I am thirty minutes out from the start of my online course. This is our second online session. I hope this one goes better than the last. Maybe it ‘s just me or perhaps every first day goes like that. Today I am struggling to stay awake and remain alert. I am forcing my body to be young and my mind to be nimble. I am 40 and all that stuff faded long ago. I have to use my resources to focus to do most everything now. So tonight I find myself surrounded by things to make me feel ready. A mug of something hot that isn’t coffee, a heating pad for my back, a neck massager, a vat of chewing gum and an arsenal of completely unnecessary school supplies. I have also done some stretches and used the exercise ball at my side. This is a multipurpose room. I also have three alarms set to get myself prepared in time. I have studied and taken notes when I had nothing assigned to study or notate. I am trying to be the student that applies oneself in a virtual environment of pseudo learning. And of course with all my preparation, they are beginning late. I guess this is how it works now.
Forgive me but I am more of student of life than a real life academic. I have already squandered away my last chance at an authentic collegiate experience. At a young age, I went out of state to an art school. It was a failed attempt to be different. I barely lasted the first semester. I then began to work for a satellite campus at a hometown university. The work was boring and the pay disappointing but the consolation prize was a free education. There I switched into a major that would get me out of that admissions office and somewhere better than retail or childcare. While supporting students and servicing customers always paid the bills, it was all so taxing on the body and a distraction from my minds true potential. I felt stifled and I knew if I completed at minimum my bachelors degree I would be taken seriously in any career. Well I quit that too albeit not voluntarily. I got ill and with that I lost all my progress, money and hope. Later I was admitted to a private school with a program for working adults. But in the midst of orientation I realized their admissions team didn’t really support me and I couldn’t afford it. I walked the campus for a day, got my ID and dropped all my missing credit fulfilling electives on my phone. I began paying my earlier debt off and forgetting about any scholarly dreams. Besides I was now making what a degreed professional would make anyways. I had earned it.
Fast forward to now, well two years ago, when I found myself hunkered down at home. Now married and living abroad, I hadn’t worked in over three years. I rather enjoyed having a purposeless life imagining children would come. Things took a turn when that didn’t happen as planned and Covid became the decider of whens and what ifs. I immersed myself in the wonders of the internet and endless library loans. Time seemed endless during those first lockdowns. There was Zoom and Clubhouse and Facebook Groups … so many things to sink deeper into my isolation while also connecting to an outside world — — a world that seemingly didn’t exist until then. I felt purpose again. A calling. An itch. There were so many free and open forums discussing everything I loved … prepping, supply chain, baking and food. It was so enlightening for me as a trailing spouse. It didn’t matter that I was a lowly housewife or an uneducated, former retail worker. My voice was being heard without being lost in translation. I was a contributor of solutions to the world’s current problems, in a forum where I could be heard anytime and everywhere.
With the virus never going away now being claimed as a permanent disease, an endemic phenomenon — I sunk my teeth into being a master of none. I became a keyboard warrior vying for space as a driver for change. A freedom fighter. A nightingale. A part of the resistance. Just as important as those making family of four meals for under $20 and those trading kale for instant yeast. I was staying safe yet active in a community of people that needed me. And I was doing this with no credentials or expertise. I felt a need, I inserted myself and I never looked back. Then it occurred to me that I could get my flowers and smell them too. I could be the real thing if I dedicated myself. Besides the educators and tastemakers were all on furlough too and they were sharing the ins and outs of everything online. It may not have been official to learn by association, also in the midst of crisis but it was a stepping stone to access what was out there. Surrounded online by academics and scholars, I could fake it until I made it. I could pick up the lingo and soak up the tidbits to be apart of the systems that controlled supplies, lifestyle and food. And when the world opened again I could step into these places abreast of what was needed. I could be the person I always wanted to be. A learned, published, producing member of society. I could leave a legacy in some uncertain terms without the traditional methods like college by 21 or children before 30. And at 40, I was still young and perfectly capable of being sought after for the worlds current needs.
Most of the calls for papers and food systems fellowships were asking for students to participate. They wanted your university affiliation or you had to be apart of an age bracket I left behind in a past century. I wanted the accolades but I didn’t qualify. And the Zoom talks and LinkedIn newsletters didn’t lend themselves to an already too long and disjointed existing resume. Voluntarily learning isn’t like volunteering or working in a field. Schools worldwide were competitive yet closed. Most of the programs that interested me had really, small rosters and immediate deadlines for enrollment I couldn’t meet. These programs could barely keep expectations themselves. With the world shut off it would be hard to access old transcripts and all the stuff needed to start. Thankfully, an instructor in a world of online whose who’s asked if anyone would be interested in a free, full course experience. It was the first time I saw anyone as an option alongside free. And I figured I could take this course and see if I was ready to sign myself up for a full program later this year or the next. Everything seemed well organized and thought out. And the course married a lot of my new found interests. I bought colorful notebooks. I had an entire meltdown reclaiming office space in our homes catchall room from my husband. I began to tell others I was going back to school although not really. I was proud that my diligence and hard work had gotten me into circles where I could access the spaces I had longed for.
