After receiving her white coat and returning to Louisiana State University from an externship in El Dorado, Rachel Dixon Ham was preparing for another program in Las Vegas.
That’s when the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit Louisiana and spread into Arkansas, throwing her four-year veterinary program into a virtual world.
“I understand it — I’m not mad, I’m not angry. I’m disappointed a little bit,” Dixon Ham said. “We got in (to clinics) in February and all this happened about a month later, so it feels like we haven’t done anything yet.”
Dixon Ham is a third-year veterinary student at LSU, but like many others, she is finishing the semester at home and through Zoom, a video chatting workroom, rather than in person.
However, online classes aren’t exactly helping the Union County resident hone her technique.
“I’m concerned about my clinical skills, not being able to get hands-on activity is a big deal because you’re not doing these things that you need to know how to do,” she said. “These (clinicals) are opportunities where you get the most hands on experience … and I lost one of them because it had to be canceled.”
LSU entered a pass/no credit grading option April 8 in lieu of traditional letter grades for the semester amid the pandemic, according to The Advocate. Communications personnel with the university said in a statement grading options for the veterinary school and law school would be communicated to those students.
Dixon Ham said her classes are now on a pass/fail grading system and she feels less pressured than she would if it was a regular letter grading scale.
She said usually if someone messed up during a rotation, or a two-three week block focusing on specific topics and areas of study, points could be deducted which could cause a student to drop a letter grade.
“But now if you mess up because you don’t get the email, now it’s like well we understand because of technical difficulties that’s a possibility,” she said. “I think that they’re more relaxed because they know that it’s hard. I don’t work very well online, and I think that they understand that.”
Dixon Ham said none of her classmates she’s spoken with are particularly happy with the situation and people are starting to get tired of online classes and want even more to be able to work with live animals.
She also said she and her classmates haven’t been told if they’ll be able to repeat certain things and there are still some unanswered questions.
“They call it a fluid process, I think is what they say,” she said.
For Karly Chambers, an accounting senior and non-traditional student at South Arkansas University, the move to online classes isn’t too bad since she’s taken online classes before and because she’s graduating in December. However, when she was laid off from her previous employer, things got a little more stressful.
“I’ve always been a workaholic and I take pride in doing my job and doing it well, so to have that part of my identity taken away has been a little bit tough,” she said.
Chambers said it took about three weeks for her unemployment application to be approved by the state. She said she tried to be patient because she knows the system and those employees are overwhelmed by the mass of applications.
Mike Preston, Sec. of Commerce and executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, said in a daily briefing April 24 that 170,000 unemployment claims have been filed statewide.
Chambers said she answered a question wrong on her application and tried to call but never got through. When she finally did, she was helped and her application was approved.
“It was a little bit scary there for a minute because we, my husband and I, have savings put back, but … you don’t really want to have to use that up,” she said. “We’re grateful everything is situated a little bit better now.”
She said she thinks the state and local governments are doing a good job handling the pandemic, but improvements could be made for filing for unemployment.