Shortly after the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic began, studies on the challenges faced by tertiary students during Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) became available. However, the data sets were harvested early, as many countries began implementing ERT in response to the pandemic in March 2020. Many recent studies have failed to distinguish between the challenges faced by students enrolled in the laboratory and non-laboratory courses. There is still a dearth of literature on the difficulties encountered by students enrolled in non-laboratory courses following the first year of ERT implementation. The purpose of this paper was to examine the various challenges faced by tertiary students enrolled in non-laboratory courses following the conclusion of the first year of ERT implementation. Contextualized in two state-owned higher education institutions in northern Luzon, this study employed a fundamental qualitative approach, with focus group discussions (FGDs) serving as the primary data collection technique. Five major themes emerged from the FGDs with 42 purposively selected tertiary students. These themes presented in the spider web illustration include (1) student-focused challenges, (2) instructional material-related challenges, (3) instructor-emanating challenges, (4) technology-related challenges, and (5) student support-related challenges. This article concludes that these issues must be dealt with immediately to facilitate the implementation of ERT in non-laboratory courses. These difficulties may also be dimensions of concerns about distance education, particularly in non-urban areas of the Philippines. The themes also provide some actual pictures of the student challenges in the initial year of ERT in college. This paper highlighted some implications for pedagogy and educational management, as well as future research directions.