The transition to online classes can be challenging and stressful for students and faculty alike, but Mt. SAC photography professor Christopher Benoe goes the extra mile to help make the situation easier for his students to transition to a virtual class.

Benoe provides many useful tools and resources for his students, which makes his class as simple as possible. Some students felt that other professors took the easy way out by cancelling classes or passing their students for the semester.

“When I found out that my bio class was being cancelled, it sucked because I needed that class to transfer,” journalism major Victoria Miranda, 21, said. “Now being able to transfer is up in the air. It makes me feel uneasy that I probably won’t have a chance to graduate due to it.”

Transitioning to online classes can be really difficult for some students who have never taken an online course because they have to adapt to this sudden change.

“I wanted to make it easy, fun and enjoyable for students to learn,” Benoe said.

Benoe said that all the resources he uses for his classes come from Adobe and many different types of apps. Adobe announced that they would provide free subscriptions to students for the remainder of the spring semester.

“Adobe has so many different features such as Lightroom CC, Lightroom Mobile and Photoshop,” he said.

One way Benoe makes it easier for his students to do their homework is allowing them to use their cell phone cameras and the Adobe Lightroom mobile app.

“I wanted to be able to provide and support students who do or don’t have equipment at their homes and to have it equally available to everyone,” Benoe said.

He also said that he wanted to create an easy workspace for students in the comfort of their homes.

“I wanted to be able to make it stress-free, fun and still have students learn, like ‘lemonade out of lemons,'” Benoe said.

With the overwhelming amount of resources and support, Benoe did not want to overload his students with many new apps and technology items.

“I do not want for us to lose track of curriculum, or what we were supposed to be learning in our photo classes,” Benoe said.

Miranda said that she was not sure how her photography class would work online.

“I was relieved when Benoe told us about all the resources and how simple it was going to be online,” she said.

When the COVID-19 pandemic was first announced, Benoe referred it to as an “emergency situation.” He said that he took into consideration that it would be challenging for him and his students, since he is used to teaching and interacting with his students face-to-face.

The pandemic has impacted so many lives, and while he was in discussions with his fellow faculty in the photo department, Benoe started to worry about how it would affect students.

“I did not want to affect students by changing their academic plans and waiting a whole other year to graduate,” Benoe said.

Benoe made the decision to transition online and keep his lecture and lab classes open, because he said he knows that students will try their best to learn from the course. He said that at the end of the day, he wanted to show empathy and understanding toward his students.

“I want to make it enjoyable, and for students to learn something,” Benoe said.