My name is Luke Bradley and I am a junior here at Prep. Ever since the first day of school, I have been a virtual learner in the Spirit Cohort. As we know, all of us will be virtually learning from November 23 through at least January 18. In light of this unfortunate fact, I wanted to share my experience as a fully virtual learner for an extended period of time. As with most things, it has its pros and cons.

Let’s start with the pros. The most obvious one is that you are able to sleep in every morning. All you have to do is wake up, roll out of bed, and start class at 8:15. That’s not even taking into account if you have a free first period. You can sit wherever you would like, eat almost whenever you feel like it, and most importantly, you don’t have to wear a mask all day. Another aspect of virtual learning is a decent amount of newfound free time, which I find to be both beneficial and harmful. This can give you a lot more time to get work done, which can relieve a lot of stress; however, it is also true that the more free time someone has, the more likely they are to waste or abuse it. This is an odd, yet accurate paradox.

A true con of virtual learning is being on a computer all day can make it pretty easy to become distracted. I find that the most frustrating of all the cons are the technological issues that are bound to happen. They detract from working and are very annoying, especially if you are missing class.

The cons that I feel have affected me most, however, are the social ones. I was not able to run with the cross country team because I have been fully virtual, yet I am glad that this rule has now changed. Not seeing my peers in person was not ideal, but as you can see, I survived!

It may seem that we will be fully virtual for a decent clip, but in the grand scheme of things it really isn’t that long. Although some students may believe that learning entirely from the comforts of their own homes will be relaxing and desirable, I can assure you that it is not nearly as fun as it sounds. For a few weeks it may prove a nice break, but it threatens to get old very quickly. My main message is that we have to push through this pandemic and to do everything in our power to get back to campus sooner rather than later.

Stay strong. Stay safe. See you soon!