School is difficult, and it has become even more taxing with the recent tensions brought by the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ve all had days that are so stressful that they seem to drag out forever, but those days seem to be growing in number lately. Almost every student finds that online school is a major cause of this stress. 

Stack after stack of work is piled onto us during this already tough time, and it’s sometimes hard to keep up. Now don’t get me wrong, school was always a little tough, but online school takes it to a new level.

In the past there was a clear separation between school and home or work and free time, but that line has blurred. Back when we were in person, many had a set routine: get up, go to school, after school clubs, and then go home. Many were able to get most of their homework done during classes. People did the same thing every day. It was routine, and it was nice. 

Then came along Covid-19. Suddenly, people couldn’t see friends every day, lost their routine, and most things people were used to having in their day were gone. Not having a routine anymore meant a major loss of motivation to do homework, and shorter classes made getting homework done in class extremely rare. 

Those two things combined have made it seem as though students are working nonstop all day. Within weeks it spiraled into a seemingly endless deluge of work. In time, school bled into home, and now there is very little divide.

I talked with other students about this, and they all agreed that online school is more difficult than in person. Getting stressed is kind of an unavoidable outcome, but there are ways to minimize it. 

One such way is to have a designated space in your house to do schoolwork and nothing else. That space will allow you to get into the mindset that that place is for school only, and will help keep it separate from relaxation spaces. 

Another thing is to split your workload into smaller chunks. Bouncing between tasks instead of trying to force yourself to do them in one sitting, can help you focus on the material better. The key to keeping stress under control is finding a strategy to tackle the work that suits your need, and creating a barrier between school and home. It takes some discipline and time, but online school can be manageable.