Online classes are supposed to make your life easier. They’re easily accessible which makes them attractive to students with a busy lifestyle. But the once easy route has become overbearing with constant assignments, quizzes and tests to prove our productivity and aptitude as a student. There’s no reason why an online class should be more time consuming than an in-person class.

Online classes should be an easy answer. Their existence can bail you out when you’ve overcommitted for a semester or help when you’re not able to physically be present. But year after year, online classes and teachers are requiring more work to prove that a student is meeting the student learning outcomes outlined by the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Online classes shouldn’t have more work than in person classes. Understandably, no university wants to have an “easy A” online class, but online teachers constantly overcompensate for the fact that their students don’t have to attend a class every week by assigning multiple assignments within a single week.

The most frustrating part of online class overload is when you’re taking in-person classes that require much less work compared to online classes. In a lecture based class, you’ll usually have one to two assignments per week, usually, something turned in like homework and then a quiz at the end of the week. That’s easy to study for and easy to manage. But sometimes online classes will require multiple essays or quizzes within the same week to ensure their students are actually following along with the class.

As beneficial as this is from a learning aspect, it seems dramatic to require online students to complete much more work than they would complete if they were in a normal classroom setting. Obviously, these choices are to each teacher’s discretion and they have their reasons for the amount of work they give, but there shouldn’t be such a huge difference in workload.

Sometimes students can’t get away from online classes. From personal experience, I know that there are some classes within my major and minor that only have online sections available. When you need to complete a class, whether it’s to graduate or to be able to take other classes, you’ll do whatever you need to – even if that means taking an online class.

I’ve never willingly taken an online class. I know it doesn’t match my learning styles well and I wouldn’t want to waste money on a class I’m not going to excel in. But because of special niche classes within my minor, I’m forced to take online classes because there aren’t enough students to enroll in an in-person class. I end up doing more work from my laptop to appease a digital teacher compared to what’s asked for me by the teachers I see every week.

There’s no reason why an online class should require more work than an in-person class. There should be an even balance all around. The overcompensation from teachers who are monitoring online classes is not only exhausting as a student but also exhausting to professors who wouldn’t have to grade this much work if they were in a normal classroom setting. There needs to be change. Whether guidelines or student learning outcomes are the center of that change, there’s no excuse for asking online students to complete more work than in-person students.

Opinions expressed in The Nevada Sagebrush are solely those of the author and do not necessarily express the views of The Sagebrush or its staff. Jacey Gonzalez is a student at the University of Nevada and studies journalism. She can be reached at jaceygonzalez@sagebrush.unr.ed and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.