"Hello From the Other Side"- College Communication Throughout a Pandemic

    What is key to a good relationship? What is key to a good marriage? What is key to anything, really? It's communication. Since the beginning of this pandemic, communication has changed greatly. It has brought challenges to business, schools, and people all over the world. For the little time that I have been in college, I have noticed how strange and difficult it is to communicate with not only faculty and professors but even peers due the coronavirus.

    Most of my classes this semester are online, as is the case for most students. Exams are coming up next week and I am slightly concerned. While I have taken plenteous notes, made note cards, and listened to numerous online lectures I feel as though I haven't learned anything. As a visual and active learner, being online has been quite difficult. It is of course nice to be able to roll out of bed and begin your school day , but grasping the material can be difficult online. When trying to communicate with my teachers over Zoom, an online face to face chat service, it seems as though some technical issue always comes up. For example, in my online Geo class today, my mic suddenly stopped working while I was trying to participate in a discussion. I had to log off of the app completely and rejoin the meeting only to find out that the discussion was over.

    Communicating with faculty through masks has been probably the most awkward. While both students and faculty understand the current situation, it does get somewhat annoying having to repeat yourself over and over again because you can't hear each other underneath the mask.

    Last, but definitely not least, communication with peers has been different. It's very difficult enough already meet people with restrictions, due to the pandemic, but it's also very difficult to get to know people. Every time conversations begin, the coronavirus comes up and it seems to takeover  the entire conservation. Suddenly, you end up simply talking about the problems it has caused rather than getting to know the individual. 

    Communication has definitely become a new experience. However, instead of looking at it as a problem, maybe this new way of communication will teach our society something new and help it develop as a whole.

Online college class on zoom