Sharon Cece's Archive
Posted by Sharon Cece on February 18th, 2009
Think of a professor as a symphony conductor or an army general, or even–for zen‘s sake–gatekeepers to the portal of educational enlightenment. Any way you view them, professors and their methods hold the key to understanding your courses and, more importantly, succeeding in them.
At FSU, I was surprised how my online professors (likely with the aid of web designers and tech support) created a traditional college structure from within a computerized venue. Though every instructor had a different modus operandi when it came to e-course layout, all maintained the mandatory first day attendance policy and for good reason: in addition to course introduction and familiarization, everything you need to know is presented online that first day via the syllabus.
In regard to the syllabus, this document is essential to the success of the online student. Therefore, print it, copy it, save it, decorate your bathroom walls with it, hang it from your rearview mirror…I’m being facetious but the point is clear: the syllabus is the most effective piece of material the professor will provide in meeting your course requirements. One or two professors offered it as the only material needed for the entire course; more often, textbooks–sometimes with or without study guides and accompanying CD’s–are required. A few professors augmented all of the above with additional websites, links and yet more materials such as supplemental books of reference. These materials, with very few exceptions, were always sufficient in meeting course goals.
Online instructors usually post their content on the course discussion site and the students respond with questions and comments which are answered in a threaded format. Professors almost always hold e-office hours in the event you need to meet with them individually, or arrange virtual classrooms whereby the entire class could get information in real time. Questions are also fielded by TA’s, who are available a bit more than the busy professor. Email responses are arbitrary depending on the professor; if you’re fortunate you get an immediate answer but ususually it’s a day or more later. Information you require that is course-specific is best posted online publicly so that other students can add to the discussion; personal information (i.e.– you need to re-take a test or make up course work) should be emailed privately to the professor.
If you can bear one more metaphor, think of professors as snowflakes–no two are alike. Get to know each instructor, what materials they require and specifically what he or she expects from you as a student. You will be amazed at how much time and energy this will save you.
A small but essential piece of information to advance you to the portal of educational enlightenment.
Posted by Sharon Cece on February 10th, 2009
Imagine munching a chocolate bar and sipping a cappuccino, wearing your favorite old sweats, hair unkempt…while at the very same moment you, with your class, are drumming alongside the Ashanti tribe in Africa or celebrating the Reykjavik Arts Festival in Iceland.
Online learning fuses three entities–your education, your computer and the entire world. The technology utilized by online programs is remarkable in itself, and the information and learning gleaned through this technology is as good if not better than some received locally. Why, it’s virtually global.
When you’re an online student, almost everything–your class work, your communication, your testing, your research–is done, well, online. The exception is that you do make use of textbooks in most online courses of study. You may also use programs such as Word or Works, Excel and PowerPoint to turn in coursework.
Blackboard is the mode of transportation between you and your online courses. When you log onto blackboard, it “drives” you to your classes. This is where all your learning and communication takes place. Initially, you meet the class electronically via threaded discussions; you do this in parts as you may log on and enter your class when one or two (or no) students are there and then start or continue a discussion via a post, which in the beginning is usually an introduction. Then when you log back on, you see other students left discussions or answered your posts, which you can read and answer at your convenience–the many discussions and parts become a whole. It’s a neat way of holding class without having to be at a classroom at a particular time. Threaded discussions were used often in nearly all of my classes and were very effective in interacting with professors, TA’s and other online students about the course content. I particularly liked that I could log on when it was most convenient at a time of my choosing; in this way, I was more effective at communicating and participating as a student.
Instruction and learning takes place using a variety of other technologies. Java was very cool. With Java, all the online students logged in to a real-time class whereby we would discuss the coursework very much the way instant messaging works, except with a huge group. Also, the professor can electronically “write” on a whiteboard that everyone can see (that’s a bit bizarre at first to witness, like a ghost is drawing in front of you) but very effective in creating the classroom atmosphere from a virtual medium.
In my very first online course at Florida State, Music World Cultures, the professor utilized web technology whereby his students could study international musicians from within their own nations and tribes. My instructor was the Distinguished Research Professor Dr. Dale A. Olsen, a world-renown Ethnomusicologist and Guggenheim Fellowship Winner who conducted fieldwork in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Aotearoa, Fiji, Rarotonga, Tonga in Polynesia, and elsewhere around the world. It was quite an honor to have been one of his online students; even the textbook we used was authored by him. From our screens straight into the world, we studied the music of the Warao of Venezuela (Song People of the Rain Forest), the beautiful Kinko-ryû shakuhachi from Japan, Brazilian’s Samba Parade at Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, contemporary Chinese bands rock out in Beijing, and indigenous Australian Aborigines perform the dijeridu. It was an exceptional program which, unless you had thousands of dollars to spare for travel, was savored through a technological window. In the best sense possible while sitting in my little home in Willow Spring, NC, I didn’t just learn about these cultures from a book… I literally experienced them online.
