Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease that causes a respiratory illness similar to the flu. In December 2019 the Coronavirus emerged in the city of Wuhan, China, this disease has spread worldwide and all 50 states have reported COVID-19 cases. March 2020 the state has implemented a mandatory quarantine and social distancing to slow down this pandemic. Schools have been moved to online for the rest of the semester, only essential workers are to remain working and others have the opportunity to work from home.
Three weeks into quarantine my daily routine has changed immensely. I no longer have to wake up 2 hours before my class and sit in 30 plus minutes of traffic to get to school. Since I requested to work from home during this time, I can do my office work in the comfort of my own home. One day of staying up late to study and not having to wake up early the next day to go to school/work has messed up my sleep schedule. Now I stayed up until 5 am and wake up 3:30 pm the same day. Thankfully my classes do not require me to log in during regular class hours, therefore I can do my work at my own time. If we had to go back to school next week I don’t think I would be able to fix my sleep schedule in time.
In the past, I only took one online class along with regular in-person classes and I did not find it a problem with the course work. To be successful in passing online classes is to have a strict study method. However, being stuck in my house every day it is hard to focus on studying since all I want to do is sleep. This is my first semester as a full-time Manoa student so I can not afford to fail classes since my GPA is starting at zero. Before all our classes were moved online, only ICS 314 has required “online” work during the week so it was easy to keep up with the course work. With all my classes moved to online I feel like my eyes have been glued to the computer screen 24/7. Along with taking the “hardest class” also known as ICS 311 Algorithms, I was debating if I wanted to drop that class since that class takes a lot of time learning the contents and my study habits are slacking due to the change in our schedule.
Most student workers are not considered “essential workers” so a lot of the on-campus student workers are out of a job during this time. I was lucky to be able to request to work from home for the rest of the semester. I try to put in the same amount of hours I normally do but it is hard to keep it up along with my online classes. The first week was hard to adjust since my mom is also working from home and her job requires her to hardwire the internet to her work laptop. I wouldn’t be able to connect to our home wifi so I would use my hotspot on my phone to gain internet access. Eventually, I got impatient with my work not loading so now I wait to use our home wifi after my mom is done with work. With the social distancing, we now have to do, I feel myself slowing going insane since I like going outside and doing fun activities with my friends. Before this quarantine, I would not see my parents as much due to late-night studying at school but since I am home every day I am glad I can spend more time with them.