I Hear E-Learning is a Thing.
When considering whether to travel during online class terms, a good friend encouraged me, saying “I hear eLearning is a thing.” Thanks to productivity skills I developed over years of business travel, I was able to take two week-long trips in the spring semester, one for a board meeting in London and one for a dive vacation in Cozumel, Mexico. I received no absences and completed the term with strong grades.
Though SCAD’s program is very rigorous, it is also quite flexible. Classes are synchronous and are also recorded on Zoom for asynchronous consumption via Kaltura through Blackboard. As long as I participate in the class or discussion board on two separate days, my attendance is counted. Of course, all assignments must be submitted on time in addition to attendance.
For the London trip, time zone differences helped for my 8 AM PDT class lecture.I arrived from SFO at noon, got to my hotel and joined the live Zoom at 4 PM London time before dropping off for a business dinner at 6 PM. I don’t think the professor realized I was in London. I was unable to attend my other 5 PM PDT class live since it was the middle of the night in London. However, that class emphasized theory with extensive philosophical and critical readings. There was ample time on the 11 hour flight from Heathrow to SFO to complete the first draft of a presentation due the following week and to prepare material to post on the discussion as an attendance marker over the weekend.
Traveling to Cozumel for a special dive vacation that my husband booked was more concerning as I was unsure about -internet access. Plus,our time was taken with 3 dives per day and the periodic margarita. We were on vacation, after all. However, I realized that the hotel internet in the room was decent when the other guests were busy in the
pool or with dinner and it was always stable in the hotel lobby. I was able to take notes on reading material offline in Evernote. During the trip, I initiated a zoom conference with a professor to discuss a special project I was preparing during the trip. I left the camera off since I wasn’t “camera ready;” being in vacation mode without makeup and a hair dryer, I didn’t feel the tropical location would send the right message about my seriousness as a student.
My years of leading a sales team with tech companies and working on the road were invaluable on the journey home. We had the “trips from Hades” on the way home with the first leg of our flight from Cozumel to Dallas being routed to Houston, followed by sitting on the tarmac for three hours before being let off the plane at 11 PM. I used the opportunity being locked on the completely full plane in economy, with the man’s seat in front of me reclined, to focus on reading two-weeks of assignments consisting of 60-pages of turgid historical art criticism and taking notes in Evernote in order to be able to post on the Blackboard discussion board once home. The posts on two separate days would count as my class attendance. Years of getting the necessary work done regardless of circumstances applied beautifully to travel while in class at SCADNow online.
In the upcoming fall term, I have a board meeting in Dallas and a friend’s birthday trip in Spain. Given my experience in the spring, I feel confident that I will be able to rise to the occasion of business and personal travel while remaining a diligent online MFA student. All it takes is a bit of planning, focus and fortitude! That eLearning really is a thing like my friend said it was!