Harsh Vardhan Rai is one of our Student Ambassadors from India. In his latest blog post, he gives us his views on online study during the pandemic. With pros and cons, highs and lows, Harsh has some very interesting opinions on the matter of online learning…
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. -William Butler Yeats
The onset of the pandemic has taken the world by storm, creating ripples of irregularities in the daily life of all individuals, exposed or unexposed. The brittle nature of wellbeing in the challenging times we find ourselves in is a testimony to the fact that health is the greatest treasure one has. The efforts made by mankind to hold its own during these challenging times are truly remarkable. In spite of everything the world has witnessed in the recent past, the desire for learning has not been overcome. With the centres of learning closing down, the mode of education has taken a new step in the direction of electronic learning, which has done its part to help students keep active and aware.
Online learning (photo: SasinParaksa via Canva)
The electronic learning programme does not sound like the most attractive method of imparting education and is supposedly not the best one. The lack of “in-person” interaction with faculty and lecturers can make it difficult to understand what is being taught, with consequent impacts on future concepts. It can also be stated that online learning is perhaps a less informative method of education. Now, keeping university education aside, the outlets for learning that an online learning platform provides are quite impressive. The time lost in travelling to and from college is regained, and it’s nice to be in the comfort of our rooms. This additional time is more than sufficient to develop skills and learn beyond the scope of your curriculum.
Room to grow…
Apart from regular lectures about the course you are pursuing, there are several other routes that can be explored. Several online educators take up multi-disciplinary fields to educate students, and this is a great initiative to expand your knowledge and understand the needs and requirements of the industry. This gives one the opportunity of working on those unfinished projects and ideas and gives them a meaningful shape. Beyond an academic and professional viewpoint, the online portals provide a means of developing extra-curricular skills, which are as important to personality development.
In spite of the regular functioning and performing tasks taking a hit in the pandemic, the use of online resources for self and social development cannot be overlooked. The vast variety of ideas that can be generated, just by surfing the net, or by watching a video is truly remarkable. These facilities open doors to new exciting ventures that can help build an individual and provide means of expressing oneself, in their own unique way.
Harsh is doing an MSc in Computer Science, majoring in Data Science, at Technological University Dublin.