Tips & Tricks: Learning to Work from Home

One of the biggest things happening in global commerce this week is the rapid switch to remote learning, which students and professors across the country are grappling with. While this unexpected change is a challenge for all of us, it also has given our global commerce majors the opportunity to put their skills of adaptability, organization, and communication to good use.

Away from campus, our majors are creating new, temporary routines and taking on the challenge of finding ways to stay focused and get their work done in less than perfect situations.

For Alex Hughes, a junior from Michigan, Google Calendar is key: “I have always been a big advocate of Google Calendar and have found it to be an important resource now more than ever as we have switched to remote learning. Being at home makes it easy to forget you still have class and responsibilities so being able to schedule my class, work, and free time every day is really helping me stay on track.”

Natalie Zaravella, a senior from New York, was not a big Google Calendar fan until now: “Whereas I have always used a traditional planner to keep track of my daily tasks, I am trying Google Calendar because it allows you to map out every hour of the day (if you wanted to). I schedule in my class live-streams, times I want to do homework, workout classes to stream, and calls with friends and family. This still leaves ample time during the day to do other things but it helps maintain a sense of normalcy by creating some structure.”

Similarly, Ariela Katz, a sophomore from Illinois, is doing her best to maintain her daily schedule, even though she is away from campus, friends, and the swim team: “I have been trying to stay on a schedule every day and mimic some of the extracurriculars I miss from being on campus through zoom calls for some club meetings, and even zoom home workouts with some of my friends from my sport (swimming). I have also been trying to mimic my daily schedule for when I am on campus to complete my schoolwork during the day. Sticking to a daily schedule, getting up and walking around the house every hour or so, and keeping in contact with friends from Denison have helped me navigate remote learning and stay on task!”

Another sophomore, Ellie Sipe, from Tennessee, also finds it important to keep up some habits from her life in campus: “I have tried to keep some consistency in how I get my work done, for example I do all of my work in a room that I typically don’t spend a lot of time in so I can get my mind in a different head space. I also keep all of my books and material in my backpack still. Overall, I have really tried to time manage and stay on the same schedule I would be following on campus.

For Max Curtin, a junior from New Hampshire, it’s crucial to stay focused on deadline a motivation for completing his work: “Deadlines are everything for me. Since coming back from abroad this semester, it’s been crucial for me to set deadlines / times to watch lectures and participate in discussion boards remotely. We still have hard due dates for homework assignments, quizzes and essays, but we don’t have many live meetings scheduled, given that everyone is in such different time zones. By giving myself deadlines, my schedule becomes more structured, as if I was still taking classes in-person!”

Natalie Zaravella also finds creating her own deadlines helpful: “For example, I have a project to complete before the end of the semester so I have given myself mini deadlines to meet along the way.”

And finally, Maia Breeden, a sophomore from Ohio, shares that “having more free time can be a wonderful thing for many, but personally for me to stay on track in my studies I need to manage my time. A few things I do to keep myself on task have been rewriting my syllabi down in a new planner (as many lesson plans have changed), made myself a detailed google calendar, making daily to-do lists in a memo pad, and keeping sticky notes handy while I work. All these things keep myself on-task and aware of what my responsibilities are for the hour, day, and week.”

We are proud of how our GC majors are facing these challenging times and hope that readers may find some of their suggestions useful for working at home.