It’s 2018 and one of the most important things to have while you’re in college is your laptop; you write your papers on them, you send your emails from them, you check your Blackboard, you turn in your papers, take your quizzes and exams, access your PatriotWeb…The point is: your laptop is essential.
Imagine not having your laptop for a whole… MONTH. Yup, imagine not having instant access to any of the above for a month…scary right? I would never wish it on my worst enemy. I, due to an Apple manufacturing issue, lost my laptop. My trackpad and keyboard stopped working and it’s costing me $700. This just may seem like it’s problem after a problem, but I actually learned a lot from this experience.
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So, the worst April Fool’s joke I’ve ever received was turning on my laptop, not having it work and also having a four page paper due at midnight. With all of my sources downloaded in my laptop as any normal person would, I freaked out and called Apple Support who told me it was hardware issue and I had to take it to the store and get it fixed. It took a month of back and forth with the store to get it fixed and get it back in my hands. The way I started doing homework and doing my class work changed completely.
Losing my laptop made me more productive when I realized that I have limited time to a computer. Fenwick closes at midnight and my friends that would let me borrow their laptops wanted them back eventually. I had to do all of my work quickly and efficiently, which left little time to procrastinate.
I also learned to take notes a lot better since I didn’t have access to the Powerpoints all the time, so I started to take detailed notes. I also paid a lot more attention in class because I wasn’t scrolling through Facebook or on Forever21 mindlessly.
I became a lot more organized because I had to remember the due dates for everything and write them down in my planner.
I also became a little more social than I was before because of the lack of technology that I had available.
As I write this from my friend’s laptop I learned that even though it’s annoying and inconvenient, college is somehow possible without technology. I also realized how dependent we are on technology in this day and age to do everything, so this was the silver lining to my issue: I was able to survive without the convenience of technology.