Are You a Good Candidate for an Online Degree?
Posted by Jeff Davis on April 20th, 2009
Not everyone is a good candidate for becoming an online student. In my opinion, online courses seem to be geared more towards students with a verbal learning style versus a visual one. Why? Well, namely because the study materials, classroom discussions, assignments, and interaction are all replaced by writing. So, if you are the type of student who prefers a more hands-on approach, the online school environment may not be for you. But whatever your learning style, you must be able to learn and work independently in order to succeed in an online degree program. This means that you must be organized and able to complete all assignments with little to no supervision. Effective time management is very important, so procrastinators beware. Among the many benefits to this type of learning environment are that online students usually don’t have to worry about waiting for the entire class to catch up to speed so that everyone is on the same level and I have personally found it to be beneficial by working at my own pace like this so that I can help to speed up my graduation date and getting my degree.
Among the other characteristics of a good online program candidate are that they must be able to effectively demonstrate comfort with using technology and especially such items as the Internet (for research and classroom activities), word processing software, and communication tools (like email and instant messengers). Lastly, I think it’s important for an online student to have the necessary reading and comprehensive skills in order to understand the text because in the online school environment you will be missing out on the more traditional instructor-led lectures.
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This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Who Is an Online Degree Right For?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:34 am
The Internet evolution has drastically changed the education landscape. What was once considered “Distance Education” is now deemed “Online Education” where the method of teaching and learning has become virtual for students across the world.