It has now been four weeks since the University of Michigan-Flint made the decision to transition all of our courses to remote coursework. While this sudden change proposed challenges and opportunities for faculty and students alike, we asked some of our Graduate Student Ambassadors how they are handling their newfound remote learning environment.
As an MBA student at UM-Flint enrolled primarily in mixed-mode NetPlus courses which consist of online coursework alongside two weekend residencies, adjusting to online-only learning has been a mixed bag. On one hand, I am grateful to be able to continue my education uninterrupted and ensure that I can earn my MBA degree on schedule. On the other hand, I really looked forward to getting together with my classmates and professors for the weekend residencies where we could put faces to names and allow our personalities to come through during the in-class sessions. Now that I look back at my calendar and take the time to reflect, it’s interesting how much of an emotional role the two weekend residencies played in my NetPlus MBA experience; like mini working vacations where instead of getting away from people, I looked forward to getting together with them. When all is said and done, however, I am glad that the state of Michigan and UM took the responsible step to institute the necessary measures to keep us all safe.
My professors moved quickly and competently to address the change, especially since the social distancing directive came as we were about to set off for our second weekend residency. Each of my professors did something different. One of them cancelled a presentation we had planned and adjusted the grading scheme accordingly and another requested that we deliver our presentations using Bluejeans. I was actually quite pleased with the balance created by the situation, as it is actually a lot more work to plan for and to deliver a group project presentation on Bluejeans than it is to simply stand in front of the class and talk. It may seem counter intuitive, but anytime you add technology and distance to the equation and combine that with group dynamics, it complicates things dramatically. I would not have wanted to have two separate group project Bluejeans presentations back to back, that’s for sure! Beyond the last-minute changes my professors had to institute for the residency, everything else has been quite smooth and, if anything, more accommodating in terms of some flexibility afforded in small ways by a few of my professors, which has been quite welcome given all of the stress and emotional exhaustion caused by this pandemic.
In the MBA program, online learning is a little different from class to class. For some, it involves watching pre-recorded lectures. For others, it involves reading textbooks and going over slides and in my negotiations class, it involves weekly meetings with classmates on Bluejeans. In all of my classes, we engage in team-based projects which means a lot of coordinating and communicating using email, text chat, Bluejeans, Google docs/sheets/slides and so forth. If anything, online learning more closely mimics the type of work one does in the type of reality we are living in now: one that is socially distanced yet productive nonetheless.
Raymond Pirouz is a current MBA student from Port Huron.