text: After every school year, students are expected to show mastery of the cirriculums in each of their core classes. What the final exams fail to measure, however, are the other critical life skills that students obtain in the classroom. For example, group projects do more for the individual than teach them a bunch of facts and figures. They also simulate the level of collaboration students will use regularly as future members of the workforce. Similarly, assigning nightly homework goes deeper than the teacher's desire to keep their pupils busy, as learning to balance piles of graded assignments is an effective way to teach lessons about time management. Taking online classes will enact these same skills to an extent, though the lack of classmates combined with a more flexible schedule puts students in a bit of a bubble. In other words, school becomes less about practical application and focuses significantly more on pure academic knowledge. While online classes accomplish the same goal in their cirriculums, they fall terribly short in teaching students other important life skills.