Posted by Sharon Cece on February 2nd, 2009
I was a typical college student from 18 to 20. I lived at home with Mom and worked at a department store while I attended a community college. At that time I majored in Business Management. A year later I hopped in my rusty little Datsun with one box of clothes and a typewriter (really) and headed to FSU, where I segued to the more general Business Program.
Then, I became somewhat non-typical and left FSU without a degree and a bunch of credits flying about looking for a home. Years passed; I traveled around the country a bit, got married and had kids. When I returned to finish my degree I was dismayed to discover that the online program I was interested in didn’t have a Business Degree Program! What to do.
Enter the wonderful, flexible Interdisciplinary Degree. Here’s what happened: I still had all these credits still flying around and now they’re getting tired. I knew that after 14 years I’d be hard-pressed to find a program that would accept all these aging credits. The Florida State Undergraduate Program Online had four options:
- Computer Science (Um, no–The last computer course I studied was Fortran, which can be found under history close to “Mayan Civilization” and “Jurassic Life“)
- Nursing (Definitely not, don’t like sticking needles in people)
- Family Development and Family Resource Management (Interesting, but would have to start over)
- ISS, or Interdisciplinary Social Science (ISS, is that a degree for snakes?)
None of those seemed applicable to Business, so I figured I struck out.
Not so. Interdisciplinary Degrees are just that–composed of two or more disciplines. Upon further inquiry, it turned out that many of my business courses, as well as the many prerequisite and general elective courses required for a business degree, were applicable toward a Florida State ISS Social Science online degree. Jackpot! Of course it helped that some of these business courses were from FSU prior; even so, it worked out much better than I had hoped.
The great part of my online experience at Florida State is that the advisors are very dedicated to helping you to graduate. My advisor spent a lot of her time reviewing my former transcripts, fitting in what could into my ISS program and helping me organize what courses I still needed. My Interdisciplinary Social Science program was flexible when it came to qualifying courses for my grad check; for example, general Economics courses that I took at my community college in NJ were applicable to secondary concentration Economics courses that I needed in order to graduate at FSU. In this way, I was well on my way to finishing an online degree in Social Science by utilizing courses I obtained originally pursuing a completely different degree.
Posted by Sharon Cece on January 26th, 2009
Most of us who are into classic rock remember the Eagles’ song “Life in the Fast Lane” (surely make you lose your mind). Well, that pretty much describes my fusion of an online course load with husband, kids, work and life. Some days, I really thought I would lose my mind. Blame it on that two-word teaser: Time Management. It’s a misnomer anyway; no one really manages time, time manages you.
So there I was with a household to run, two kids to care for full-time and now two course loads per semester. At that time I was also doing editing and custom baking projects. How did I manage?
Well, I managed pretty much as well as everyone else. I implemented the “WIN” philosophy, which Lou Holtz championed (W-I-N: What’s Important Now). Family is very important and I always put my husband and kids first BUT…. going back to school was also very important to me and for once I wanted to give something to myself, just for me. So, there were times when I said to the kids, mom’s closing the door, fend for yourself. The bare minimum got done. The bills got paid, the kids and cat and husband usually had meals even though sometimes it was peanut butter and jelly (suuure, cats love peanut butter and jelly). My work projects got finished on time. The rest–clothes, cleaning, extracurricular, social life, hair and makeup, sometimes my own dinner–was put on the backburner when I had to complete a test or quiz or do a school project. And that also meant that the rest of the family had to pitch in and do some of my work for a while.
I remember one panicked middle-of-the-night moment when my then online course load whizzed through my head like Seattle Slew down the homestretch. This particular course, Methods of Social Research, was my most excruciatingly difficult online course ever and, naturally, my final course prior to graduating. Each week we had, count with me: a quiz, an individual project, a report, a test, a threaded discussion and a group collaboration. Each week. We also had mid-term projects and a final 40-page project replete with graphs, computations and a questionnaire with statistical analysis and summations. Oh yes, it was the nightmare course; I‘m sweating just writing about it. So anyway, there I was at 2 AM…staring at the ceiling, wide-eyed, heart hammering and for first time in my academic life, convinced there was no way I would get it all done.
