 That's when, like, your professor's trying to increase the amount of interaction in the class and he just puts you into a breakout room with, like, three random people you've never met and you just kind of sit there awkwardly, like, breakout rooms are the most awkward thing ever. What's up, guys? It's Josh from We're Back again with another video. In today's video, I will be giving my completely, utterly honest review of how, I think, online college at Yale University went last semester for my senior fall. For those of you that don't know, my name is Josh Beasley. I'm currently a senior at Yale Studying Computer Science about to go into my last semester. This channel consists of college application tips, CS advice, magic, blogs, if any of that sounds interesting, hit the subscribe button down below and join the community. So last night I was sitting down with my brother who's a sophomore at UVA this year and was also doing online college for the entire semester. We sat down and kind of brainstormed a list of pros and cons of online college. So we have this list now, so I'm going to split the video into two parts. The first of which we'll be talking about the cons of online college, and then we'll move in and finish off on a lighter note and talk about what I actually enjoyed, the pros of online college. So without any further ado, let's get into it with my first con, which is something I think we can all relate to, which is Zoom fatigue. Zoom fatigue is when you're on Zoom call after Zoom call after Zoom call all day long and you have not moved from your office chair. Your eyes are all glazed over, you have a headache because you've been staring at a computer screen all day, and it is just like, it's so much nicer to go to real classes, you know, sit there for like an hour, hour and a half, and then walk, go out into the fresh air or walk to your next class, get food, do whatever you need to do. But when you're sitting in the same chair all day, staring at the same computer screen all day, it gets very, very tiring, especially when you've done a full day of classes and then you take a little break and then you have to go through like a whole afternoon and evening of online extracurriculars. It is just, it's not fun. My next con is when it comes to actually making friends or like personal connections, it's really hard to do that over Zoom. Luckily, like I'm a senior and I kind of already had my my friend group figured out, I feel really sorry for the first years because it's probably really hard to meet people that you aren't directly living with or aren't coming in contact with every day. Like I live off campus. So the only people I was coming in contact with were my eight other housemates. So it's really hard to kind of meet people and make new friends. Normally I would try to build like different study groups in each of my classes and we would kind of do the problem sets together and everything that wasn't really possible this past semester. Luckily, I had some friends in my house that were taking similar classes as me, but that wasn't the case for every single one of my classes. So I really, it was kind of missing out on that personal connection. And with that, it was also hard to connect with the professor. Like there was a significant decrease in the lack of professor and then like TA interaction. Even in seminars where the class size is super small, like 15, 18 people, I felt like I was constantly butting over, talking over each other. Like it was hard to kind of get that interaction with your professor face to face like where you would be normally sitting around a table when he's just a little square on your Zoom screen. And I didn't like that at all. Some professors didn't even turn their video on when they were giving lectures, like lectures, no interaction at all. Like I didn't even have to show up on time. I could watch the lecture afterwards if I needed it. And that was kind of disconcerting. Next is kind of a sad one, but like I think it's true. I think you're literally, like especially at Yale, like fortunately for me, like I'm very privileged to have an ROTC scholarship. So I'm not paying any tuition at Yale. The U.S. government's paying that so I can go serve my Air Force commitment after college. But for the people that are, I think you're paying, you're paying tuition for an arguably, like lower quality education. Like to say that the education quality of online college at Yale is even anything remotely close to the education quality of like in-person normal times at Yale, it just can't be compared. And that's a sad fact. The next con has to do with the number of distractions that you have. When you're sitting in your chair all day on a Zoom call or more likely laying in your bed, it's so easy just to take your phone out, turn your video off, mute yourself, and just sit there and do something completely different. Or like me, I have a different monitor, so I could be working on something completely else. Something, and I have a monitor, so I could be working on something completely different than actually going to class. And I felt like a lot of times I would just have to end up watching lectures over again just because I didn't catch everything. The next con is something I think we can all agree on. And that's when like your professor is trying to increase the amount of interaction in the class and he