liked.

To sum up, based on my experience so far online classes can be very convenient if your approach is good right from the beginning. If I had a chance to retake my Math 103 I would definitely do some things differently. Since then, I have learned my lesson and I have had more success with the rest of my online classes.

That is all from me for this entry. I hope I managed to show you my main strength and weaknesses as an online student. See you next week with a new post!

Sofija