In the age of technology, online assignments and sporadic weekly due dates have become the norm for most college students. The use of online assignments has seemingly emerged to an even greater degree since the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Let us tell you, things are getting a little out of hand when it comes to turning assignments in from home.
Grand Valley State University uses a learning management system called Blackboard Ultra to organize class details, homework assignments, tests or quizzes, among other things related to the academic work students do here. Many students make a necessary habit of checking Blackboard multiple times a day to see what assignments professors have uploaded to the site.
During the pandemic, classwork and assignments turned completely virtual. Students no longer worked on printed worksheets or brought their finished papers to class as hard copies, instead, everything shifted to be handled through Blackboard. We believe the shift into the digital world changed the academic landscape negatively for students.
We have noticed a steady increase in workload, even after we have become accustomed to in-person learning again. During the pandemic, many students did not have jobs, so they had a significantly larger amount of time to focus on school. However, many students are back to working one or, more commonly, two jobs to pay for school, and we feel like there has not been an adjustment to account for this change back to in-person schooling.
Professors now often assign weekly assignments to be due on days outside of class, including days that are supposed to be dedicated to personal time- a.k.a. the weekends. We feel that this is a drastic change from the previous structures, where assignments were typically due the next class period.
Majorly, this brings up the issue of less time to work on assignments. In pre-pandemic format, it was commonplace to have things due at the beginning of the next class period. For example, for a Tuesday/Thursday class, a professor might have assigned something Thursday to be due next class period, which would be the following Tuesday. This gives the student roughly five days to complete said assignment. Often many professors lean towards Saturday and Sunday due dates, effectively cutting the students’ work time down by multiple days in some cases. Why is this?
The reality is the emergence and prior necessity of online schooling have changed the way that many professors view assigning work to their students. Those professors no longer feel that it is an unreasonable ask to make an assignment that was given in class due the following day or two.
It is something that we are growing ever more weary of as students who struggle to balance the difficult relationship of work, school and life itself. College is becoming increasingly expensive as tuition rates have increased at an astounding rate, so the sacrifice leans increasingly in favor of work over school, which is an unfair compromise that students are forced to make.
In our opinion, by utilizing unconventional deadlines, students are positioned at a disadvantage. While some professors check in with students regarding assignment progress and utilize flexible deadlines, weekend assignments and deadlines in such a way that disservice students.
Some professors need to be more considerate of their students when it comes to assignment deadlines on days that class is not being held. Many professors constantly express they are on the students’ team and want to ensure they will reach success at the end of their college careers, but forcing students to choose SCHOOL-work over work and their mental health does not feel very “team-like” of professors. For students to reach their highest potential, we think it is necessary to adjust coursework layouts and deadlines to reflect students’ struggles that professors claim to be understanding of- when balancing college life, coursework and due-dates.
