2020. Doesn’t that just give you chills? This year has been mocked, memed and will be remembered as one of the worst years that many of us will ever have to experience. This year has created a lot of academic challenges and changes for us as students. Some of these changes are easily visible, like taking classes and exams fully remotely and having to learn to work in different environments. But some of these changes are less visible, but equally—if not more—important. The circumstances of this pandemic have opened up a door to academic help and harm this semester, the latter of which we sometimes ignore.

Working from home has changed the dynamic of how I work, both for better and for worse. My location hardly changes from day to day, as I try to limit unnecessary travel to reduce my impact on the spread of the virus. I work at my desk in my room, or if I want to switch things up, I move to the kitchen. That’s it. This has been beneficial to my productivity. Having significantly reduced travel time (read: zero travel time) has allowed me to work continuously throughout the day, as I never have to leave my home and all that I need to accomplish can be done on my laptop which is constantly in front of me.

Remote learning has been great for my productivity, but this comes with a cost. There is no definitive end to my work days. In the past, once I left campus for my apartment, my day was done. My time was my own. But this doesn’t exist for me now. I can work around the clock without a pause, with nothing established to tell me to stop. I end my days well into the night, only when I feel I must; there are no boundaries. Now, we’re enabled to work relentlessly and while it’s an easy habit to form, it’s a hard one to break. Our energy depletes with our laptop batteries, but unlike our computers, we’re not as easy to recharge. And we do the same thing, day in and day out, swapping our energy for an unintentional increase in our work production.

A lot of people don’t see this. Many people write off remote learning as “easy,” but this is not the case. In the words of Chancellor Martin “At the end of the day, we’re offering a Washington University education by Washington University faculty.” In essence, school is still school. Taking the same information and putting it online doesn’t automatically make it easier, just different.

Many professors have, however, recognized the complications that were undoubtedly bound to arise this semester, and some of them have accounted for that in their instruction. Some professors have modified the way that they teach or the presentation of their assignments.

Academically, some of us may be doing okay this semester. You may be maintaining your grades or even better, you’ve improved. You’ve put the work in, spent hours upon hours writing that paper, gone to all the office hours. You may be feeling great about your academic accomplishments this semester, and then the doubt creeps in.

Maybe you did well on that exam not because you spent hours on it, but because its online format was “easier” than an in-class setting. Perhaps that essay only went okay because you got a day extension for feeling under the weather. I’ve felt like this many times before, and this pandemic hasn’t eradicated these feelings, but more so, they have deepened.

Feelings of imposter syndrome are common among high performers, and for some, they’ve likely worsened over the course of the pandemic. Everyone around you is telling you that school must be easier because it’s online, or that this semester doesn’t count, anyway. But none of this is true.

As aforementioned, we are still students, and we are still working hard. Sure, professors adjusting the way they’ve operated their classes has certainly been helpful, but we cannot forget the “why” behind their changes. We’re learning in a pandemic that we are all impacted by. Professors have adapted their teaching styles to maintain a level of normalcy in an all-but-normal semester, not to let us just breeze through our education.

Their help does not invalidate your hard work. Learning online does not invalidate your hard work. We are all doing what we can, the best way that we can. Maybe working from home is a better work environment for you. Maybe it’s not and you’re just getting by. Whatever it is, you’re trying. We’re trying, and that should not be ignored.