What to Expect When You’re Connecting (or…what “Freshman Online Classes” should know)

Posted by Sharon Cece on January 22nd, 2009

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.

Tags: advice to freshman online, distance learning student advice, Florida State University online, FSU online programs, scholarly couch potatoes

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Life as a Freshman Online Learner, Student Voices. 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.