Then the class began…
The week prior I attempted to stay up. For me, the class begins after midnight and runs until 2am. Figuring the course would be entirely online, I expected for others to be joining internationally too. I often stay up for the occasional TV show or streamed concert and managed that. This was a struggle though. Not knowing what to expect, I prepared for being on camera, or speaking whilst taking notes and doing course work. I pulled out an old set of 3.5mm headphones, adjusted the desk lighting and played with the acoustics. By the time I got that all together, I was yawning and barely able to withstand the screen time without doing an actual online course. I creeped into bed with blurred vision and shame. I was discouraged before things even started. The night of, I struggled to maintain interest in my normal routine because I needed to stay awake and undistracted. I had a long phone call to occupy the primetime waiting, then took a late shower and ate a midnight snack. I had to update my Zoom and check my email a few times before I got into the right room. I sat waiting for over ten minutes after the start imagining I was being looked at and or heard fumbling around into the 21st century. With both headphones in trying not to wake the breadwinner in the house or disturb the class with a dog snoring at my feet, I was blasted with music as the course began. Apparently, a normal thing as the instructors and professors tap in. I expected an elite group of students from all over the world and it was instead an army brigade mostly in or around main campus. And most students had already had access to course materials and there was no real introduction or orientation. Although late the lecturing began instantly as well as the other additions to online learning that I had no clue about.
Back in my day the kids had a proprietary portal for discussions and a link to Turnitin. The way you finessed the course participation grade was started the discussion and answered the first or last question proposed by another student. This was so the professor wouldn’t engage you. You also could turn that work in at 11:59:59 on a Sunday night and not concern yourself with the outcome. I also had one or two online courses and it was a world less traveled by serious students who preferred learning in classroom. It was something I succeeded at considering my major and interests. I was the girl who tutored the distance or working student who couldn’t quite fathom how learning was possible without a visual on a whiteboard and a professor doing their job. I used to work three jobs, go to physical class and maintain a social life. I hardly slept and soared through higher education until my body said no more. But my mind was never tired from all that hard work. Now my mind was tired. There were multiple instructors. There were multiple links for different platforms we were forced to show participation in real time. All the while the lecturer was non-stop, along with slides and I had to keep up to take proper notes. At the end of that two hours I was so exhausted I couldn’t believe that for most students this would have been their third course of the day and that they did this over and over. Most frightening thought of all, they were paying for that torture. The icing on the cake was that the recording would be uploaded tomorrow. So if I wanted to log in and promptly log off, I certainly could have.
Here I was studying something that actually interested me, once a week, from the comfort of my home and for free. There was also the loophole of limited participation and catching the lecture later on YouTube. I had to remember a great majority had to focus in a dorm or a shithole apartment, all day for years and at an exorbitant cost. And if I considered this one engagement to be long, chaotic and tiring imagine what Algebra or Biology was like? The virtual raising of hands, the ones too lost to keep up, typing into the wrong box or not able to find their random generated group. The shock of being told the three credits are only applicable if you are able to do in person once a week on top of the online course study. And what about those who interned all day at some firm or after the course had to show up to work as a server. In my case, dinner was served and the dog was walked. I could sit there and absorb all if wanted to and still get a good nights rest. I imagined the college students of today were really getting a bad hand of cards. Of course the pandemic didn’t help but the deterioration of in person learning and the self-application of study was all their dilemma now at cost. And I said to myself I would never pay for such a disservice. I mean even if I did continue to study, considering my immigration and situation — it would be free for me. Only then could I overlook the sad state that higher education is today. While I learned a lot in those two hours — not every student is capable of picking up on those golden nuggets and utilizing that free thought and self-discipline to succeed. A lot of people including adults need hands-on education to retain knowledge and apply it effectively.
Seriously, with all my preparedness and dry run at this … I still found it quite strenuous. I also thought wow these professors are seriously winging it. I don’t get access to the same student resources. I do not see the assignments, need to do quizzes or read any of the required articles. So without seeing the syllabus or being able to network with students to even peek into their world, I see this from a chaotic lens. There is a frenzy for students to acclimate, be heard, stand out, succeed and balance all at the same time. The adults in the room, the lecturers, adjuncts and professors are in a frantic crunch too. You can hear the switch in cadence and the constant ums trying to fill up that short time span with everything required to teach in this new world. There is the course then housekeeping, technical support, ethics, values, social justice, identity politics and exuding a likable personality in under two hours. They too are turning it on multiple times a day per week. Plus they have other work in their fields, are raising families, cooking meals and walking the dog too. They must be exhausted. At the end of the day the majority of these professionals were and still are perusing the same online spaces I was. They are looking for inspiration, motivation, content and contributors. I found out about the course doing the exact same thing. I cannot help but wonder are they pulling resources from laymen like me? Are they not being supported by faculty and alumni especially in these fringe programs like urban planning or gender studies? Are they winging it because there is no playbook for this precedent of teaching during a pandemic? How many students are disappointed, discouraged or defeated by this when they should be impressed? Again, I am so grateful to be included but I am disillusioned myself. All of this for a piece of paper that may not be of interest when all of this blows over. If teachers can barely teach, what is there for us who learn?
Granted, I have learned more in two weeks than I have in a lifetime. Moreso about myself than food democracy. There are about six more weeks to go. We have been promised that we all will walk away with the tools to be contributors in society. We will have all of our questions answered. We will know and understand all the buzz words. We will be able to break bread with those who make our bread. And I am eager to know what that feels like. And I hope that this small sacrifice in time and challenge to my mental stamina affords me a new path in life. If not a completion of my bachelors degree at least the ability to answer the call to papers. If not the consideration of academic fellowship, the fellowship of those considered. And perhaps me being a part of something like this will send me in an entirely different direction. Back to higher ed, in a support role but with a better understanding. An entirely new alignment to a modern, unique student body. I’ll nourish my soul by feeding the minds of all those hungry for change.
