Beginning on March 23, 2020, the Washington School District took on online schooling due to the coronavirus outbreak. For some students, this new way of learning has been advantageous when it comes to their grades. But for others, online learning has been fairly difficult because they struggle with personal time management and dislike not being able to talk with their teachers face to face. 

Personally, all these traits apply to how online schooling has affected me. I’ve been happy with how my grades have increased. There have also been some harder days where I’ve struggled with understanding the lesson and found it difficult to talk with teachers through email. Although I’m more in the middle with my opinions about online schooling, there are many people who see it as only a good or bad thing. 

“Online schooling has made it easier for me to get all my work done and helps me manage my time better,” sophomore Elizabeth Engemann said. 

Many students use certain techniques to make their schoolwork easier that they didn’t have the option to do while we were actually in school. 

“I go to different hours based on difficulty and work down to my easiest hour,” sophomore William Lingle said. “I also find myself doing more than one assignment for a class a day so I don’t have as much to do throughout the week.” 

Although many students have used these techniques to finish more assignments at once, there is then the opposing problem of time management. According to a study by ASCD.org held in 2019, more than 55 percent of high school students struggle with time management.

My issue with time management is that when I know I have many days to do an assignment for a class I find difficult, I typically push it off until the last couple days before it is due. 

I also know people who work or do things other than school that have to be done that day. So when they know they have more time to finish school assignments but only one day to finish their personal tasks, they tend to push their schoolwork off. This causes stress on themselves when it comes the day they have to do all their assignments because they had pushed them off before. 

Despite the pros and cons to online schooling, I believe it was a great overall learning experience for us students to know if we ever have to convert to alternative learning methods again.