Everywhere you look: Here's how students are handling virtual class in a full house

Many UNC students are quarantining in their permanent residences following campus residence hall closures — and now that virtual classes have started, this can mean doing schoolwork in a full house. 

Though being at home can provide an opportunity to spend more time with family, it also can present challenges for students trying to create an environment conducive to schoolwork.

“It’s been difficult not having the library or a desk or even just a quiet spot to work at,” first-year environmental studies major Ella Thomas said.  

Thomas said she currently lives in Durham, N.C. with six other people — her parents, her brother and his fiancée, and their two 4-year-old children. While she enjoys having the opportunity to spend more time with her family, she said, it presents its own challenges.

“The kids, whenever they’re here, just want to be with me and play,” Thomas said. “It’s hard for me to get away because 4-year-olds don’t understand that I need to be alone for a long period of time where they need to be quiet.” 

Sophomore Grace Garcia, who majors in art history and advertisement and public relations, said she is currently living at home in Waxhaw, N.C. with her parents and four siblings. 

She said that going back home and living with her large family has been an interesting transition. 

“For the most part, I've found that we've been able to cooperate and be able to use our own individual workspaces to the best of our abilities,” Garcia said. “However, let’s say that someone is playing guitar in a room and they're singing really loudly and then the other individuals are in the middle of their online class, that can really create its own challenges.”

Garcia also said how she approaches schoolwork at home is different. 

“One of the things that motivates me a lot of times in college is the ability to be on campus and to be around my peers and to be learning in an environment where I feel like I’m being provided with proper support to be as successful as possible,” she said. 

Mariah Evans, a senior philosophy major, said she has remained at her house in Chapel Hill with her three friends and roommates, as well as their 60-pound foster pit bull.  

Evans said she and her housemates have been able to create decent work environments, as they each do work alone in their bedrooms. She also said she was able to check out monitors from her place of employment, which has made online class more manageable.

“I have a really hard time organizing everything on my 13-inch MacBook screen because I like to take notes on Google Docs, so it’s really difficult for me to take notes and also pay attention to the lectures especially when a professor is lecturing from slides,” Evans said.

Evans also said it’s difficult focusing on schoolwork while also having so much time at home. 

But Garcia said that being home has given her more time to enjoy with her family — including family dinners and game nights. 

“For the most part we do get along really well,” she said.

Thomas said she is grateful for the time she now has to spend with her niece and nephew. 

“The toddlers grow so quickly, and I’m just glad that I can see them and that I can be an influential part of their life again,” she said.

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