Expressing Ourselves Through Writing

The overall concept of being enrolled in an online class has both its pros and cons. Although an online class fits anyone's schedule better because it can be completed at any time, it may be harder because students may never get the opportunity to meet their classmates or the professor. Erving Goffman described first impressions as being incredibly important. "When the interaction that is initiated by 'first impressions' is itself merely the initial interaction in an extended series of interactions involving the same participants, we speak of 'getting off on the right foot' and feel that it is crucial to do so," he says (Goffman 47). First impressions greatly shape how students and professors view each other, and although this is an online class, first impressions are still quite strong and greatly shape how the rest of the semester will go in this course.

I believe that it is possible to get to know classmates through an online class as long as everyone is honest about their feelings through the blog posts. It could very easily occur that someone may put up a different persona since there are no actual face-to-face meetings. A person could make up any personality they want and use it throughout the semester. However, as long as everyone is honest about who they are and true to their personality, I think it is very possible to get to know a complete stranger through an online class. As Goffman says, "Information about the individual helps shape the situation, enabling others to know in advance what he will expect of them and what they may expect of him" (Goffman 42). The information we choose to post is what people will get to know us by, whether it is our true selves or not.

Since this is a writing class, we may get to know each other even better than we would in a traditional in-person class. I know that I express my feelings much better through writing than I do speaking, and since I don't know anyone in the class, I feel like I will express myself even more than I would if I did know someone. We may be strangers on the street due to never being formally introduced, but I believe that we will be no strangers in this course. We may even get to know a different side of each other that no one else knows!