Easing anxiety with change

Refunding school fees and authorizing a Pass/Fail grade system will benefit students

Each student at Pierce decided to attend this community college because of a similar goal: to succeed. Whether success means earning a certificate or degree or transferring into a four-year university, they continue to invest time in school to reach their academic goals.

According to a Los Angeles Community College District press release, remote learning, also known as online education, will replace a majority of inperson classes from March 30 until the end of the spring semester.

That means for the remaining 70 days of this semester, students will be taking online classes even if this isn’t the original class format they initially enrolled in.

This decision is to help combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus, but Pierce should accommodate them by offering a refund and a temporary Pass/Fail grading system while online instruction is mandated.

Almost everyone has different methods of learning: some learn better in a classroom setting and others can learn through online classes. The key is that students know themselves best and choose classes that they know give them a higher chance of passing.

Now, they are being robbed of their choice and being forced into online classes whether they like it or not.

According to research conducted by professors at Harvard and Stanford that compared online students to face-to-face students at DeVry University, online students were more likely to drop out of college. Students who enrolled in online classes with low GPAs were also more likely to fail and drop 0.44 points in their GPA.

Due to general education classes, students have to take more difficult courses like statistics and sciences which have concepts that are more challenging. In an in-class environment, it’s easy to raise a hand if they have a question or need clarification.

Now that classes are online, the advantages of being in a classroom are taken away. If someone needs further assistance, they will have to email their professors and wait hours for a reply.

Lack of communication from both the professor and the students is generally why their performance suffers. They feel less motivated and are more likely to be distracted because they are not in a classroom setting that centralizes focus on the lessons.

It isn’t Pierce’s fault that the campus is closed to the public. The COVID-19 virus is unprecedented territory and if anything, this demonstrates the importance of students and faculty remaining safe.

But they didn’t sign up for this.

They signed up for a college experience: to walk down The Mall with friends, to order a caramel frappuccino at the Brahma Café, to visit a professor’s office hours for additional help and to potentially network.

It’s irrational to pay school fees with the promise of receiving resources to achieve academic success and then get those resources stripped away.

A partial refund is appropriate since students should not have to jeopardize their GPAs for a situation that is out of their hands.

Implementing a pass/fail grading system will help professors because they can use their own judgement to assess whether a student understands the material or not.

This also helps students because they would not have to worry about their grades suffering and affecting their overall GPA.

Students have been affected by this global crisis. Their futures shouldn’t be compromised because of a series of unfortunate events that were out of their control.

Post-transplant we were inundated with medication after medication. It wasn’t anything new for me since it’s all I’ve ever known, but a medication that suppressed her immune system was something that caught my family off-guard.

She was more susceptible to skin cancer and more susceptible to getting sick because of the medication. Instead of getting the “average flu,” she would get something of higher risk. Instead of a paper cut, she would get something we had to keep an eye on since it could get severely infected.

When I heard the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was in the United States I began to get worried. We went from spectators to watchmen overnight.

The closer the virus got, the more alert we became. When the news came out that someone can be a carrier and not know, my whole family became immunocompromised.

Not only was my mom at risk, but all the 20 years of hard work, the constant hospital trips, the surgeries, cancer scares and the endless waitlist for a kidney would be thrown away.

We have to assume we are always infected and maintain ourselves as clean as possible. I now have to second guess going to work and going to school.

While others find it inconvenient to shut down work and school, I find it a blessing. Less exposure for me, less risk for my mom. While she wouldn’t agree, I am more willing to put my education and work on hold for her health as much as I was to give her one of my kidneys.

I am grateful to all of the schools and businesses who “shut down” in the wake of the virus in Los Angeles County. Is it an inconvenience? Absolutely, but it protects those who can’t protect themselves as easily as others.