Well, obviously I did get it done. You just do. You order pizza or husband makes dinner (always cereal, but it is a food product after all). You study while they’re in the fast food play area, or work on homework at your child’s doctors office while he’s waiting to be called. You wake up early before anyone else gets up and with a steaming cup of coffee in the quiet, early morning light, you get a few pages done. Or you stay up late when everyone else has gone to bed. You email your professor, your TA, every other student on the roster if you have to and plead, what do I need to do to get this finished. You work it, because you know as tough as it is and as crazy as life gets, you see the finish line. And crossing that line, no matter how much hassle it takes, is worth the tassel you get.
Posted by Sharon Cece on January 22nd, 2009
The advent of online educating was, to me, what the invention of the remote control was to couch potatoes– the answer to a prayer. For the longest time I wanted to go back to school but I could not find the time or the energy to physically work it out. So, I stared at college catalogs and brochures and thought about it but never took the next step to get to the front step.
Fortunately, I never had to take that step. Leg-wise, that is.
It was a brilliant notion to have college “come to me”; everything I needed to partake in the cup of higher learning right from my bedroom office. Thus, the beginning of my online education was convenient, time-saving and close-at-hand. It also was at times frustrating, overwhelming and confusing. I’ll elaborate.
I had never participated in online study before. I just assumed to go to college you had to drive your car to university, sit in class, drive home. Do your homework, drive back, take your test. Ok, so now here I am and I can do everything from my computer. Wow. First, login. Oh wait, I need a student password. Which I didn’t have. So I have to contact a rep at the college, leave a message, someone calls back in a day or two. They refer me to someone else to whom I leave a message. That person is on vacation, so I contacted the next person on the list. This went on a little while.
Here you have a perfect introduction to online learning. Never expect an immediate reply; sometimes it’s a day, sometimes two, sometimes even a week. Often you are corresponding by email and emails have issues just like any other electronic medium; as well, computers hiccup, servers burp and e-programs take coffee breaks . As with any process, expect the unexpected.
Ok, now you have all your logins, student id numbers, passwords and sites. Next, you have to navigate. For me, this was the most confusing as a “freshman online”. At FSU, you had to find your online college site, then your specific course site, and then any other site that was an extension of your course site. There’s also the student information sites and main FSU webpage, the bookstore sites, financial information site, all the necessary emails and contact information, etc. and so on. I consider myself pretty adept at site navigation but I did feel overwhelmingly inept until I had all the sites bookmarked for easy retrieval.
Moreover, since you rarely if ever speak to your professor, TA or even advisor face-to-face, as referenced above, communication is seldom immediate. This can be a tad frustrating when you are stuck on an issue. Therefore, as a freshman, gather all the relevant contact info right away and keep it in a handy spot for reference. Also include as many students as you can; become friendly with seniors or veteran online students who have been in the program awhile as they will give you great advice. This is no time to be shy; in fact, online students need to be more bold than traditional students due to the lack of physical interaction. Be sure to contact your advisor or professors with any questions or concerns, and try not to get too frustrated if you don’t receive an answer to your question right away. Sometimes it takes a little while, but you will get an answer.
Finally, give yourself a break. As with any new adventure, time is the best teacher. Sooner than you think, you will be navigating the course sites and course work like you’ve been doing it all your life. You’ll understand how to operate Blackboard, Java, virtual classrooms, threaded discussions (don’t worry, I didn’t know what any of that was either). You’ll even know it so well that you’ll be helping other confused freshman coming in asking you for help. And you’ll do it all from the privacy of your home, office or the great outdoors, even from a friend’s house or beach house. You’ll go to college without ever having to “go” to college. You know, online educating might even be better than the remote control.
Well, unless you happen to be a very cultured couch potato–then it’s a toss up.
Posted by Sharon Cece on January 12th, 2009
Enrollment to an online course of study, in my case, involved four specific steps: Desire, Action, Reaction, and Finalization. Desire was the part of the enrollment process where I asked myself, “Do I want to return to college to get my degree”? Most of the time, my answer was “I’m not sure” and so, this part of the process took the longest and was the most challenging stage. Without desire, my commitment simply wasn’t going to stick and the effort wasn’t going to be expended in a worthwhile fashion.
Once my desire question phased into “Yes, now is the time”, however, the rest of the enrollment process went quite smoothly. It took just a few minutes to inquire about a program, and a few minutes more to fill out an application. At this point, the Action step was engaged. Once I was ready, it was just a matter of gathering my information and submitting forms. I realize that for some people, filling out forms falls somewhere between the seventh and eighth circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno; yet for myself it was not too difficult and the forms were submitted fairly quickly. Which led me to the third step of the process, Reaction, or Response. This was the step whereby, once I was accepted, I had to submit additional information for the program in order to officially enroll. This included my prior test scores, SAT results, transcripts from all other colleges, etc, to my advisor. Let me point out, that locating all the other transcripts turned out to be an unexpected speed bump in this process since I had attended three other colleges by the time I enrolled to FSU’s online program. Yet, by taking one school at a time everything was submitted in a timely fashion.
