In this post I want to write about how my online courses are working and how I’m dealing with them from a huge distance. But I also want to talk about something „off topic”, which is actually not off topic, but not about my modules at UL. But I think it would help me to talk about all of this and then move on to the online classes field. So I hope it’s okay if I share some personal feelings and thoughts with you now about what happened with me in the last weeks.
So first probably everyone can relate with the online studying and working stuff as we got into this whole crazy situation. Everyone’s life now turned up-side down and it’s a challenging time for all of us. I have never experienced something like this in my life, it was always so natural to go wherever I want, meet whoever I want as log as I want and not stand in one meter distance from my friends and loved ones. To go crowded places but now this is the scariest thing what could happen to us. I don’t really want to talk about this thing because we are all familiar with them so let’s just move on why I am doing my UL classes from Hungary now.
It was only three weeks ago when we started to realize we won’t have a tipical study abroad experience as some of the international students got an email from their home universities about going home as soon as they can and the University of Limerick announced that they will close the campus and we’ll have our classes online probably for two weeks. Then I already felt so disappointed because some of my friends had to leave and because the school what I’m here for and I enjoyed is closed. But then I was still positive and we were just planning with my flatmates what we are going to do in this two weeks, going to visit some places in Ireland and try to have as much fun as we can. We had no idea that some days later all of these would change. To be accurate it’s all changed each day. So a bit more than two weeks ago UL sent us an email that they highly reccomend to all the international students to return to their home countries as soon as possible as borders might close and all the transport would stop. And it was look like the campus couldn’t open anymore in this semester. So then it wasn’t a question for my parents that they wanted me home. And I really understood them but everything was so sudden. In one day we faced with the fact that our Erasmus experience what we prepared a lot for and waited for it so much and enjoyed so much just finished after two months. It supposed to be four months. Maybe a bit more as most of us planned to stay in the country longer and travel as much places as we can. But then we had to pack our semester and leave so quickly and say goodbye to all of our friends. I don’t want to complain there is no one I can blame it for, I’m just so dissapointed and heartbroken because as you may already know from my previous posts I liked the education here and now I can tell you I loved the country so much and both the Irish and international students I was surrended with. And I can’t help it but I feel it so unfair. But I know that was the most clever idea in a situation like this and I’m trying to be satisfied with all the experiences I had in these 2 months.
So after I arrived back to Hungary I was still under the influence of the previous days but school was going on and I had to get back to studying. As almost in whole Europe the classes are online in Hungary too now. I have an insight how it is going because of my sister, my friends and of my mother as well as she is a teacher in a secondary and primary school. And all I can say is Hungary wasn’t at the top of the online learning and technological stuff but what I see in my environment is that everyone is trying so hard to get to use to the situation and try to get out the best of their opportunities. It makes me happy too because from September I have to get back to the Hungarian education system, moreover I have to do three exams in this semester at my home university too, so how things are going matters for me too, but as it was such a new thing here we still have to develop a lot. I don’t know if UL already had an experience of online modules but I know that online communication was going pretty well, it was a huge part of our studies and they have a really good system so they have everything for a well going online education. And they were so prepared from the very beginning and started to deliver the classes online even before the campus closed.
Now I got back to the normal studying routine for two weeks and to be honest I feel more overwhelming than going to the school physically. We have to write a lot of emails and upload a lot of things and for me it’s just hard to keep all the things I have to do in my mind. In normal school days usually I left the school stuff behind when I got out from there, I mean of course I had to study and do the projects at home but it wasn’t in my head all day every day and being home meant that I can have a rest. But the teachers do everything to make it easier for us and personally they are very patient with me. So they are really help us out in everything. And the system is working really well too so we have all the opportunities to get out the best of a bad situation. So even if I feel like I’m full of assignments we still have the same interesting classes and tasks like we had before it started. And I feel friendly (it’s probably not the best expression) that the lecturers contact us via videochat and it makes it feel more comfortable and personal which is really needed these times. Of course it’s not the same but compared to the situation everything is enjoyable.
In the next post I want to write more about how this type of studying going now and some exercises what I had since my classes are online and I enjoyed so much.
Until then, stay safe everyone!
Journalism studies in Ireland 