Virtual learning is now a worldwide method of education, but there are a number of students who dislike it. Both students and teachers have found challenges regarding online schoolwork, and several people wish for in-person school to resume.

Since most students were accustomed to attending school in-person, adjusting to a virtual schedule was reportedly hard for many such as junior Leah Gish.

“It adds a disadvantage for multiple other people, including myself, where our wifi has just not worked well,” Gish said. “I feel bad for the kids who don’t have good wifi.”

Gish believes that assigning work is a problem, and Canvas has added more issues on top of the stress from online classes.

“I think teachers need to be looser with assignments they give. I also wish that Canvas wasn’t so complicated and I think they should’ve kept with Google Classroom,” Gish said. “[CCPS] should have prepared better, because a lot of teachers just didn’t know how to correctly use Canvas in the first place, especially the substitutes. They should’ve prepared them way better.”

Some students have found that the work they receive from teachers is too much to keep up with at times. Numerous people have reported that the assigned work is too much or too hard, or that the time they are given to complete the assignments isn’t enough. There are also some students who rely on school to get their work done and to have a meal provided for them.

“For many kids, school was a place to get their meals and the wifi they needed to do their schoolwork, and for them to just be in their house with whatever’s going on around them– it’s the school environment, and I miss that the most,” Gish said.

Junior Robert Bigelow is a new student at Clover Hill, and he’s had trouble adjusting because of the virtual environment.

“Honestly, it made it harder socially because I’m at a new school, and I have not been able to meet a lot of new people,” Bigelow said. “And with virtual school, I tend to be more indoors than outside. With COVID-19, it’s a must, but I think that they should’ve prepared better and had been better trained for certain situations. Google went down the other day, and because of that we had to delay school.”

Bigelow attended Benedictine College Preparatory for two years before he decided to transfer to Clover Hill. Since COVID-19 caused the schools to shut down, the only knowledge he has of the school is what his friends and teachers have told him. 

“It’s hard being in a school that I have little to no knowledge about. I don’t even know what the actual school looks like inside,” said Bigelow.

Virtual school impacts students in different ways, some negatively and some positively. With the unfortunate situation unfolding around us, virtual school is a solution to a problem people have been pondering since the start of quarantine last year, regardless of personal feelings on the matter.