Although students have mixed feelings about the current semester getting moved online, things seem to be going smoothly despite all the chaos. With about two weeks left in the semester, students are getting down to business and preparing to finish a semester that took an unexpected turn after spring break. However, once this semester ends, a new one will rise for some students choosing to take summer classes. With the growing concern of student safety surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the summer 2020 semester will continue online as well.
On April 2, an email was sent out by President Broderick stating that due to Governor Northam’s order for Virginians to stay home until June 10, the semester must be organized for remote instruction for all summer sessions. This has caused people to have no other choice but to adjust to the widely used video calling platform “Zoom” which is being used for teleworking and to also conduct online classes for school.
The university will be offering 3,000 undergraduate and graduate courses to take this summer, each occurring at a different time. The May semester will be the first wave of classes and will be happening from May 12 until the 29, making it the most condensed “semester”. After the Maymester, the next session will take place from May 18- June 27, followed by two more semesters going all the way until the last session ending on August 7.
President Broderick has encouraged people to take summer classes despite the challenges that may come with the fact that this won’t be a traditional way of teaching. Broderick believes that “summer provides an ideal time for incoming freshmen to get a head start, current students to get ahead, transfer students to enroll, and professionals to update their skills”. In addition to this change, all summer classes happening abroad have been postponed or cancelled.
Just like every student has had to adjust to the spring semester being moved online, the summer semester will require some time to get adjusted to as well. This time in our history will never be forgotten, but it will certainly prove how strong monarchs can come together to get through adversity.
