Last year,  I wrote a Year-In-Review about how my first year of college took a completely unexpected turn when COVID erupted, forcing myself and every other University of Cincinnati student to do online schooling. Here we are one year later, and COVID is still a problem, and we are still doing school virtually. At this time last year, I was terrified. I was scared that online school would be a huge challenge for me, as I had never done online schooling and was not sure what to expect. When it came time for my first full semester of online classes in Spring 2021 (I was on co-op in Fall 2020), I realized that my fear came true, as online school challenged me not only academically, but also mentally. 

​

The transition to online school was extremely tough for me at the start of the Spring semester. I had a severe lack of motivation, as it was easy to get distracted during class and just get on my phone, and it was also easy to not attend class at all and just stay in bed. This was making my courses incredibly difficult for me, as I could not get a good grasp on the material without paying attention in class. At the same time, I started feeling lonelier than I had ever felt before. Being virtual for classes, it made it much more difficult to meet new friends and form relationships. I am a person who really struggles to be alone all the time, so the semester was taking a huge toll on my mental health. A few weeks into the semester, I finally decided that I need to do something before I start to really fall behind and let COVID win the war. 

​

I started to go out of my way to reach out to other students in my classes either through social media or through group chats that have Aerospace Engineering students in them. To my surprise, it was very easy to start talking to them and begin to form relationships. Not only did we form study groups where we could help each other with homework, we also became friends and started meeting in person to hang out and take a break from academics. My mental health and my grades began to rapidly improve soon after I started reaching out to other students and making friends. We motivated each other to pay attention during class and to stay on top of our homework and studies, and I was able to finish the semester with a 4.0 GPA even though it started off so rough. 

​

Here I am now at the start of my summer semester of classes, and I am once again lacking a lot of motivation for classes. This time it is mainly due to the fact that so many of my friends are not in engineering and are enjoying their summer while I am stuck doing online classes. However, I am not going to let this hold me back. I am going to continue to work with other students also on classes so that we may hold each other accountable and support each other over Summer and for the upcoming semesters. The Spring semester was challenging, but at the same time it was a great opportunity for growth and a chance to build resiliency that I can keep with me for the rest of my academic and professional career.

​