Online education for international students in the USA

Online education for international students in the USA

The Pandemic of 2020 has literally forced us to go online and online education for international students in the US will continue to be the temporary new norm this fall for most colleges. Everybody is used to online shopping and streaming live concerts and movies, and some have already managed to celebrate their birthdays or other events by Skype and  Zoom .

Education is one more important part of our life that had to move to the virtual space. Only several years ago, distance education was not even taken seriously. Online webinars and study checklists were associated with self-development and life coaching more than with academic disciplines. But Coronavirus outbreak made online education widespread as universities have to halt face-to-face teaching and switch to online studies.

Nobody knows for sure how long online education for international students in the USA will last.  But it is already quite obvious that students will only be able to meet their teachers online this fall and quite possibly into spring 2021. Online education for international students in the USA may appear quite challenging. Studying online with no physical atmosphere of the college auditorium is already an unusual experience. But when the class is spread all over the world with no possibility to establish regular contact and relationship, the whole experience of college life may be compromised. Online education also requires a certain level of self-discipline and time management. All the natural stimuli of everyday college routine disappear when you are left one-on-one with your computer only. Let’s go over some tips that may help you regulate your online learning and benefit as much as possible from online lectures and seminars.

Get prepared

The online education process requires certain equipment that needs to be arranged before the actual studies start. You should make sure that you have a functioning computer and a stable Internet connection. If you have any problems, you should announce this to your college beforehand. Sometimes colleges and universities rent or provide necessary equipment for their students. You should also think about arranging yourself a quite and comfortable place where you can study without any destruction.

Create an environment

We all have a certain vision of the studying process that helps us to get into a proper mood. To succeed in online learning, try to create an appropriate atmosphere at home. Build a clear timetable and stick to it like if somebody is supervising you. Take a pen and make notes. Yes, you can always replay the video lecture, but taking notes, as you would do at an actual class will set you in a proper mood and minimize destructions. Do some reading before the lecture to have a general understanding of the topic. Asking teachers a question might be a bit more complicated when he or she is located on another continent; therefore you want to be prepared for every lecture.

Keep in touch with your teachers

The fact that you and your teacher are located miles away from each other does not mean that you should not communicate. Even during online studying, a lecturer is not an inanimate part of the learning process. He or She is your mentor, who wants to make sure that every student keeps up with the learning process and does not struggle with any issues. A regular college routine involves meeting your teacher during office hours. This is the moment when you can ask all the important questions or share your concerns. You can still do it using e-mail and messengers. Online education is as new for your lecturer as it is for you. Therefore the administration and teachers of your college need to get relevant feedback from students.

Communication is important

Social life might be an even more important aspect of the college period than studying itself. International students of the USA Colleges who have to study online this fall might seem quite left out now. Fortunately, modern technologies allow us to make new friends and communicate all over the world. Use Skype or Zoom to create group chats where you can meet and get in touch. It is also a great way to build study groups to make sure that you keep up with your studies and work on course projects and papers together.

Build your routine

One of the best features of online education is that now you don`t have to stick to the “9 AM to 5 PM” routine. Some people are most productive in the morning, while others perform best in the afternoon. It does not matter when you start and finish your studies every day. But it very important that your schedule meets the main parameters:
 You achieve your everyday goals. To make the most out of your online education divide the whole learning process into smaller sections and set studying goals every day. This will help you not to be all over the place and control the learning process easier.
 You take regular breaks. There is a reason you have breaks in your offline studies. They help you make a switch and rest your brains before accepting new information. It might seem in the beginning that studying online you would achieve more by spending maximum time at your desk. But researches prove that when we are focused on one activity without breaks for a certain time, our brain looses concentration. Do you know the feeling when you read the same paragraph several times and do not understand the content? This is exactly the case. Regular 15 min breaks will help you reboot your brain and prepare it for a new portion of information.

It is still hard to say when US education will return to regular studies. At the same time, there are several certain positive tendencies in online education especially for international students of American colleges. Therefore some Features of online studies might follow us in the post-Coronavirus era. Anyway, when you cannot change the situation itself, you should try to change your vision of the situation. Online studying might seem quite challenging in the beginning, but after we learn to work out a certain schedule and establish contact with your teachers and fellow-students, online education will simply become a perfect solution for American and international students.