just puts you into a breakout room with like three random people you've never met and you just kind of sit there awkwardly. Like, breakout rooms are the most awkward thing ever. Like, especially when they're people you don't know. Because there's just so much incentive just to sit there and not say anything and not like participate. And it's just like, it's nothing compared to if you are actually like in-person in a group. It's rough and awkward, but you know, that's what we have to deal with and make the most of. And with like breakout rooms and small groups like that, group projects are also super annoying. Because like compared to where you could just meet with your group after class, you know, go to a residential college like common room or go get a meal together and kind of talk about the project you're working on. That's not really the case. It's super hard to kind of coordinate times with everyone, especially when people aren't on campus or aren't in the same time zone as you if they're remote. Then your coordinated group projects with people that, you know, could be across the country or even in a different country. Like I had a group project with somebody who was in the UK and it was hard to coordinate times. And it just made group projects that much more exhausting to kind of get through and work on together. This may not necessarily have been the case that other colleges with Yale had very minimal, like almost zero in-person classes. So like labs or anything that required kind of physical, like I feel bad for the theater kids who have to take like theater classes virtually. Like all of that's just a bus. Like there's no way that's working out. Some of my friends that were taking like physics or chemistry lab literally had the lab recorded and then they like were given the data and they had to kind of make these inferences on their own. And there was nothing like they couldn't actually go in and conduct the experiments themselves and they weren't kind of getting that in-person valuable knowledge, which was really sad. And I kind of mentioned this earlier but like there's a very low motivation to actually attend in-person lectures. And especially in-person lectures where you kind of have the opportunity to participate and you can get that interaction. It's like, it's hard to like wake up for them and I'm not motivated to when I know I can just watch them afterwards. But then again, I'm missing out on that interaction. So it's kind of a trade-off. My next con is something I feel like we can all kind of say generally like throughout the semester, I felt like I learned less than I would have in an in-person semester. And that's like throughout the entire semester. Obviously during finals when I was cramming and trying to kind of teach myself all the content that I had missed out on when like within the lectures I had skipped I felt like I was learning a ton. But that's more just cramming, not actually getting this good knowledge base from all your different classes. And lastly, this kind of goes along with Zoom fatigue just the sedentary lifestyle. I forgot how much I valued being able to walk to class, get out in the fresh air, you know, like I'd hit like eight, 10,000 steps a day just from walking to different classes because I never had a bike or anything. So I actually enjoyed kind of walking through Yale's campus getting the fresh air, being able to kind of go somewhere between classes because now I feel like my lifestyle is just sitting in place. And if I don't make an effort to go work out or do something which is sometimes hard with the lack of motivation coming from everything else, then I'm just living a very sedentary lifestyle which is not only good, not only bad for my health but also just a terrible lifestyle in general. With those sad notes, I wanna move on to the pros and some things that I actually enjoyed about online school cause my list for pros was almost as big as my list of cons. Obviously the cons were a lot heavier than the items on the pros list. But you know, we gotta make the most out of everything. So moving into the pros, my first pro is because lectures are recorded. It allows me to have a lot more flexible schedule which means I can wake up later, I can have more time for other things because I always know I can watch the lecture afterwards. And although I'm missing out on that in-person interaction, sometimes the lectures don't even require in-person interaction, so there's literally no incentive at all to go watch them live when I know they're gonna be up afterwards. And then when I do watch them afterwards, I can watch them at two times speed so I can get through them way faster, get the information I need and get the notes. Honestly, this is something I hope they continue after online school is done and we're back to normal because I really did enjoy rather than trying to decipher the professor's scribbles after they fact to kind of like relearn the notes and something from a lecture, you can literally just go watch the full lecture and full afterwards. There were classes where I would watch the lecture multiple times, like I would watch the five or six lectures leading up to a quiz again, even though I'd already attended them just to kind of refresh myself on the knowledge, especially when you can do it at two or three times speed. So like I said in the cons, it was bad that I