Have you ever wondered what it would be like to a have a semester where the largest class was 19 people? Well, think no longer! Here’s everything you need to know about the lecture-less life.

Listen, I’m sure you can relate to the fact that I’m very tired. This was the third “Don’t worry, it’s only one semester!” online semester, and quite frankly, they’ve all done massive psychic damage to my brain. I’ve completely lost the ability to concentrate, my eyes hurt all the time, I don’t think I’ve properly slept since February 2020, and my diet devolved to just black coffee, salt and vinegar chips, and just…a lot of peanut butter (Vegan legend!). Needless to say, ugh!

So, to switch things up this semester, I decided to cut out everything I hated about last semester: no more science classes; no more evening classes; no more lectures. That’s right: I experienced an entire lecture-free semester simply because I didn’t want to go through the emotional rollercoaster of recitation and two hours of just listening for the rest of my time learning online.

What was it like, you may ask; don’t worry, I’ll tell you. Here are some Pros and Cons of the lecture-less life (or the Triple L, as I liked to call it…for multiple reasons) I’ve written down throughout the semester.

PROS:

• I had no evening classes. Seriously, the latest class I had ended at 2:25 pm EST (my time zone, which was a bonus). On Mondays and Wednesdays, I only had one class, so I had the whole day to do whatever I wanted, from napping to writing, to working more carefully on my homework, to exercising, to just hanging out around the house. I managed, on average, to get everything done by 9 pm at the latest, so I had more time to, you know, not have my brain imploded by school (put a pin on this claim). This point, though the most important for me, is a special case, however: all my classes I had to take just aligned in the morning.
• I had only four classes. Full stop. Right, okay: recitations not counting as a separate class is bullshit. Even though they’re not as long, they still require a lot of thought, preparation, and participation in order to receive a good grade. In fact, the recitation practically is the whole class—the lecture is just the audiobook of your textbook. So, there’s no doubt that when I only took four seminars this semester, I was perfectly content with doing exactly what I was supposed to do. Take four classes! Once my Wednesday morning class was over, I could shelf all my thoughts about that class until Sunday (when I’d do all my homework for Monday). There was no moment this semester of, “Oh! Use your brain for a third time at a time that, even though you said you could show up, is still magically inconvenient for you, making you really grumpy every time you log on to a class that could have been a discussion post.” And that, my friend, was beautiful.
• Canvas Discussion Posts were like…optional? Some of my courses did require the infamous discussion post, yet the rules were much laxer (ex. Only posting once a week and/or having the posts be optional and not count toward your participation grade). I didn’t even have to respond to other people’s posts; now THAT was a gift! After all, since every class was a seminar, the whole class was the discussion post. That being said…
• It was super easy to participate. Every class was formatted like so: mini presentation, initial discussion question, class discussion. Simple. Streamlined. Natural. The readings were incorporated into the overall theme of that day, and we ended up learning a lot. And when it came time to writing essays? Well, since everything was already discussed and debated in class, it was much easier to put my thoughts together. Now that the classes were smaller, and everyone (including myself) asks dumb questions, it’s just easier to exist.
• You can’t get distracted; doing so would be disastrous. By December of last semester, I just ended up treating all my lectures like a podcast, occasionally taking notes while I goofed off on the Internet for two hours. However, by taking only seminars—where participation is required—if I stayed silent and just played sudoku the whole time, I’d look like a fool! Like a clown! Imagine zoning out during a discussion and coming back to everyone talking about a foreign concept; you’d be more lost than those guys on the island in that show about the plane crash (who among us really watched Lost?)! My notebooks are filled, and so is my head. Look at all this knowledge!
• Did I even have exams? So, I’m not sure that I had actual tests. What I did have were over 30 pages of original writing over the course of 12 weeks (ah, the Humanities!), but they all had relatively reasonable due dates, and I didn’t have to talk about everything I learned. I strategically avoided the terrible fate of online, proctored exams, so that’s dope!
• I didn’t spend a single cent on readings. Seriously, every professor I had came into this semester with the following attitude: “No one wants to do seminars online, we have a lot of readings—I’ll just scan everything for you because books are expensive.” Sure, I will admit: all these downloads probably crashed my old computer and caused the hard drive to rot (don’t correct me on this; I’m aware I don’t know anything about computers). However, I’d rather have permanent eye damage from all this UV exposure than have to spend my own money on Carl Schmidt. Jokes aside, I’m going to miss this attitude from professors in the future because free books and limited readings really helped a lot of students with both having the same edition as everyone else and afford to do homework.
• This whole “pandemic” thing forced me to talk more to my professors. Alright, I’ll admit: I’m kind of shy. I don’t like bothering people, and for no reason whatsoever, I always felt kind of embarrassed for showing up to Office Hours. Like, the professor is just sitting there, minding their business, and I’m just standing…in the doorway. However, when everything was online, I’d just click on the fancy Zoom link and say “Hello!” to someone who really wanted a person to show up and talk to them. Plus, since I had no idea what was going on ever, I managed to build my relationships with professors simply by emailing them several questions throughout the week! Yes, COVID let me annoy others into becoming good friends with them, and I think that’s beautiful. <3

CONS:

• So much to write. So much. So, the fun part about seminars that I just noticed is that the professors leading a seminar love a good essay. In fact, they love them so, so, so, so much, that they wanted me to submit one pretty much weekly. And I know: why couldn’t they just do the discussion post? Well, you see, they want the page count. The aesthetics of Times New Roman. The PDF. The “Hey, uhm…can you tell me if I sent it right?” email you only send because you don’t know what else to say except, “Here’s my essay. See you later, Prof,” and you know that you’re just not going to get a confirmation email any other way. The points that just talk in circles because the philosopher you read for class makes no sense at all. It’s not so much the academic writing, but the theatre of it all that has appeal. My professors are lucky that I actually like to write; however, I also like not using up most of my computer’s storage for Word documents and PDF versions of the same essay because some of my professors really liked the PDF format. God knows for what reason…
• Ten million hours of homework, and for what reason, exactly? To reiterate: I only had four classes. Only one class on Monday and Wednesday. Why then, pray tell, did I have to sit down and do my homework for 7 hours uninterrupted in order to finish by dinner? Why did my classes think it was super fun and cool to assign whole books to read in three days? And did every book really require a whole 1-page reflection to be submitted before the next class? Furthermore, the workload, as I noticed about 3 weeks into the semester, was distributed very inconsistently. Sometimes, the professor would assign more work during the week than during the weekend, making it really hard to finish everything when I simply didn’t have the time. Then, the immediate week after, I suddenly have 3 mini-essays, 1 discussion post, and 1 7-page essay all due before Friday. I used to be cool; I used to live with little to no organization of my free time! Now, I have notebooks just LITTERED with checklists and outlines, demonstrating that I became the worst version of myself: a nerd. I managed to do everything, but at what cost? At what cost?!
• All my classes began at 8:40 am EST. Remember when I said I wanted to be less sleep deprived this semester? Yeah, that didn’t pan out. Every day, I woke up grateful that these classes were online, and that I could wake up, walk across the hall, and go to class without having to fully get dressed and go outside. However, this solidified my opinion that 8:40 am classes are the Devil’s classes. Do you know what it’s like to wake up to a class that’s fully in another language every single day? And then, immediately after that, I had ten pounds of homework ready to fall on my back, so I couldn’t even nap? I couldn’t even sleep in on weekends because guess what?! I had essays to write! So, my little head ached the entire semester waiting on that false promise of a good night’s sleep, and seeing that summer semester begins almost immediately after this one, I still won’t get it! Like I said, the only thing keeping me going at this point is a steady stream of coffee and peanut butter.
• No alone time. Ever. Yes, I’m very alone. I didn’t live on campus in the Spring, and none of my close friends live near enough for us to (safely) see each other. HOWEVER, when all your classes require rigorous conversation for multiple hours a week, talking to anyone, either over Zoom or in person, becomes a chore. The thing I noticed the most was that I lost a lot of quiet time this semester, often having to wait until 9 pm to be able to stay in my room and do my own thing. When I wasn’t in class, I was talking to my parents, and when I wasn’t talking to my parents, I was doing homework. Even though I think that any version of an online semester produces this effect, I especially noticed it now. I spent so long in my own head, thinking about my essays, my readings, my participation in class, my clubs, and everything “school,” that I didn’t have the time to indulge in my interests until very late at night. Then, because that was the only time I could truly be alone, I’d stay up really late, which, as I’ve already pointed out, made me go insane! Furthermore, spending all day on Zoom made me too tired to talk to my friends, so I’d go weeks without genuine social interaction. Bottom line: maybe I need a nap. Maybe a hug. Maybe a cup of hot chocolate.
• Did I really have to present all that much? I understand that I signed up for mostly language seminars; I fully agree to the idea that I need to practice my communication and speaking skills if I ever want to become fluent. HOWEVER, could we just like, chill on the super-detailed presentations? I have five minutes to speak, and I’m already not the “Usain Bolt of foreign languages” you think I am, so please do not expect my presentation on some topic as huge as “The Nineteenth Century” (I’m not joking; this was a real presentation I had to do) to be anywhere near comprehensive and/or comprehensible. I think I had to prepare some small presentation or speech almost weekly, and at that point, just start feeding me spoonfuls of honey to compensate my overworking my voice. I am so honored my professors believed in me and my research skills because I genuinely don’t know how I was able to pull any of that off…honestly…
• Three of my four classes were 3-point classes, and that’s fucked up. You just heard me talk about the “boat-stuck-in-the-Suez-Canal”-sized amount of homework; please tell me why these courses have lower point values than they should have. I did more work this semester with four seminars than I EVER did with three lectures and two seminars. It makes absolutely no sense that a class where you don’t speak at all until the recitation has more value than an immersive seminar! Why am I barely a full-time student now; why?! All seminars, no matter the department, should be 4-point classes, and no, I will not hear any reason why they’re not. It makes NO sense!

Final Thoughts:

Would I recommend a lecture-less semester? That depends! I feel like if circumstances were normal, I would have never been seen ever again, as the tides of endless amounts of homework would have swept me away into the horizon. However, online, it was kind of a cool experience! I got to know my professors—who were all desperate for human contact also—in a much more profound way. I studied what I liked and was able to dedicate much more time and care to essays, so I felt like I genuinely deserved the grades I got. However, a lot of the positives depended on circumstance; I don’t think professors would scan every single book and give it to you for free if you lived right next to a Book Culture. Seminars do have a lot of “trapped in a small room with the same 10 people” vibes, but hey: at least these ten people are ones who aren’t my parents.

Now, would I do this again? NO! GOD NO! I took so many L’s that I am currently on my knees begging the universe to just let me have ONE win in 2021 (just one! Please!). I acknowledge that I probably would have had a better time if my classes just started later. And the fact that the GWC-UAW indefinitely canceled two of my classes may have also influenced my opinion. HOWEVER, I want to go back to when the only person teaching the class was the only professional in the room, not a burned out 20-year-old. Most of all, I want a nap!

I Just Want to Go Back to This via Metropolitan Museum of Art