480 minutes, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 180 days a year we sit in a classroom with an instructor learning new subjects. The typical mindset being, “man I just can’t wait to get out of this place.” Nowadays, students in Florida are privileged enough to have the opportunity to take some of their classes (some students can take all of them) online through Florida Virtual School, commonly referred to as FLVS.

This new way of learning grants students the freedom to work on a specific course at home on a computer instead of in a more traditional setting, at school in a desk. However, are students really becoming more productive working at their own pace instead of one mandated to them or are students falling behind and struggling more than they would’ve?

The initial idea of FLVS is enticing. It’s similar to that piece of chocolate fudge cake sitting on their kitchen counter – tempting, inviting, and waiting for you to say yes. I can say this because I myself was one of those people. Yes, I fell for the trap thinking an online course would solve my problems in my senior year of high school. I was wrong.

You’re probably in a situation like me, active in your school and community, playing sports, socializing with your friends, and living out your last year of high school with excitement. For me, FLVS was going to solve all of my problems. I could take the course at my own pace (because anyone can submit three assignments every week to stay on track), work with some friends if I was confused, not have to worry about missing more school (because I could take it with me), and best of all – I would be able to leave school an hour earlier than the rest of the student body taking a full course load.

Lucky for me, I had a very nice teacher that was always trying to help me. Some of my friends, were not so lucky claiming their teachers acted as if they didn’t have a life outside of that one class. I elected to take English IV Honors, which is probably one of the easier classes to take depending on your skillsets in English. Having taken AP Language & Composition the year before and being successful at it, I had the confidence that I could complete the course with little to no trouble.

40 weeks later with around 40 assignments left I am finding myself up against a deadline of finishing it by April 18th to assure my walking at graduation. It’s safe to say that my time management with this course was not up to par with how it’s been before.

I don’t want this to feel like a rant session or a pity-seeking one either. I’m simply sharing my experience so that YOU don’t make the same mistakes I did. So, to help you out here’s a little bit of advice,

1. Stay on Pace – When the teacher tells you to submit three assignments every week, they mean it. Don’t tell yourself you’ll just do more next week because more likely than not, you won’t. If you can, try to do more than three because it will feel so much better when you have a crazier week and you don’t have to worry about submitting three assignments to stay on pace.
2. Don’t cheat – You may find yourself thinking, “ hey, this is an online class I can just copy my friend’s assignment or look it up online.” Congratulations, you’re a cheater and your teacher will catch you. Just like some Florida schools, such as Newsome, FLVS uses TurnItIn.com to check for plagiarism in the assignments, tests, quizzes, and exams. This goes for information you may have copied and pasted from some random website, the content you copied and pasted from your friend that is taking the same course, and even the part written by your brother because you paid him twenty bucks to do it for you (they know you’re writing style). Don’t joke about cheating on social media either because they track that too. Next thing you know, you’ll be getting a call from your teacher informing you that they know you cheated, you have to go before the Academic Administrative Board to check out the situation at hand, and oh by the way if you don’t get kicked out of the course, you’ll have to take your exam with a proctor downtown.
3. Have fun with it – The assignments can seem like they’re nothing but busy work and have no real value to them, but for the most part they do. I’m not saying they can’t be annoying, but think about it – your FLVS teacher doesn’t really know you so you have to find fun and interesting ways to tell them about you through your work. It’s meeting a new person with a twist.

Now, not everyone has to have the same FLVS experience that I did. It could’ve been a lot better had it not been for my lack of time management with my assignments. The FLVS teachers have their own lives, just like you. They have families, friends, and other things they have to do, but instead they are trying to help you by making your online academic experience a little bit better.