Moving forward, things seem to be changing. More and more people are being vaccinated every day and a sense of “normal” may be in the future. With the changes occurring with the Corona Virus it’s important to look at how this is going to influence the education system, and in our case more specifically how it will influence universities like Penn State.

Many colleges over the past year have done the majority of their classes online. Students have learned the ways of zoom and how to navigate classes online in the best way possible. As this semester ends, it opens up the question of how will the fall semester look in colleges across the country? Colleges in America are moving to go back to in-person classes with hopes that it will help students learn better, improve enrollment, and definitely not spread the virus. I’ve written in my previous blogs about the harm online learning does to students. The negative effects it has on mental health, learning, and socializing are all felt by students everywhere. With a future that appears to be aimed at in-person classes, these problems will be addressed.

 

In the fall of 2021 State College will be a lot different from the past year. Penn State is offering in-person classes once again at a much larger rate than the previous semester. They still will offer web classes, as they have seemed to become part of the culture in college learning, but they are no longer being implemented into people’s schedules unless done by choice. I know personally I have double the in-person classes in my 2021 fall schedule than I did my whole freshman year. It is crazy to think about how different this going to be, and how strange this year truly was. The funny part is that at this point online learning has become the normal for me and students across the country. I do not know what real in-person classes are like at Penn State. The two in-person classes I attended my freshman year didn’t feel any different from the zooms besides being able to see people in-person. Everyone was wearing masks, and separated by at least six feet, which made it hard for people to talk to each other, connect with each other, and overall take part in the class. The professors also offered these classes in zoom format, for people who were sick or couldn’t make it to class. Going forward, next year is going to be a tremendous change that is going to take a lot of time to adjust and get use to the old ways.

I’m excited to see what the future holds for all college students. Maybe I shouldn’t be, maybe everything will come crashing down again, with a potentially bright future I’m optimistic. There’s still a lot of time for everything to play out, and a lot of questions to still be answered. Who knows truly what’s going to happen. No one saw the last year coming, and now everyone is used to it. I’m sure there’s a lot of turmoil ahead. All I know is we should hope for bigger and better things ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

https://news.psu.edu/story/649440/2021/03/02/academics/university-announces-summer-and-fall-2021-course-registration#:~:text=The%20University%20plans%20to%20transition,edu%20as%20plans%20are%20finalized.

https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/college-campuses-covid-19-guidelines-fall/