Every summer, colleges and universities across the country offer courses for high school students that allow exploration in a variety of fields through classes a high school might not typically offer.

It goes without saying that these programs rely heavily on in-person classes and lectures in order to give students the best learning experience. Obviously, however, in-person experiences seem far from possible at the moment. 

  San Luis Obispo High School Seniors Hayden Ventrella and Kaylie Halls were both planning on taking some of these university classes on campus this summer. However, due to campus closures, these courses will now be offered online. Expressions asked Ventrella and Hall how they think their experiences will differ now that they will be taking their courses online.

  Expressions: What courses were you planning on taking and through what schools?

   Senior Hayden Ventrella: I’m taking two courses through Brown University: Current Issues in Feminist Philosophy and Writing for College and Beyond.

  Senior Kaylie Hall: I’m taking a Digital Filmmaking course through UCLA.

  Expressions: How do you think taking the course online and at home will affect your takeaway?

  Ventrella: I don’t feel it will necessarily negatively affect my takeaway from the course content wise, but it will definitely affect my takeaway toward the interaction part of the course, like with hearing other peoples’ ideas and opinions and doing group work. That’s what I was looking forward to.

  Hall: It definitely won’t be the same experience, because one of the really appealing aspects of the summer program is that you’re able to go on campus and use their professional equipment, but now we have to do this at home, so we’ll be using our phones instead, which is a whole different thing. I understand that we’ll still be able to learn about storytelling and other aspects of filmmaking, but having access to professional equipment was a huge benefit of the original program.

  Expressions: What experiences or things were you looking forward to that you now can’t get from an online course?

  Ventrella: I was looking forward to getting out of California for a while and having the ‘college’ experience before college. I could have been living in dorms, taking interesting classes, and meeting new and different people from all over the country with similar interests to me.

  Hall: I’m really going to miss making friends. I guess I’ll still meet people through the course, but it definitely won’t be the same because we won’t be spending every hour of every day together like we would have been.

  Hopefully next summer students can expect to take courses in person and on campus, but for now online school will have to be dealt with.