In 2018 I graduated from the Faculty of Economy, University of Tirana and got a job in banking and I thought my student life was over with a compunction: -Not being able to study at an international university and experience not only a different standard of teaching but also a cultural enrichment. Thanks to the MIP scholarship by AADF (Albanian-American Development Foundation) I was provided the opportunity to study in the United States.
I arrived in the U.S in the middle of a global pandemic, and the Universities had already adapted to the “new reality”. During the summer break, Brandeis University had followed an intensive program based on training for the professors and staff to provide hybrid classes (online and in-person) with the same quality as before the pandemic and was ranked among the best business schools in the world for the fast online adaption. Coming from Albania, at first, I felt unlucky that I would not be able to attend all the classes in person, but just after the first couple of weeks, I witnessed that using a variety of online platforms such as Zoom, Workday, Google Services, Latte, etc. made learning easier and offered some facilities that were very close subsidiaries of the in-person classes.
In my opinion, one of the most important differences in attending a University in the United States is that professors embrace innovation and adapt to it quickly. I was surprised how quick the professors at Brandeis were familiarized to use all the different features of the online platforms to increase their teaching efficiency and provide the students with “virtual reality” experiences such as:
The above and other advantages of the online platforms made me believe that online classes will be the future even after the pandemic, they offer a lot of facilities that not only help the process of teaching but also the student’s learning.
©️ Klaudio Prifti, MIP fellow, MBA at Brandeis University, Boston