By Layla M. Rudy

The COVID-19 mandated transition to online learning has not been easy for most students, whether in elementary school, high school, or university. I am a college sophomore and the experience has been disruptive. Campus life is imperative to most university students, and a global health crisis means that university life has been put on hold.

When I was initially informed about online learning in March, the first thought that popped into my head was, “Great, I’ll feel even more disconnected from everyone else.” The prospect of only being able to interact with professors and classmates via Zoom, emails, and discussion boards was daunting. I predicted that the whopping change to remote learning would mean zero transition time or consideration for students with disabilities, like hearing loss, like me. 

The transition wasn’t easy, but that could be said of most students’ experiences. Anxiety about COVID-19 at that time, when the outbreak was just beginning, made it nearly impossible to focus on our studies. Why did any of my assignments matter when there was a global pandemic?

My ability to concentrate on anything except surviving, being home with my family, and checking in on loved ones was completely diminished. As summer came along and classes ended, quarantine, social distancing, and the so-called “new normal” sunk in. 

This September, the transition back to remote learning after nearly half a year of adjusting to circumstances meant that there was time to prepare. I was able to use the summer to talk with my advisors and come up with a plan for the upcoming online semester (and, pending public health circumstances, the academic year as a whole). My fear of what I call a perpetual disconnect from my classmates, professors, and course material still lingered. I viewed the perpetual disconnect as something beyond my control. I have hearing loss, therefore, I’ll always feel left behind, I thought.

My fear was and is still valid. Having a disability means needing to be three steps ahead of every other student. All I was doing was anticipating the inevitable. 

The reality pleasantly surprised me.

A few weeks ago, I sat at my dining room table waiting for my Introduction to Judaism professor to start the first lecture of the semester. Quiet accompanied the hum of the air conditioning behind me and my mother puttering around in the kitchen. The condensation dripped down on the table from my iced coffee as the ice melted from the sun shining in through the window on my right.

Slowly, other students’ faces started popping up on the Zoom call. There was an ASL interpreter for another student, along with a teaching assistant. When the professor jumped in and began introductions, everyone’s audio shut off and his voice was the only one heard.

Maybe this sounds familiar to everyone, and maybe it’s redundant to go through the process of a Zoom call, but I sat through a lecture with zero concern for background noises or missing out on what the professor said. I had a note taker set up for the class, and if needed, I could watch the recording of the lecture afterward. When there was an audio disruption, other students chimed in to let the professor know before I could even unmute myself. 

When I had my next class, I sat down at my desk with headphones on and tuned in to the whole lecture, taking notes and reviewing the course syllabus. I did the same for the next class, too. 

It dawned on me rather slowly. I had spent the whole summer feeling anxious about the upcoming school semester, anticipating a struggle and a half, ready for the disconnect to reinforce what I had thought I knew. 

Online learning is different from being in a physical classroom. Being in a physical classroom means background noises of dropped pencils, riffling through backpacks, whispers among classmates, ringing phones. Being in a physical classroom means never being in the right seat to properly hear the teacher, and having to choose between concentrating on the professor’s voice or writing decent notes. I never would have assumed that an online, remote classroom setting would provide a better experience. I had to prepare to struggle because my experiences taught me to expect it. 

Don’t take this as blind optimism, though. The challenges that permeated my years of elementary through high school and university may not be presented in the same way, but new situations often present new challenges, especially for those who function and learn beyond the “norm.” Remote learning is the response to a situation that calls for a new perspective, which means our threshold of what learning and education looks like has been expanded. It can’t be labeled a good or bad thing, it’s our current reality: it is what it is.

And yet, when brought up in conversation, I don’t hesitate to inform people that online learning isn’t the worst thing ever for me. In fact, I actually like it. This surprises some people, especially those who were around me during the months before the semester started. 

That perpetual disconnect from everyone else still lingers. Eighteen years of hearing loss and lip-reading can have that effect on a person. It would be foolish of me to say that I’m okay with my university years to be like this, because there are aspects of university life that remote learning lacks. And I miss being on campus, the library, being out in Montreal, and meeting classmates! 

But it cannot be denied that the face of learning has changed, and for myself, a student with hearing loss, it may be for the better. 

Layla M. Rudy is a sophomore at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. She is studying Judaic Studies and Psychology, now remotely while living at home, in New Jersey.