A Conversation About Online Classes
I spoke with T.B., a political science student at Lakehead Thunder Bay, about her experience being in three web-based classes. One of which was originally set to be taken in person while the other two were required classes, only offered online.
Q: “How would you describe your experience taking online classes?”
T.B.: “I had a lot of online classes in earlier years as well. It makes it hard to connect with the professor and harder to have a relationship with them and discuss their expectations about the class. You’re paying all this money for classes and essentially teaching yourself. If my classes were in person, I would be able to get to know the people in my program, whereas now it is hard to get involved in the school and connect with new people.”
Q: “It sounds like online classes are quite disappointing then. How do online classes affect your degree in political science specifically?”
T.B.: “A lot of my degree is heavily discussion based, where we debate different opinions and topics. Most professors use discussion boards as a tool to do that, but discussions are stale and disengaging compared to if we were in person having conversations with classmates. Instead of enabling meaningful conversation, on discussion boards everyone is just repeating the same rhetoric to get a mark.”
Q: “So you feel like online classes and discussion boards hinder the ability to fully take something away from a lot of your classes?”
T.B.: "Discussion boards especially are not helping me learn anything or even develop writing skills. Instead, it’s actually impacting my ability to work on larger assignments that need more time and effort. I feel like I’m bogged down with busy work. Online classes are really heavy because you have to do your readings and lectures all by yourself and then the discussion board on top of that, as opposed to in person where discussions would be a part of the lecture.”
Q: “Would you take all in-person classes if you had the opportunity?”
T.B: “Absolutely. Three out of five of my classes being online is not something I want to pay thousands of dollars to do.
Many students may feel similarly to T.B. about their online course load while some students can’t get enough of the online stuff. But whether you prefer visiting campus for class or working from home, I think we can all agree with T.B. on one thing: discussion boards suck.