Online classes are easiest to manage when you stop treating them as videos you will “catch up on later” and start treating them as scheduled academic work. Give every class a regular time, an active task and a visible next deadline.
Arianna originally wrote this guide while simultaneously teaching and taking online university classes. Her experience included slow internet, difficult technical material, live sessions across time zones and lectures that took far longer to process than their stated running time. Those problems remain familiar to online and hybrid students.
Online classes: advantages and disadvantages
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Pause, replay and research difficult points | Recorded work is easy to postpone |
| No daily commute | Home contains more distractions |
| More choice of courses and teachers | Time-zone and internet problems |
| Flexible study around work or health | Less informal contact with classmates |
| Builds independent study skills | Screen fatigue and reduced participation |
Online classes are not automatically easier or harder. They move the difficulty. Travel and rigid location requirements may disappear, while self-management and communication become more important.
10 practical tips for succeeding in online classes
1. Put every class into a weekly schedule
Schedule recorded lectures as if they were live. Include time for pauses and notes rather than blocking only the video’s running time. Arianna sometimes needed five hours to work through two hours of cryptography lectures because she stopped to understand difficult material. That was learning, not inefficiency.
Use our free weekly student planner if you need a simple place to map classes, deadlines and study sessions.
2. Give each session a specific outcome
“Watch week four” is vague. “Watch week four, answer the three seminar questions and write down one point I do not understand” creates a finish line. Active outcomes make it harder to play a lecture in the background without learning from it.
3. Study actively, not continuously
Pause after a difficult explanation and restate it in your own words. Attempt a problem before watching the solution. At the end, close your notes and write down what you remember. Replaying everything is slower and often less revealing than testing your understanding.
4. Keep notes useful and searchable
Handwriting can help you remain engaged, while digital notes are easier to search. Either is fine. Record concepts, examples, questions and connections rather than transcribing every sentence. For research papers, use our method for reading journal articles effectively.
5. Remove the easiest distractions
Put your phone out of reach, close unrelated tabs and turn off non-essential notifications. Headphones can help in a shared space, but you do not need a particular product. A repeatable setup matters more than expensive equipment. Our guide to a low-energy study setup focuses on what to change before buying anything.
6. Attend live sessions strategically
If a live lecture, tutorial or office hour is valuable and reasonably timed, attend and bring a question. If time zones make attendance genuinely impractical, ask what recording, transcript or alternative participation is available. Do not routinely sacrifice sleep for a session that can be accessed another way.
7. Ask for help before confusion compounds
Online students can disappear quietly. Contact the lecturer, tutor or teaching assistant as soon as you can state what you tried and where you became stuck. Office hours are part of the course, not a last resort.
8. Create lightweight contact with classmates
Use the discussion board, class chat or a small study group to compare interpretations and keep one another accountable. The goal is not another noisy group chat; it is a place to ask useful course questions and arrange occasional focused sessions.
9. Make a backup plan for technical failures
- Download readings and permitted lecture materials in advance.
- Keep important drafts in cloud storage plus a second location.
- Know whether your phone can provide temporary internet access.
- Save the course contact address somewhere available offline.
- Tell teaching staff promptly when a genuine outage affects assessed work.
10. Run a weekly reset
Once a week, check every course page and record the next lecture, reading, assessment and question. This prevents deadlines from being scattered across tabs and inboxes. The process takes minutes when done regularly and much longer after several neglected weeks.
A simple online-study workflow
- Before: identify the topic, download materials and write one question.
- During: pause for retrieval, examples and anything you cannot explain.
- After: summarise the session without looking, then check what you missed.
- Later: revisit the material through a problem, flashcard or practice question.
What if you have fallen behind?
Do not begin by promising to complete everything in one exhausting weekend. List the missing work, mark what is required for the next assessment and contact teaching staff if deadlines are at risk. Restart with today’s highest-value task, then schedule the remaining backlog in realistic blocks.
If the backlog feels paralysing, our guide for students feeling overwhelmed at university provides a calmer triage process.
Frequently asked questions
Are online classes harder than in-person classes?
They can be harder for students who rely on external structure or spontaneous access to classmates and staff. They can be easier for students who benefit from replayable material, location flexibility or the absence of a commute.
How many hours should I study for an online class?
Use the course workload guidance as your starting point, then track your actual time. A one-hour recording may require considerably longer once pauses, notes and exercises are included.
Should I watch recorded lectures at a faster speed?
Only when comprehension remains strong. Faster playback can suit familiar or slowly delivered material. Difficult explanations may need normal speed, pauses and worked examples.
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