Finalization was the last part of the enrollment process where I tied up any loose ends and worked on payment plans and logistics. At this point I knew where I was going, what program I would enroll in, and where everything was that I needed to turn in. Now, I had to find a way to pay for it. Next to Desire, financing was the more difficult part of the process since now I needed to fill out financial aid forms, both federal and local. I also had to decide how many classes I would take per semester and the costs associated accordingly. Give yourself a bit of time to get this part finished.
Which leads to time. A prospective student should give him or herself plenty of time from program search to program login, ideally one full year. This would allow for all of the steps above to be carried out without too much Sturm und Drang, with a moment left over to breathe between stages. Enrollment can be completed in less time of course, perhaps even a semesters breath, but there is certain to be rush and hassle on the part of the student which could lead to errors in processing and even placement in programs that might not be the student’s primary choice. A college education is important and getting the program you want is essential. So give yourself about a year if possible to work out all the details of online study, to turn in the all the required forms, to know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there (and how to pay for it). Inevitably, unexpected issues will arise but you can address them in a fairly relaxed fashion and with time on your side to begin your online program exactly when you planned.
Posted by Sharon Cece on January 5th, 2009
I got some great advice not long ago and it was this: “The hardest part about cutting your lawn is not actually cutting your lawn. The hardest part is deciding to put your hands on the handle of the mower”. It sounds simplistic, but I realized that’s true about most things in life; deciding to do something is the most difficult part of any process. Once you make a decision, either way it’s pretty much a done deal.
My college application process was a breeze compared to my back-and-forth justifications for not returning to school at this time or that time. Excuses are easy to formulate and I’m as good at making them as anyone else. That’s not to say they weren’t valid. But I was more surprised than anyone, when finally deciding okay this is it I’m going back to school, how seamlessly and effortlessly everything fell into place. I dropped off my application at Florida State while we happened to be driving in the region on vacation. I mailed in my transcripts, provided the additional necessary paperwork, got the acceptance, filled out my financial aid forms and the next thing you know I was a college student again.
As you’re reading this you’re probably thinking nothing is ever that easy, but it’s astounding to me how much can get done when you, excuse the banality and oft-used Nike reference, just do it. Just put your hands on the handle. Just start climbing the mountain. Just fill out the first form, then the next form. From a distance it seems overwhelming but up close and in parts it’s wholly doable. Almost anything in this world, especially those copious application demands, can and will get done when achieved in small parts.
My advice for college applicants is this: once you decide, despite the wide expanse of overgrown lawn, to put your hands on that handle, once you decide to confront the formidable crag, once you decide to tackle the application process step by intricate step–after you take a deep breath–then plunge in with all your heart. That means whatever roadblocks come your way, whether it be rocky patches or jagged edges or a multitude of paperwork, transcripts, emails and financial aid forms, just get ‘er done. Don’t look too far ahead and don’t be dissuaded by the effort needed to start you on the road to graduation. The decision is the hardest part. The rest is just a walk on the lawn.
Posted by Sharon Cece on December 29th, 2008
The great thing about going to college today is the nearly infinite number of choices students have in attaining and experiencing their educations. From local community colleges to world-wide programs, the sky’s the “un”-limit.
I was fortunate in that I was able to attend college both locally and out-of-state. While I highly recommend doing both–or all, for I wish I had also attended college internationally (and who knows, still might)– students must also make pragmatic choices that serve their specific needs and life situations. Single students have more flexibility than married, full-time students have more intense scheduling issues than part-timers, etc.
Here is where online learning offers it’s greatest benefit: unlimited program options. Before online alternatives, as suggested above, one either had to attend school at a local college or completely transfer out-of-state. I did both, which were invaluable experiences. Yet, once I was married with kids I couldn’t just pick up and move back to Tallahassee to finish my degree. Therefore, “college online” satisfied all of my educational needs and brought the out-of-state right to my front door. What a concept.
That’s not to say locality wasn’t an important consideration for me. Initially I did lean toward local schools since those programs are always more cost-effective. Out-of-state students, even online, usually pay twice as much as local students. An added benefit to local colleges are the extra-curricular events, concerts, lectures and programs that are accessible to students; obviously, I couldn’t attend any of those as a distance learning student and so missed out on the experiences they offered. On the other hand, I did take advantage of those events and programs while I was a student living in Tallahassee, and so when I returned as on online student to get my degree years later I had a singular goal in mind–graduating! The other benefits were secondary at that point in my life, and financial aid and academic grants assisted me with the higher out-of-state fees.
