By Kinsey Gibb
From the comfort of their own home, students across the nation are using the web-based video conferencing tool Zoom for their classes.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many universities are offering exclusively online classes, or a blend of virtual and in-person courses for this semester.
The University of Maryland is currently operating with about 80% of their undergraduate courses being offered solely online and many students are taking their classes from out of state.
Charlette Freedberg, a senior broadcast journalism major, is taking all of her classes online this semester.
“My classes meet on Zoom pretty regularly, some of them are bi-weekly, like my Monday-Wednesday classes,” Freedberg said.
Freedberg studies from her house in Gaithersburg, though sometimes she does reminisce about taking classes in College Park.
“I do miss being on campus and things being in person, I really crave that interaction,” she said.
Junior broadcast journalism major Kenan Grier attends online classes at the university from Arlington, Va. using Zoom.
“I hadn’t heard of Zoom before we started having all our classes on it last spring,” Grier says. “Yeah, it just came out of nowhere it feels like.”
UMD pushed all of their classes online in early March and continued to function remotely for the remainder of the spring and summer semesters.
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