By the time I graduated high school last May, I knew where I wanted to go to school. I already had my housing arrangements set and even had my courses scheduled. I was ready to go off to college in August. Days after high school graduation, that whole plan made a U-turn. A lot of things factored into the decision of switching from an on-campus student to an online student. It definitely was not my first plan, but I have made and am making the best of it.
When you tell someone that you're an online student, they often think the worst. They think that you're getting less of an education and that it's completely mediocre. Let me clear something up for you: I am a student at Austin Peay State University. I'm not enrolled in some "online schooling" that you see on TV commercials all the time. I am learning the exact same things I would've learned being an on-campus student. I'm taking the same classes that I originally enrolled in and I think that being an online student was the best decision I could make for myself and for my well-being.
I was able to work at my own pace. I knew each week what was due in what class and I spaced out my work and often stayed up late studying and writing (what seemed to be) a million papers. I sometimes felt super overwhelmed because all of my professors laid out what the schedule was for each week. So in psychology, I have a quiz and a test this week and in English, I have a paper due, some reading I need to finish, and a test. I could go on, but you get the point. It was fairly easy to get overwhelmed, but I managed to do what I needed to do.
The point of this article was to get people to understand that I am not mediocre because my plans didn't work out. I'm not mediocre because I'm taking my first year of college online.
After all, the dean's list doesn't put just anyone on there.
