Bachelors Degree Is Growing Choice Among Students!
Starting college is fraught with enough challenges and many prospective students think getting an on line college degree has even more. Besides mustering the stamina to get through an academic year, virtual students have to maintain a working computer, find a place to study in comfort and meet all their deadlines in a timely manner. Another myth is that they are isolated because they are not surrounded by fellow classmates undergoing the same pressures they are.
Actually, they are far from alone. What they don’t know is they are surrounded by fellow students and only have to reach out. One way online schools provide this is to ensure these students have easy contact with their teachers. Paradoxically, the teachers are reporting more contact with their online students than with their on-campus counterparts.
Those not familiar with online education may suffer from the illusion of the e-learner as some kind of a lonely laborer. If so, they are in for a surprise. Actually, it seems the lack of face-to-face contact increases the volume of e-mail messages between teachers and their online students to five or six times per day. In addition to e-mail, students spend their share of time on group message boards and chat rooms with the entire class.
Because of the lack of the interpersonal cues of face-to-face contact, online students tend to text with their professors. Interestingly, many online students wind up with more feedback from the teachers than the traditional approach of standing in line outside the professor’s door during pre-set office hours.
This emphasis on electronic communication is leading many to believe the online student is more productive than his or her contemporaries. There’s something about the distance of e-space that emboldens some who would not be able to debate in the real world. There are even cases of a heated online debate between various classmates – with many of the participants actually in the same room.
The teachers also report some unusual benefits. A Montana university professor reported she moderated classes that had students in a dormitory directly on campus and both Egypt and Japan at the same time.
If that isn’t enough, an increasing number of on campus students have realized the online classes use the same books, lectures, notes and teachers as their physical classes. Also, as such online services as Facebook and other social networks have become endemic, more students are actually starting to prefer electronic education. This style of education conforms more to their modern lifestyle, particularly the working student who must schedule around a job and possibly even family life.
The teachers are also getting some unique benefits. One, who meets with his students only online, doesn’t live remotely anywhere near his campus at all. Among the faculty of that college in Montana is an educator who conducts his classes while doing research in New York City. A third teacher made headlines because he was actually stationed in the Middle East but still able to conduct classes like they were anywhere but in a war zone. Due to the still developing capabilities of online education, the way one gets a degree is changing considerably. No doubt there will be more interesting reports coming as students and teachers find more of these kinds of benefits.
Every prospective student is busy with something – work, family, other responsibilities. No matter what the outside concerns are, your college degrees can fit in somewhere. Drive and dedication can get students started with their online bachelor and progress all the way through their master degree program and PhDs. There’s really no limit.
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