Hi @Green_Ghost
Firstly, I want to say that it is so awesome that you are in your final semester of Uni; I'm so proud of you!
I haven't heard of Practera before till now, but it sounds quite daunting not knowing who is in what group, what the project is about, and the fact that you have to collaborate via video call.
Everyone is different; some of us prefer face-to-face collaboration, some prefer video/phone calls, and this can be for numerous reasons, so it's absolutely okay to feel anxiety about doing video calls! I don't enjoy phone/video calls myself, both used to give me such bad anxiety.
Just like @LilacLeopard14 I've been doing Zoom/online meetings/calls since I was in year 12 due to covid, but I always have had such bad anxiety with them, same with phone calls. I do think having the camera off in the first session, at least if you're allowed, would help a little. Something I do is actually have my own video as the whole screen so I can just look at myself, I rather look at myself than everyone else in the call lol. I also sometimes have other documents/pages up on my computer so I can just focus at looking at those rather than everyone else in the class.
I do suggest though to either reach out to a counsellor if you haven't done so already or even talk to a GP about this, they could help you through this. For me, a combination of therapy and medication has really helped me overcome the anxiety I experienced with phone and video calls, I still feel a little bit of anxiety towards them, but not as extreme as it used to be, but remember, everyone is different and what works for one person might not work for another.
Also after a video/phone call, I find it helpful to plan something enjoyable to do afterwards, like a reward of sorts, I find that helps me make it through.
- Matcha_Toad 🐸🍵💚
