Today I am writing this article from the comfort of my own room. Since last march, this space has been my very own home office, classroom, and conference hall.

In here I have prepared my thesis, had German language courses, and held meetings with teachers and group project members. Despite the extremely sudden turn towards 100% digital studying during the spring, I must confess that this digital semester of mine has proven to be quite successful one.

Despite the sudden change in the global situation, the actual studying experience remained largely the same. Many of my prior classes were already conducted through online, or at least had some elements that were completed with the use of online tools, so the concept was not unfamiliar to me. Moving my classroom from the campus to my own home office proved to be remarkably easy as I was already familiar with the online systems that the school uses.

There were, of course, some unavoidable technical difficulties occasionally, but those were fixed always quite quickly. The presence of helpful and immensely professional IT-experts were always present during online classes. Thanks to them, technical issues had no effect on my learning experience.

While I missed actual human contact that was present during the classroom, communication with teachers remained clear even through digital channels. The professionality and helpfulness of the teachers was still the same as ever, even if it was expressed through email and video chat.

My digital semester has also been extremely educational for me. It has been interesting to see how our everyday organizations have been able to respond to the challenges that the global health situations present us. I have also gained a newfound respect towards the IT-systems and the busy people that maintain them!

When the global health situation finally improves, and the school opens its doors, it remains to be seen how this experience will change the study process in the future? Will we return permanently to the classrooms, or make a migration towards entirely digital learning experience? That we will see in the future.

– Matti, Business student –