Choices today are as varied as the many programs offered to students. It’s a great time to go to college!
Posted by Sharon Cece on December 23rd, 2008
The $64,000 question (or perhaps the $64 million by the time my kids finally go to college) is “What college should I choose to attend“? It is an extremely important question, since your alma mater will be part and parcel of your life forevermore. This blog is case in point: even though I’ve graduated from FSU I’m still representing FSU in this forum and a number of other ways. Which I know has you begging the question, Why FSU?
As it happens, I applied to a number of colleges both when I was starting out at 17 and again when I decided to finish my degree at 38. Now, admittedly I chose a county college 25 years ago primarily because I was broke and, well, it was cheap. Good, cheap education– by and by something no 17-year old can turn down. A few years later I transferred to FSU out of sheer adventurous spirit, the Sacagawea of the Educative Expedition.
And, as I’ve pointed out in previous articles, left with 96 credits under my belt sans degree.
Okay, fast forward, oh, fourteen years or so. I’m ready to take the plunge and finally finish that degree. Back to the $64,000 question.
Number one in the list of my “choosing” criteria was locality. Since I now live in the Academic Mecca (Duke, UNC, NC State, Campbell University, East Carolina… just to name a few) I was fairly sure I would pick a program from the local zone to finish my degree. I sought information from three of those and had sticker shock from two; the third, NC State, was conveniently located and cost effective, but did not offer the program I was seeking.
Concurrently, I inquired about FSU programs, never believing I would end up back there but did so out of sheer sentimentality; as well I considered two other “online” schools, one a well-known online university that is in fact featured on this website. So all told, I requested information from six college programs– three brick and mortar, three online.
Looking back, all of the information I received was very helpful in making a choice (in other words, the costs of some colleges alone were enough to help me make a decision, that being a whopping YEAH RIGHT). It’s easy to eliminate a college simply because you can’t afford it! Which left three finalists. Well, really one finalist. FSU was probably my only choice deep down, and I requested information from the other schools simply because I felt it’s what a practical person should do, which is to consider many options. I felt six was a good round number for inquiry and I’m glad in retrospect that I did entertain other options, if for no other reason than simply to be able to remark with aplomb, “Why, naturally I considered many other schools and after careful consideration decided on…..”
Good luck!
Posted by Sharon Cece on December 15th, 2008
Candidly speaking, when I decided to return to college to complete my degree I did not initially consider online options. I believed that returning to Florida State was out of the question for obvious reasons (the main being a super long commute), and so I looked at local colleges to finish what I started. Since I was used to being a traditional student, I assumed I would return on-campus.
My plans changed, however, when I was clicking through the FSU site out of sheer wishful thinking. Somehow I stumbled on their distance learning FSU Online program, but was dismayed to find a very limited number of degrees offered with none pertaining to my major (unless I wanted to suddenly switch from Business Administration to Nursing, which was unlikely). Yet, the more I thought about it, the more the idea of studying and matriculating online appealed to me. Having small children was my biggest push toward an online curriculum, as well as the appealing thought of taking tests right from home when I wanted or from wherever I happened to be at the moment.
And so began my search for online degrees. Since I had never attended college online I wasn’t quite sure at first what I was looking for in an online program. First and foremost I wanted to apply the credits I already had toward my returning degree. Convenience and flexibility was a criteria, yet pretty much default with most online programs. Cost was another consideration and I did find a wide spectrum of fees with local schools as most affordable. However, I admit that I kept gravitating back to FSU, thinking this was my chance to finish my degree where I wanted, though their online program was more money than most of the local colleges I was considering. As well, I wasn’t sure how I would apply my credits to the online degrees that were offered there. But I suddenly felt determined and, through this new distance learning option I was presented, I saw a chance to get my degree exactly how I wanted (online: the antidote for long commutes) and where I wanted (FSU: my #1 choice).
Fortunately, persistence pays. I snail-mailed, e-mailed and called a number of helpful representatives and assistants and finally reached a wonderful advisor who informed me that most of my Business Admin courses could be applied or converted toward an Interdisciplinary Social Science degree, which was offered through the FSU Online program. Another advantage: even though their online course fees were higher than local online programs, all of my existing credits would be applied to my continuing degree since my prior credits were from FSU to begin with. This would save me both time and money in the long run. That clinched it. Now my course was set, and the rest was easy– just a matter of applying and paying for it. Okay maybe not so easy….but once you decide what you want and how you want it, the rest somehow falls into place.
