My Experience on Home Studying During Covid-19 Pandemic

 

News about Covid-19 first appeared in Indonesia on March 02, 2020. On that day, I was attending a java programming workshop on campus. In the following days, many lecturers ended up not attending to teach classes due to the news which made the campus even more lonely. After some time, on March 18, 2020, the campus informed that all lecturing activities including practicums and laboratory assistants would be held online until an undetermined time due to the increase in Covid-19 cases in Indonesia. Lecturing is then continued online by using the campus website facilities, namely v-class.gunadarma.ac.id. To be honest, at the beginning of the pandemic and lecturing activities were switched online, I felt uncomfortable because most lecturers only provided material by uploading material in .ppt or .pdf form and providing practice questions to work on within a certain time limit without holding a teleconference to provide an explanation of the material. I have difficulty in time management because suddenly I have a lot of assignments, plus in the fourth week of lecturing activities, the list of supervisors for the essay has come out. Guidance activities for essays were also finally carried out online, I didn’t even meet the supervisor once during the guidance period. Apart from the problem of time management, there are still a number of other reasons that made me feel uncomfortable when doing online lectures at the start of the pandemic. Previously, I never used wifi at home, but during the pandemic, I used the internet more than usual and had to use hotspots from my smartphone to my laptop which made me and my family spend double the internet quota. Things like neighbors playing loud songs, calls from parents to help them, feeling lazy and sleepy are the things that distract me from doing online lectures at home. After adapting to the online system for some time, I was finally able to solve the problems quite well. Starting from the usual I take a shower one time a day and do it in the afternoon, I change it to taking a shower two times a day and I do it in the morning at 7 o’clock and in the afternoon at 4 o'clock. This is done to minimize drowsiness so that I don't feel lazy and sleepy during the day. I also tell my parents the entire lecture schedule including my schedule as an assistant in one of the laboratories on campus so that they don't suddenly come into my room to call me when I'm working on assignments or discussing with my friends. I had to close the curtains several times so that the sound of music from neighbors couldn’t be heard in my room so that the atmosphere remains calm. I also agree with my parents to use wifi so that expenses to buy internet quota can be more economical. After being able to solve these questions, finally I was able to carry out lecture activities smoothly and comfortably for the rest of the 6th semester until the next two semesters, and I was even able to test my baccalaureate degree on time on August 13, 2020. For lecturing activities, I actually prefer if the lecturer teaches offline which can be more flexible in explaining the courses they teach. But if it has to be done online, at least the lecturer can hold a teleconference which can explain face-to-face, and lecturing activities become more interactive because there is two-way communication.