My Online Winter Term Experience

My Online Winter Term Experience Like many other students at the University of Illinois, I took advantage of a great opportunity the University of Illinois has to offer during the winter break… An online winter term course! In just a little over three weeks, I completed ATMS 120 (Severe and Hazardous Weather). I watched video lectures, completed challenge problems, and interacted with other students in a virtual discussion board. It was like a regular class, but from home. So, you may be asking, what are these style of classes actually like? While every experience will be different depending on the student, you may see this option as advantageous. Here was my personal take away from my winter course: If you are a self-motivated student with good time-management skills, winter classes are definitely something to look into! With my online class, our professor gave us several due dates, and students were expected to watch the video lectures, do the reading, and finish assignments for each unit by a specific due date. This means that you chose when you were “in class,” and if you wanted to finish a week of assignments early, you could. Another thing I learned from my experience was that it takes a LOT of time to fit a whole semesters worth of coursework into a little over three weeks! If you work hard, and if you begin the course with an understanding of the time commitment you are signing up for, winter term courses are a great way to fit a class that you are not able to complete in a normal semester into less than a month. Now that I am on the other side of those three weeks, I would say that I am grateful for the opportunity, and I am glad I pushed through it. Now that I have finished that class, I am done with two more general education requirements at the University of Illinois, and am one more step towards graduating on time! I hope my experience helped you have a better understanding of what goes into working through an online winter term class. If you have any more questions about winter term, please feel free to comment below. Maybe you’ll see the benefit in signing up the next time the weather starts to turn cold! Until next time, I-L-L! Lydia Class of 2021 My major is Instrumental Music Education within the College of Fine and Applied Arts. I'm also part of the Marching Illini! Before moving to Urbana, I lived in Collinsville, Illinois, where we are known for some killer Italian food and the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle.