This is a bit of a rant article especially because most of our life as college students has been online for this semester and part of last semester. We have had to rely on technology possibly more than in our entire life, at least for me, in this moment. We have to have reliable internet, a laptop or cellphone that we can zoom on, and we need it to be able to do homework, quizzes, and tests. Without technology, we would not even be able to participate in school.
Zoom is fine, but only if you have reliable internet, which I do not. I think anybody that lives in Wyoming probably has internet that goes out periodically, and for me it is not unusual that it goes out daily or that it is too slow to run a video meeting. Most of the time during my class, I have to switch halfway to my phone. I have decided now to just do my meetings on my phone, no matter how much of a pain it is.
Sometimes my laptop decides to do random updates right before class starts, which happened to me this week, but I am using my phone for a zoom meeting, so I really have no access to materials online for me to reference to. It is one of the most frustrating things. People say that we are tech savvy, which we are, but never has my life felt so consumed by technology and being able to rely on it. If there is one things I learned, is that technology is hardly reliable.
I am so incredibly fortunate to even have a laptop, cellphone, and internet but it is difficult when you have to totally rely on these to be successful in school. I am sure that it is frustrating for the professors as well when their students cannot participate as well because of technological or internet issues. This seems like it will be a long semester, and I hope that we will be able to have in person classes.
All this to say, despite the many difficulties, I am very glad that I am still in school. Many things could be worse in my life, but I am sure I am not the only one with these frustrations. I hope you all are surviving the semester. Keep your head up and know that we will make it through this semester one day at a time. You are certainly not alone!