wasn't getting the fresh air and being able to walk between classes and everything, but that also meant that I had way more time in my day. It's funny how much time you save when you're not having to walk to classes and leave early and I can literally just roll out a bed, pull out my computer and get on the Zoom, like literally like the minute before class starts, which is super nice because it gives me more time in my schedule, but if you're not putting that time to good use then kind of what's the purpose of it? I also enjoy being able to make food. Like while there were a lot of days where I'd be kind of whipping up some breakfast or lunch during like my 1135 class and just be sitting there with my computer on my kitchen table as I was cooking something and then just being able to go back to my class and eat it, which was nice. Cause most of the time I don't normally eat in class and have to make time to go to the dining hall, but it's nice to just sit there and be able to get a good meal in while I was watching my lectures. And my next pro is something that's very personal to me, but with online ROTC this semester, we still had Zoom calls for classes and like leadership lab and everything, but whereas we would normally have two workouts a week that were in-person at the gym where they were cadet led and we would complete the whole workout. This semester we had one workout which was on Zoom, which was just like a video workout that was led by someone, but then the other workout, we didn't have to wake up early. We didn't have to do anything. Cause normally I'm waking up at like 530 to get on time to these workouts. I didn't have to do that anymore cause the second workout for the week was literally just on my own time. Like I could go run, I could go hit a lift and I could log it on Strava and it would be tracked just as if it was a normal workout. My next pro is something kind of stupid, but you really don't have to care about what you're wearing when you're on Zoom calls. I could be sitting there in sweatpants, a T-shirt. Like I found that the amount of my wardrobe that I actually wore on a consistent basis shrink drastically because all I was wearing was sweatpants and T-shirts every single day unless I was going out somewhere. You know it's good to be comfortable with some people like their style and stuff, but like when your video is off there's no point or even if your video is on, like they're only seeing this much of you so it doesn't really matter. I have two pros left. The next of which is I said distractions were con, but with distractions being con, if you're able to properly manage them then multitasking while class is going on is also a great process, especially with me where I have a computer, I have my monitor, so I have multiple screens. I can be working on different things. If a professor mentions something and I wanna Google it, do a little more research into it while he keeps talking, I can do that. If I have another assignment that I'm time crunched on, I can literally be working on that at the same time I'm in a different class. And that also means it's just easier to take notes because they're gonna have the lecture on one screen and then on my big monitor, I can have a Google Docs form or a Notion page set up where I'm taking notes. With online classes, a lot of professors have switched over to basically where they had a Canvas quiz or exam and that's the exam you have to take whether it be a midterm or a final, but they give you a open block of time to do it. Not all professors did this, but I found this very helpful. Rather than forcing me to come in and take this class within a fixed time period, the Canvas assignment would be open for a fixed time period, but I would have like any time during my day to take it. So like from normally some of them were 12 to eight, some of them were like 24 hours where I could just take it any time within that block. And that was super helpful, not only so I could kind of coordinate with my own schedule and I wasn't taking time to do that outside of my normal schedule, but also just because it was a lot more flexibility and I could take the exam when I felt like I was most ready, not when it was scheduled. So that pretty much sums up my pros and cons and kind of my honest review of what I thought of online school. Like I said, there were a lot of cons and there are a lot of heavy cons and I definitely can't wait to get back to normal school. Obviously I probably won't have an opportunity since this is my last semester, which is kind of sad, but I hope the up and coming Yale is finally, especially the first year to get to experience what Yale is really like in person and have that opportunity to do online college and all the extracurriculars and social life and everything that comes with it. But like I said, there are some pros and I love to look at the bright side, especially during these sad moments like this. So I was happy to find some positives within the online college curriculum. So with that, if you enjoyed the video, you can drop a like down below. It helps me in supports the channel a lot more than you think. If this is the first video you've seen, please hit that subscribe button and join the community. And if you wanna say hi or have any ideas or questions, drop them in the comment section down below. And with that, I'll see you guys in the next video.