Becka & Andy - University of Denver

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I guess we'll start with, um, kind of our story And what happened with Kobe? It So we had just finished our winter quarter. It was kind of the last week of March and we have 1/4 system. So we were about to go into a whole new quarter and we were taking finals at that time. That's when Kobe hit and our school decided to close down, ended up taking our finals all online for the end of winter quarter. Then we had one week of spring break, and then we started our spring quarter, and that was completely online. So I would say, like how the classes went really depends entirely on the Professor. I had a couple professors that completely reworked their class to fit to be online, and that worked out really well. They posted a lot of updates and things on canvas, so it's really easy to follow along. I would kind like wake up and then just look at what I had to dio, maybe get it done that day. It's pretty easy to procrastinate, but usually I would kind of take like one day of the week and do the majority of my work. I think one of the things that really helped me stay on top of my classes is making a schedule as a lot of making a to do list. My thing is kind of like not using a planner during this time because it's kind of easy to not look at it. I would make a to do list like every time I sat down and did my work, and I would tape above my desk and then not take it down into so mental health is a really big being throughout this whole process. So I know for me it was really hard to keep a positive attitude, probably starting like towards halfway through the quarter. It got really hard to kind of like keep up with assignments and then just not feel like, really burned out because you don't really have a difference between being at school and then being at home because it's all kind of the same thing. I think another thing that was a little bit difficult for me was the kind of independence like you live at school and you kind of you kind of get to do whatever you want. You're really in charge of your own life, like you decide when you eat. When you study when you go on, have fun with friends and then being back at home is really like being in high school again like that. So I think kind of dealing with that and then dealing with back to a family setting is something that is really so some advice that I would have for students going through this, especially freshman going through this It's really easy to feel like you're missing out on the college experience. I would kind of say to take this time, to focus on yourself and really does himself improvement, you know, work on the things that you love improved on your hobbies and maybe that'll, you know, help you gain a little perspective during this time. An also think about you know, if your social distancing think about how much of an impact that's having on society right now. So our school has already announced that they're going to be moving to a hybrid structure for the upcoming quarter, which basically means that they're gonna be some classes online and then some classes arm person. We're also gonna be required to wear masks all the time, and I think within the classrooms, even if you have like 20 to 30 people, they'll probably be social desisting nuts within the room itself. Some of the buy side give to anyone who is thinking of applying or deciding whether or not to take a gap year. If you're gonna be a freshman this upcoming year, I would honestly say, Take a gap year. I don't think it's worth it to go to a private institution. I think, like without any scholarships, do you cost close to $70,000 now on DTA. Have classes be potentially online is kind of a waste of money, In my opinion, I would advise that you go to a community college, maybe this year. If you don't want to take a gap year and just knock all the pre RECs out of the way and then you can enroll in a four year institution, I can honestly say that for the classes that didn't really transition toe online. Well, I've taken online classes at a community college before, and it was the exact same quality, especially for science classes. That and those transition really, really well onto online. As far as science goes and having online labs, I really feel like I did not learn that much. Some advice that comes with that is like, maybe really think about what you want out of college because I'm sure a lot of people would say, like, Oh, like, it'll be kind of like, weird if I don't start right now. That's kind of how I felt when I got out of high school. You should just really think about what's going on in the world and think about. With all things considered you know you can finish college at any time with any type of timeline and path. You know, people finish in like a really short amount time or really long amount of time. If you know anybody at the school, talk to them, reach out to your schools. I think also just adjusting your expectations is a really big thing. Another major point is what add advocate for yourself during this time? Yes, make sure you're reaching out to professors. Make sure you're taking the time to ask questions.