With classes online, many of us are sulking at home and would very much rather be sulking on campus. So I decided it would be interesting to sum up some positives about online school. Especially for those going into first year, it’s natural to think that online school is ruining the “first year college experience”, whatever that is. But truly, things are not as bad as they seem, which I like to emphasize to first year students as a volunteer for the summer engagement program.

The most ironic part of all of this is that back in the days when we were going to school as normal, we kept complaining about having to go to class and this and that. Or we’d even just skip class. And now that we don’t have the choice to go to campus, we talk about the importance of physical classes. We forget the struggles of waking up for an 8 am class, which is actually 6 am + commute time; we forget the terrible and pricey cafeteria food; we forget how boring classes actually were.

While we were too busy complaining about online classes, we’d forgotten the negatives of the exact thing we were advocating for. We form this new found love for our campus and our school and in person classes, all of which we never really treasured in the first place.

And now you might be thinking that I’m a huge advocate for online classes, which is not the case. In fact, it spoiled my plans to go on exchange and live in residence in a studio for the first time.

But since school will be online, there’s really nothing we can do except change our own attitudes. So let us examine some positives that come with zoom university:

No daily commute

Although I’ve never had to commute more than 30 minutes to go to campus, I know friends who take 2 hours to get to school. And then imagine having 8 am classes. Even though it's just driving, or sitting on the bus, commuting is draining. With online classes, we can wake up lazily, go for a run, make breakfast, and then just log on to lectures.

And of course, no running to catch the bus, or watching full busses zoom by when it's pouring rain and shoes all wet when you just wanted to be home and relax.

Easily accessible office hours

When I was in first year, I always heard the advice “go to office hours!” or “don’t be afraid to go to office hours!” or “office hours changed my life”.

So one day I decide to go to office hours, except I realize I have that homework due at 6pm, and office hours are all the way at the north side of campus, so I have to go there, and then rush back to my class on the south side at 4pm, and then…forget it, I can go another day.

That’s the reason I never went to office hours much throughout my time at UBC. Except after classes got moved online in March of this year. Whenever I have a problem or question with some assignment, I look up when office hours/tutorials are available, and then boom, open a window and there’s the professor. Instant help without the extra steps.

In fact, I think they should make this a staple after physical classes resume.

Saving money

If you were planning to live on campus, or rent a place near campus, this is a big one. Looking at my expenses last year ~80% was tuition and room. And don’t forget plane tickets for those of you who are located outside of Vancouver. You could have less student loan debt, or save your parents some money (hopefully that’s in your best interest too, maybe you can ask for that skateboard you’ve been eyeing).

No sucky and expensive food

Although there’s some places on campus that are decent, most things tend to be overpriced (especially in residence cafeterias) and not that tasty. My international friends always miss food back home, and so did I in first year.

No fire alarms in the middle of the night

If you were planning to live in residence, you’ll definitely have been woken up by one of these at 1 am the day before your 8 am midterm.

But then imagine stepping into your shoes in your pajamas and going down 15 floors to wait in the cold (or possibly in the rain) for what seems to be forever until the firefighters arrive, and find that everything is fine, and someone just burnt popcorn in some microwave. After a while, my friends and I didn’t even bother to evacuate the building anymore. We’d just message each other on the group chat, and pray that we’d live.

Class when you want to

For most classes, I assume they will be recorded to account for time zone differences. That means you can watch lecture videos whenever. Don’t want lectures at 8am? Sure. Want to listen to 5 hours of lectures straight on a Monday evening before the exam? Sure. Want to head out for the day for a trip and listen to lectures the next day? Sure.

This provides a new flexibility for students. Instead of never being able to get back missing lectures, we are able to go at our own speed, and schedule ourselves when we would like to tune into classes.

Of course too much flexibility and power of choice can be a bad thing too, in fact I think it's also one of the major disadvantages of online school. Because we can choose when we want to listen to class, we can also choose not to listen to classes at all...until the day before exams when we realize it's all over and we’ll be re-taking the course next year. So as long as we have some sort of system/schedule in place or self discipline, having this flexibility is definitely an advantage of online class.