Caleb Young, a second-year in mechanical engineering, works on online classes from his home. He is not returning for Autumn 2020 semester. Credit: Courtesy of Karen Young
As many Ohio State students return to the classroom for the first time in 172 days, some have decided to forgo returning to school for the time being.
What is stopping many of them from continuing work toward their degrees isn’t the risk of contracting COVID-19 from the campus community; it is the mode of instruction. Some students said online classes and the potential of the university returning to virtual learning at a moment’s notice is making this semester’s campus experience not worth it.
Caleb Young, a would-be third-year in mechanical engineering, is one of those students. He said he considered taking a gap semester in early July when Ohio was seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases, but the decision process spanned the first two weeks of August after he learned he would have no in-person classes.
Young said he didn’t want a repeat of his spring semester experience.
“Professors did a good job of putting things up, for the most part, but I just had trouble staying on a schedule and getting all my work done on time,” Young said.
Young said losing access to collaboration in a collective learning environment negatively impacted his experience.
“You don’t have your classmates right there that you can work on stuff with. You don’t have office hours that you can just walk to any time. It’s all online,” Young said.
Office hours were particularly frustrating for Young. At one point when he needed help in a class, he said he tried to go to two of his professor’s three advertised virtual office hours. The professor wasn’t present for either.
He said that in the end, online learning would be too inefficient for him to gain what he needed from his classes. Young said he talked to his adviser before his decision but all he had to do was drop his courses and ensure his finances were lined up accordingly. Students who want to re-enroll after a leave of absence just need to contact the advising office with which they were last enrolled, according to the university’s website.
“It was a tough decision because I love campus and stuff, but it just wasn’t worth it,” Young said.
Claire Borgerding, a would-be third-year in economics and environment, economy, development and sustainability, also decided to take off the semester about two weeks before the beginning of classes. All of her classes were switched to online, something she struggled with when the university transitioned online in March.
“I really enjoy going to class. I just don’t like the idea of having all my classes in my bedroom,” Borgerding said. “It’s hard for me to compartmentalize school at home. Online classes make it so much more difficult.”
Borgerding said taking classes online that professors only imagined teaching in a classroom added to the disorganization she was experiencing.
“It wasn’t their fault, but turning to online classes was extremely last minute for them,” Borgerding said. “A lot of classes weren’t structured to be online, and I feel like that’s kind of how it [will be] this semester too.”
Borgerding considered taking a gap semester all summer but felt obligated to stay enrolled because she was the incoming president of Net Impact, a club in the Fisher College of Business that explores sustainable business practices. She said she didn’t want to disrupt the organization’s leadership or let down the club’s members.
“I realized if I was taking online classes, I would be such a mess, I wouldn’t be an effective leader for the club,” Borgerding said. “That was the last nail.”
In the end, the rest of the club’s executive board supported Borgerding’s decision to take the semester off, she said.
For Kellyn Gerenstein, a would-be third-year in STEM education, the decision point for taking a gap semester looked a bit different.
Gerenstein was considering taking time off school amid the pandemic but worried about bringing up the topic to his family. Then his mom brought it up before he had the chance.
“When you mention to your parents that you want to take a semester off school, your first thought is, ‘They’re not gonna like that,’” Gerenstein said.
But his mother thought it would be a better idea for him to spend the time working or taking online classes at a community college, where tuition is less expensive.
“If I was going to pay for the semester, it needed to be a high quality of learning, and I don’t think I get that from online classes,” Gerenstein said.
Gerenstein’s decision came from his experience moving home when classes went online.
“I hated online classes last semester after they sent us all home. It’s hard to learn in the household because the setting just isn’t meant for learning on a daily basis,” Gerenstein said.
He said that the inability to go to campus libraries or residence hall study rooms made it difficult to focus and stay on track.
It wasn’t just the lack of study space options that caused Gerenstein and off-campus learning to mesh poorly; he said the flow of working from home and ending the semester there made classwork feel empty.
“Especially when I got to the end of the semester, it was just like I was so ready for it to be over because it felt like a hassle,” Gerenstein said. “Whereas when I’m on campus, it feels much more like I’m working towards something and I’m working toward finishing the year. I’m working toward a degree. I’m working toward anything.”
That feeling is amplified by the absence of in-person classrooms and on-campus staples, Gerenstein said.
“When you’re at home, you don’t see your professor every day, you don’t see your [teaching associates] everyday and you don’t see all the faces on campus. It feels like you’ve lost something,” Gerenstein said.
