Photo courtesy of Pearly Gal-Edd

Distance learning causes students to experience some amounts of stress. With a surplus of assignments, some people’s desks are bound to be a little messy.

Students had expectations of what school would be like digitally, such as more free time and less work. But that was just an expectation. Now, many have used the first quarter to adjust to virtual learning and have formed opinions on how things are going and how things will be.

Freshmen expected to have a harder time adjusting to the high school lifestyle. The leap from middle school to high school is a great deal to many students, but this year, freshmen have experienced it much differently from any class before them. With more work assigned in comparison to middle school, the transition may come as a shock to plenty of new students. According to current freshmen, however, high school isn’t that bad—even if it is virtual. With the help of teachers, many students have been able to grasp subjects and adapt to the new school year with relative ease.

“I thought adjusting to the changes from middle school to high school might be difficult when nothing is in person, but I think the teachers have done really well making everything clear and answering questions,” freshman Ciella Koebi said.

Some upperclassmen assumed that the first quarter of high school would be similar to online school last year when the lockdown started.

“I expected the first quarter to be similar to what we did in the school year prior, like being able to do things at our own pace and having a longer time span to complete assignments,” junior Dyanne Pajares said.

Unfortunately, that appears not to be the case. As a matter of fact, virtual school now functions very similarly to in person schools in terms of due dates and deadlines. Students are still expected to complete assignments within a given time frame. Late assignments will still end up with points taken off and will be locked after a certain amount of time.

“We still have to complete assignments in a smaller time span and get things done at a set time,” Pajares said.

Communication with teachers was another issue that evoked concern among students. Many students were unsure how easy it would be to contact teachers and how fast they would respond to students. Now, it looks like there are mixed results. Some teachers seem to be good at responding, while others aren’t so great. This may be because of the large amount of emails that teachers may get from parents and students alike.

“I feel like there’s literally zero communication most of the time in classes,” junior Xinny Lao said.

Regardless of the realities of the current school year, we still have a long way to go. Many of the events we are experiencing now may change in the future. Whether it be positive or negative, this virtual period has impacted every aspect of our lives.