The pandemic forced students and teachers around the world to swap blackboards for computer screens. Now that we have experienced both, more students see the worth of continuing their education online. It adds flexibility to their academic pursuits, opens up international opportunities, and can be more cost-effective.
For all its advantages, online learning can be tough to adjust to. Here are seven tips that will make the transition less stressful.
1. Create a Study Nook for Online Students
Traditional classes happen in a dedicated learning environment. Recreating one when learning remotely will help you eliminate distractions and focus on your studies.
Find a quiet, well-lit place where you can actively study for several hours at a time without disturbances. It can be anywhere in your home, a public library, etc., but try to avoid your bed since you might have trouble sleeping. Get your family or housemates on board and set boundaries to focus more easily.
2. Make Sure You Have Everything You Need
Studying effectively is a lot easier when you gather all the resources you need beforehand. First, make sure you have a laptop or tablet to access your coursework. A reliable connection is also a must. Ethernet is best, but Wi-Fi works as well. Noise-canceling headphones are a godsend if you live in a busy household and can help you concentrate, especially if you’re the type that listens to music while studying.
Familiarize yourself with your learning platform’s layout and course materials. Download them if you can – just in case. A calendar, along with a note-taking app or notebook, will help you stay organized.
If you’re a digital nomad and travel a lot while studying, you’ll also want to find a dependable VPN service. It will minimize the hassle of accessing restricted content and protect your online privacy while you’re on the go. If you’re having a hard time making a choice, the VPN comparison table on Reddit can help you a lot. Reddit users usually share great tips on various apps overall.
3. Create and Maintain a Study Plan for Online Students
Students, especially freshmen, can get discouraged and anxious when first seeing the amount of expected coursework. The best way to tackle your fears and the work itself is to lay out your goals and develop a study schedule through a study plan.
Outline your curriculum and break areas of study up into manageable chunks before the semester starts. Develop a schedule that accounts for learning new material, internalizing what you’ve learned through quizzes or review sessions, and leaving some room for unforeseen circumstances and relaxation.
4. Master Time Management
A study plan will help you see the bigger picture and stick to your goals. However, you may find it hard to keep up and adapt if you don’t also develop time management skills. Doing so can be more challenging as a remote learner, so start before the semester begins.
Time management entails figuring out an optimal daily and weekly schedule and then sticking with it. Learn how to prioritize and use limited time to the fullest. For example, you’ll retain more if you spend a couple of hours per day on several subjects rather than devote an entire day to one.
5. Take Advantage of Available Resources
Educational institutions realize how challenging online learning can be and offer a variety of services to help their students out. Yours likely has an online library. It may also offer tutoring services, academic advice, and psychological support. Everyone involved wants you to succeed, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you need help!
6. Don’t Neglect Your Online Safety
Studying online requires motivation, consistency, responsibility – and a lot of accounts. Every service, from your student email and learning platform to scientific journal databases or grammar checkers, wants you to create a username and password to gain access. Students have more important things to worry about, so they often use the same or easily guessable logins without thinking of the consequences.
These can be dire, though. Data breaches happen constantly, exposing affected users’ personal information, not to mention making their account details public. Reusing the same ones risks access to school resources and stored data.
Installing a password manager beforehand is a sensible precaution. They generate complex and random passwords for each account, so no two are the same. The passwords are stored in encrypted vaults, meaning they’re of no use to anyone if someone steals your device. You can also use browser extensions to set up a Chrome password manager able to sync with the app and provide a more secure autofill than the built-in alternative.
7. Keep Your Relationships Alive
Studying without the physical presence of one’s classmates can be disheartening. It’s also much more challenging to develop meaningful relationships this way. Even so, you should put effort into socializing and making like-minded friends. Join or organize virtual study sessions, plan get-togethers, and attend office hours to engage with peers and faculty members.
8. Know When to Take a Break
Learning might be your most important responsibility right now, but it shouldn’t be all-consuming. Being hyper focused on achieving your goals can lead to burnout and frustration. The only way to prevent these is to balance work with periods of rest, self-care, enjoyment, and relationship cultivation. Don’t think of the occasional night out with friends or time spent on hobbies as wasteful – they’re the breathers you need to keep on track to success.