Online college might be the perfect fit for you!
Have you ever considered enrolling in an online college? Let’s say you’ve gotten to the point in your life where you’ve decided to further your education. You have an overwhelming number and variety of choices. Some of these choices include one-year certification programs, short courses, vocational-technical schools, traditional college and online college. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, so you need to choose carefully. Your decision should be based on the career for which you want to prepare, the amount of time and money you have to invest, your personal schedule, and your motivation and level of self-discipline. Also, all these options might not be available in your area.
Let’s go one step further and say you definitely want a college degree. Now you have to choose between attending a traditional college and online college. If you’re leaning toward traditional college, you’ll first need to find a college that offers the degree program you want. If there’s not one in your area, are you willing to move to another city or state? With online college, you can stay at home and attend classes via your computer.
Now, let’s say there’s a college in or near your town that offers the degree program you want. When do the classes meet? If you work a regular 9-5 job five days a week, you’ll need to find out if the classes required are offered at night or on weekends. If they’re not, online college might be the solution.
Are you self-motivated and able to do class work independently? If you can honestly answer “yes” to both of these, you have a great chance of being successful with online classes. If, on the other hand, you answered “no,” online college might not be your best choice. To complete online courses successfully, you have to able to schedule your time carefully, being sure to devote enough time to your class work. Online college and procrastination do not a good pair make.
Habee, I enjoyed reading this discussion of online versus on campus college education.
I think, though, that sometimes there are other issues to consider. Here are some of them:
1. Do you just want a degree to enhance your marketability as an employee or do you actually want to learn something?
2. If you are after the degree, will the degree from an online college be treated as equal in value to other degrees? This might vary with the program you select.
3. Do you hope to make contacts for future professional success during your education, or do you already have a job and contacts, so that this does not matter?
Procrastinators don’t do well in a brick and mortar setting, either. The real issue is what you are looking to get out of college. Lots of people with degrees don’t have jobs and lots of people with jobs don’t have a degree. An education is a wonderful thing to have, but it’s not on account of the diploma or the supposed earning capacity that it will bring you.
I did get a master’s degree in education, and I will say you have to be very independent to pull it off. There is no one to remind you to do your assignments, and there was more work than in the traditional education classes I attended. It was convenient at the time, but the classes were more expensive because these were at a private university. I recommend trying to take an online class through a public university if you want to save money. Now there are some classes that are a mix of traditional class meetings, and online work, so you can get a mix of both. One thing I missed about the online classes is the one on one discussion with classmates and the instructor. A message board never quite replaced that.