Quarantine means tech issues, boredom for many students

As school closed over Covid-19, students spent their class time learning remotely. For most students, that means a battle with Canvas issues, technical difficulties, and boredom during their time at home.

Sophomore Coco Baumruch stated that she has run into some issues with Canvas that has made it hard to do her work.

“Sometimes it’s hard to submit things because some of the classes haven’t posted anything for today’s work. And the video chats are difficult to manage because some people would overlap other speakers,” Baumruch said.

Sophomores Victor Pascucci IV and Sabine Aliev have also faced some of the same issues as Baumruch. Pascucci has found that sometimes what teachers assign are unclear or hard to understand and Aliev has found that she can only communicate with teachers during a certain time frame. These problems make it stressful to get everything done.

Among these issues, some have found it harder to get work done when they’re working at home, whether it’s a lack of motivation or a problem of how they learn.

“I find it harder to work at home than I do at school. I don’t have the motivation plus I’m not surrounded by peers that make school worth it,” said Pascucci.

Baumruch agreed and added, “Some people are better learning stuff hands on, or being physically there. [It’s harder when] teachers aren’t physically there to help you with [classwork] and go step by step.”

Thankfully, most of these issues are easy to fix; for video chats, teachers tell students to mute their mics so that only one person can be heard, and students can email teachers when there’s submission issues.

But these problems aren’t what’s making them go mad. That would be trying to fight how bored they are.

For students, their day is simple: wake up, check in with their advisers, go back to sleep if they’re still tired, do their work, and do whatever they want during their newfound free time. Most students can finish all their work around noon. That leaves the rest of the day to play video games, watch Netflix or Disney+, eat, and sleep.

“[When we started remote learning], I thought that I wouldn’t go insane this fast. I’m so bored,” said Aliev.

Aliev tries to fight her boredom by playing video games and talking to her friends on Discord. She also has decided to make a custom cover for her Nintendo switch.

Whether it’s playing video games, binge watching their new favorite show, or other projects, students try to fight their boredom and remote learning issues during this hard time.