ENGLISH 1A FINAL EXAMINATION

You will have 120 minutes to complete this writing task. Please take at least 20 minutes to pre-
write. Consider the question carefully and plan what you will say. 
What if Everything Is Online Forever?
  
What if everything stays online forever? 
This won't happen. Right? The vaccine will come. And until the vaccine comes, we will
learn how to be safely physically present. 
And not everything is totally online now. A combination of lowering classroom density,
masking and hybrid courses has allowed most schools to bring back at least some students. 
We can eat at restaurants if the tables are outside and spread six feet apart. Online
grocery shopping has become exponentially more popular, but that activity was starting from a
low base. Most of us still get our groceries by driving to the supermarket. 
For many folks, working online was never an option. Some jobs can't be done remotely.
Food for large numbers can't be prepared or served from home. Cleaning is a hands-on job. So is
every form of construction and maintenance. My wife goes to work at the hospital every
morning, as telemedicine only works with some patients at some times. 
But what if everything that can be done online stays online? 
If you have been working remotely for the past six months, what's to say that you
shouldn't work remotely for the next six years? At some point will employers (including
universities) decide that the savings of having a remote workforce outweigh the benefits of
having most everyone in one place? 
We used to have most of our meetings face-to-face. Nowadays, almost every meeting is
through Zoom or Teams or some other web-meeting video platform. Even when it is safe to
return to face-to-face meetings, will we want to? Online meetings are more efficient (no
traveling or settling in), more egalitarian (nobody is in the front of the room or head of the table),
and faster (as nobody wants to linger). Traveling for work was one of those things many who
worked used to do. 
What about online learning? Here is what I think. As soon as possible, face-to-face
learning will return. Everyone -- students and professors -- misses the classroom. Residential
learning for those students living on campus, however, will be forever different. Post-pandemic,
what we will see in higher education is a new integration of residential and online learning. Face-
to-face classes will come back, but online will not go away. The new residential class will have
digital components. The line between face-to-face and online will blur. 
COVID-19 will greatly accelerate the blended learning shift that was already underway
before the pandemic hit. Lectures will be recorded ahead of time, with in-class time used for
discussion. Office hours will be more numerous and will move mostly online. 
When it comes to how we work and how we learn, I don't think we will return to the pre-
pandemic status quo. 
There may be no going back to the way we were. 
 
--Joshua Kim Director of Online Programs and Strategy at Dartmouth
Center (an academic medical center), 9/15/2020
Writing Assignment
Write a comprehensive essay in which you do the following tasks:

1. Summarize Kim's attitude toward his subject matter.

1. Explain to what extent you agree or disagree with his opinion. Support your argument with
relevant facts and/or examples from your own experience, knowledge, and material you have
read or learned.