These are unprecedented times to live through — and even more unprecedented to be a college student.

With the number of students who traveled abroad or to their hometowns over spring break, the student body returning to campus would likely be followed by several cases of the coronavirus — and on any college campus, especially a party school like Penn State, the virus would spread more rapidly than ever.

Penn State made the right decision in closing campus and switching to a remote instruction period, demonstrating its commitment to the State College community.

However, the university now has to make another decision, one that will demonstrate its commitment to its student body.

On top of financial losses, the remote-instruction period will completely alter the way students are educated. This change will undoubtedly be reflected in the grades students receive at the end of this term.

For this reason, the university should implement a pass/fail system as opposed to normal letter grades.

It’s unfair that we took the same classes in-person without these disruptions, and now we will be held to the same standard. We didn’t ask for a global pandemic to spiral our world into a state of utter chaos. In fact, what many of us want more than anything else is to return to campus and get back into our normal routines.

Instead, we’re being faced with something the university has no prior experience with. To change our entire academic experience, but not follow suit with the grading system, would be unreasonable. It would seriously impact many students who are already struggling financially due to campus’s closure.

I’m not saying online classes are completely useless. In fact, they are a convenient alternative to in-person instruction for many students whose needs are better suited for virtual learning. Some even say they perform better in online classes in comparison to on-campus classes.

Online classes are, however, ineffective for students whose learning styles require human interaction and in-person instruction from their professor.

These courses weren’t crafted for online instruction. Professors worked tirelessly to put together an effective curriculum for their students, and now they have to alter those plans over the span of several days to prepare for the virtual period on March 16.

It isn’t these professors' faults, but the lack of time they had to recraft the curriculum means its quality will almost certainly be less than what we are paying for.

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Classes that were once instructed by engaging professors will become online modules and pre-recorded video files. Students who once walked across a bustling campus to listen attentively to their lecture will now wake up minutes before the lecture begins, grab their laptop and stream it while they lay in bed still half asleep. The sound of their peers discussing class topics will be replaced by a rerun of Impractical Jokers playing in the background and the toaster popping up today’s first meal.

I think about myself and my experience in a calculus class I took freshman year. I had no previous experience in a higher-level quantification course and considered myself “mathematically inept.”

The class was, from the very beginning, a tireless opponent I was losing to. By the middle of the semester I was on route to fail the course.

What happened next was only made possible due to the class’s in-person method of instruction. In an effort to salvage my grade, I began sitting in the front row every lecture, so I would be more engaged and retain more of the class concepts.

I also frequented my professor’s office hours where he worked with me personally to ensure I had grasped and could apply the skills taught in that day’s lecture.

In preparation for quizzes, I met up with classmates to study our notes, and in preparation for exams, I attended LionTutors sessions to refresh myself on the test material.

I finished the class with a grade higher than expected — but if I had been enrolled in an online version of the course, even temporarily, I can guarantee the results would be much different.

You can’t sit front row while streaming your class via Zoom. Your professor can’t watch you do class work and make corrections when they can only see you through the camera lens on your laptop. You can’t benefit from classmate meetups to study or do work when they live hundreds of miles away from you.

The reality of the situation is that online classes require students to teach themselves a lot of the coursework on their own. For students across all fields, but especially those in upper level STEM classes, this can feel seemingly impossible without the guidance of a professor in their presence.

All courses that are being changed from in-person to online instruction should implement a pass/fail grading system instead of the current letter grade policy.

As students, we pay tuition to receive in-person instruction and there are reasons we chose to take classes in person versus enrolled online.

These disruptions in our education are being forced upon us without our judgment — and although the decision to go remote was in our best interest, any decision not to alter the grading system to reflect these disruptions would go against it.