The Digital, The Physical & Me
Shifting from Online to Offline
Hi there! This week on Psychology with Arjun, I bring you a personal story, instead of the usual scientific ones. These last couple of weeks, I started attending my offline college classes after a 1.5 year wait for them to start. It has been quite an experience and one that I feel deserves a story of its own. I am sure that many of my readers have been experiencing the same things as I have and I would love to hear from you what your lives have been like.
The Familiar Hurry
The story starts last Tuesday when I was rushing up an escalator to catch a Metro to Kashmere Gate which is where my college is. This was the first time I was travelling there by metro and the first time I was going to attend a class. I had been dreading/looking forward to this day ever since I got into Ambedkar University and the day was finally here.
I managed to squeeze past in just in time at 10 AM for my class scheduled at 11. Now a 50-minute ride awaited me in the famed Delhi Metro. I had been travelling in the metro throughout my undergraduate days and this was the first time I got back on the tracks ever since COVID-19 entered our lives. The metro seemed familiar but now with added stickers on it, asking people to keep their masks on. A warning that was being conveniently ignored by a few.
The whole journey from my home to my class took me 90 minutes and I was immediately lamenting the distance between the two places. “Why have I done this to myself? Why could I not get a place closer to home?” I thought to myself as I rushed into the class with a layer of sweat and dust and smoke on my face. Thankfully my teacher was late.
I couldn’t have experienced any of this in online classes. The morning rush, the push to make it to class on time, the joy of catching a metro just at the right moment and the pain of the metro shutting its doors just a few meters in front of you. Online classes offer a lot, but they don’t offer this.
This is pretty much how my week has been since. Rushing, rushing and more rushing. Yes, I am probably not very good with time-keeping but I will put that down to rustiness.
The Joy of The Other
I will be honest. I had not been a very active classmate in my current batch thus far. I have been studying with these 50 people for the last year and a half now. I have panicked at deadlines with them and lamented at the things we missed out on due to the virus…and yet, I could never feel connected to anyone.
It was as if the people I shared my class with were limited to being a small part of the screen on my laptop or my phone. A screen that I could tuck away in my pocket while I worked out or just mute while I watched a show. Until now, it had never felt like I was sharing my space with other actual people. We were all pretty far away and I was probably further away than most, not just geographically but psychologically.
Seeing everyone in class together changed that for me. I remember the first day I got into the class and I was trying to name everyone I saw.
“Yes, I remember working with this person on a PPT once.”
“That girl helped me with an assignment once” and then there was the rare,
“Is this person actually a part of this class? I have never seen them before.”
Regardless, they all seemed like human beings at that moment. I could not turn their volume down, or lock them away in my pocket. I was there, with them, in that shared space. I have genuinely felt more connected to my class in the last 10 days than I did in the 10 months before that.
I used to talk a big game about how I liked being alone and I wouldn’t mind solitude for large parts of my life but boy did I miss others, the physical presence of others. For the first time in a long time I have felt connected in a social surrounding and I had no idea how much I missed it until I actually got it.
I realize that I might be quite alone in my class feeling this. From what I see, a lot of relationships and friendships have already formed that I did not participate in earlier but simply knowing that I have the possibility of these friendships is enough to buoy my heart enough.
And that is it for this week, for now. I feel like there is so much to say about offline classes but I might actually be at a loss for words. Imagine that, a writer struggling for words but I don’t mind struggling with this. We should all surprise ourselves from time to time because it would be just so boring otherwise, right?
What has your experience of offline classes been like? Has it been good? Bad? Tough? Overwhelming? I am all ears for everything. We grow every time we share, no matter what it is.
Question of The Week
What will you miss the most about online classes?
What do you like the most about offline classes?
You can let me know by replying to this email or commenting below :)
A situation very happy and difficult at the same time
Online classes gave introverts a chance to speak without being judged. But i prefer offline classes since an interactive session and learning is much better. I remember how much i wanted an offline class when i answered the most while discussing an English play by an Indian writer :)