At the beginning of the school year, HHS students had to choose whether they wanted to attend school in-person or virtually. This is the first  year students will be separated due to COVID-19 concerns. Now that we are several weeks in, two Growler freshmen on opposite sides decided to have a debate. Korie Michaelis represents that in-person side, and Elizabeth Folk for the virtual.

Michaelis:  ”I chose in-person because I thought it would be easier to get used to high school earlier than later.” 

Folk:  “I chose to be virtual because my family is very fearful of the virus and I support it because I felt virtual would be more calm.”

In-Person students have to worry about masks and social distancing while virtual students stay in their home. So Covid things aren’t really a concern for them unless they regularly go out. 

Michaelis: “For me, I am not very social with other people that I don’t know and with COVID, it is easier for me to stay away from people with this virus. But the downside is that we have to keep our masks on and that gets really annoying really fast. For example, it is sometimes hard to breathe through this thing.”

Folk: “I get to stay at home and be by myself. I was never very social. I can’t talk to the small amounts of friends that I have aside from texting.”

Lunch is a very big thing for some students, they either want better options or could have allergies.

Michaelis: “I get a choice on what I eat. Although  it’s not a large amount of options, it is still better than the food at home. It’s kinda hard to talk to my friends at lunch when your friend is at one end of the lunch table and you’re at the other end. Speaking of lunch, although the food is, in it’s own way, good, we only have like 2-3 choices a day and if you don’t like the choices, you just suck it up if you’re hungry.”

Folk:   “I can eat almost anything for lunch when i’m at home. I don’t feel anything is negative about lunch in virtual.”

Homework can be done at more times than if you are in virtual.

Michaelis: “If we do have  homework then we can just do it when the teacher is done with class and the bell hasn’t rung yet. I don’t think I’ve actually had to do homework at home yet this year. Although, I’ve heard from a few of my friends that they had like an hour of homework a night. I think that is too much but it’s high school, we have to get used to it eventually  ”

Folk: “It’s also really hard to get help with homework, I had to wait around three or four hours once for a response on a question. When you’re virtual, if the in-person students are doing something you can’t or you just have freetime in general, you have tons of time to get homework done.” 

All students has a little class time in every class and how they’ve handled it is also a big difference between in-person and virtual. 

Michaelis: “Whenever we have class time and the teacher says we can talk to each other, we catch up with each other and find out what’s  going on with their lives right now. We also just crack jokes and playfully make fun of  each other. Although the downside is that class time can be distracting when you are trying to work with your classmates being loud.”

Folk: “It’s a hassle just to even ask a tiny question about whether you should turn something in or not since teachers aren’t always in front of the computer or looking in the chat.”

As you can see there are many pros and cons for both sides of this debate. Contemplating both sides of the issue, they are not really all that different. We all go to school 5 days a week for 8 hours a day. They might have the same pros and cons but they are both concerning the same thing. Our education. It doesn’t matter if you are in-person or virtual but the most important thing is that we all get an education and then move on with our lives after this.