From the Ivy League on down to the local junior college, there seems to be an unlimited number of colleges and universities offering programs of study online. But how to cut through the hype and decide whether a curriculum online is for you? I received my graduate degree from Regis University after taking all but four of my classes online degree. From my experience as a student online and watch other students, I came to the conclusion that certain types of people are more likely to succeed in online learning than others.
Here are some important questions you must honestly ask yourself before settling on a curriculum in line:
1) Are you a self-starter? If you are given a deadline for an assignment, you have stopped working on it until it is finished, or do you wait to start until the weekend (or night) before it is due? In most cases, because of the workload in the heaviest degree programs online, students who used procrastinate will have a very difficult time to enter grades online decent classes.2) Do you know how Budget your time? Will you need time to do things or do you need to be constantly harassed and reminded about the project deadlines? Online courses may or may not have a fixed time for meetings to keep you informed and remind you when assignments and projects are due. Some classes are email only, while others meet in a chat session weekly or biweekly.Being able to set the time aside at least 4-5 days per week for classroom work is a crucial skill for students of online degree programs.3) Do you read and learn on your own? In a classroom, you can sit in the back and doodle or surf the net with only half of your brain involved in listening to the conference. In an online class, effective learning often requires massive amounts of reading to compensate for the lack of face-to-face class time. I believe in my curriculum online, I average between 100-150 pages of reading per week, not including research for papers and assignments. Of course, the undergraduate programs would likely need to read much less than that....
Read full article: Online Degree Programs: Are They Right for You?
