Times are different right now. I would have never imagined myself ever having to attend college from home on a full time basis. The distractions are everywhere, from my phone buzzing, to my dog jumping on me while I write a story, and the doorbell ringing from the delivery driver dropping off packages at my door-step from the online shopping that I’ve been doing. The motivation is hard to find during the pandemic lock down, especially while being at home. My work schedule has adjusted dramatically in order to comply with the CDC guidelines which has certainly affected my ability to attend online lectures.

I recall going into the semester full of motivation, I knew it was going to be my last semester at Mt. Sac and I had to do well in my classes to be able to transfer out. The first few weeks I remember thinking to myself how much fun the semester was going to be. I was going to be a part of the PR class which is something that I was looking forward to doing. We were supposed to take on a small business and make a PR campaign for the business, but unfortunately before we were able to do that, the pandemic happened. The same goes for my statistics class. Stats was the class that I was the most focused on before the pandemic. I was going to tutoring every day on campus at the MARCS center because I needed to pass stats. Now I am forced to learn stats at home, on my own from watching a lecture online. It has been very difficult thus far, and I certainly do not have the same motivation I had from when I went into the semester.

The distractions at home make it very difficult to attend school online. It seems that anytime I take a seat to work on an assignment, I have my dog at my door begging to come into my room. As soon as I let him in, he jumps on my lap and does not let me work. My biggest distraction however would have to be my cellphone. When I would attend class in person, I always put my phone away, either in my pocket, or my backpack. I now have become addicted to my phone and it never leaves my side. I pick it up for any notification I get and somehow I sometimes end up browsing Amazon, or Youtube for hours. It is a very bad habit that I need to break.

The most difficult thing about having to go to school from home now has become balancing school with work. My job is aware that students are taking online classes and they have adjusted my hours to what the business needs. That means that I am now working when I should be taking online classes, which forces me to watch recordings of the lectures. I have found this to be a bit challenging, because some professors begin recording the lecture late, or some have even forgotten to record the lecture all together.

Adjusting to attending college at home has been a challenge. I have been able to manage it as of now, and with the semester coming to an end soon, I hope everything goes back to normal sooner rather than later.