How did students, faculty, and staff at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign respond to the COVID-19 lockdown? Hear from senior advertising major Andrew Daly in his own words.

In a short “CITL COVID Story” video, produced by the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, Daly talks about the challenges of having all of his on campus advertising courses move online.

Daly also shares a few silver linings of the pandemic, including asynchronous courses and virtual office hours.

“It’s great to be able to choose when and where to learn,” he says of asynchronous courses, which he had taken prior to the pandemic.

And with virtual office hours: “It’s so much more convenient than having to go all the way across campus,” Daly says, adding he hopes more professors offer them to students.

Though generally a fan of asynchronous courses, Daly admits feeling initial concern when one of his instructors (Peter Sheldon, College of Media) moved his ADV 390 Content Creation course online, using the asynchronous model. But what Sheldon did surprised him.

“This has made this class so much more engaging for me. I’m just interested every day to click into it and see his next video,” Daly says, adding the class was a success.

So what did Sheldon do? You’ll have to watch the video to find out!

Andrew Daly graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in advertising and a certificate in media sales this month and is starting at job at Amazon. While at Illinois, he worked as the student manager at CITL’s Virtual Reality (VR) Lab.

This is part of CITL's "Thriving during COVID-19" video series. Be sure to check out the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning website for videos featuring an Illinois faculty member and a staff member and to learn about the wide variety of services our CITL teams can provide you!