Online Schooling: Phoenix vs Kaplan

I graduated high school back in 2001. I had thought about going to college, but had to much going on at the time to even bother with it. Every time that I considered going to school, something got in the way of it, and I wasn't able to go back. I had never realized that there were online schools at the time, and on top of that, I didn't know anything about them.

When I finally decided to consider going back to school, it was September of 2006. I started researching different universities, and talked to a school official for one of the universities on the phone. At that point, they asked me if I was considering going to school on campus or online. At that point, I knew I had more options than I thought I had.

I decided to tell them that I wanted to check out a couple more schools before I finalized my decision with any one specific university. At that point, I started researching online schools instead. It was amazing how many schools offered online classes. They had classes for pretty much any area of study that you wanted to go into.

Come December of 2006, I had narrowed it down to 3 schools. It was between Arizona State, Phoenix, and Kaplan University. I knew what I wanted to go to school for, and at that point I had to figure out which school offered me the best learning opportunities, degrees, and experience. Arizona State didn't have too much for my area of study, so I decided against that one.

Then it was between Phoenix and Kaplan. Phoenix had a lot to offer, and I knew a few people who went or were going to their school whether online or on campus. Then when I looked into Kaplan, they had so much to offer as well. They actually had more to offer than Phoenix did, when it came to my area of study.

I started classes there back in January 2007. Their degrees are on two year plans. You can get your associate's degree within two years, then if you want to go on to your bachelor's it's another two years, and so on. I am starting out with my Associate's and working one degree at a time. I plan on getting my MBA through them.

They have so much to offer. They have something for everyone no matter what area you are wanting to study. They have plenty of resources on their site that are available to you as a student. They have an online library, writing resource center, career resources, writing contests monthly that offer cash prizes, different degree plans, phone numbers, emails, and ims for your professors so that they can help you in any way possible throughout your time in their class, and many more opportunities and resources.

Their terms are ten weeks long, you have a week to do each assignment for each class. You can work as quickly or as slowly as you need to. If you want to go ahead into a different week, you can. They don't limit you to what you have to do. Everything is posted on your homepage. You get to your homepage and click on which class you want to open first. At that point, your remote for your classes open up. This remote allows you access to all of your classes for this term. It allows you to swap back and forth between classes as needed while you are logged in.

When you get into the class that you want opened, it shows you your main page for that class. This allows you to see what the news for the class is, and it gives you access to your gradebook, dropbox, class downloads, professors lounge, and all of your units for the term. You start at unit one and go through unit ten. Unit one for each class is basically just introducing yourself to your professor and your classmates. You get to interact with everyone throughout the term on your discussion boards and your seminars.

Once you have completed unit one, you are done for the week. If you want to go on to unit two and so forth, then you are more than welcome to. Your seminars are once a week, and they tell you the day and time for your seminar. It's the same day and time each week for that class until you get to unit nine. Most of the time you don't have a seminar for the week of the tenth, since all you're doing is turning in your final project and saying your farewells to your professor and classmates for that term.

You don't have to attend your seminar if you don't want to though. You can do the alternate assignment instead. Your seminars are graded, and it's graded by your input during the seminar and how much you have learned so far. If you decide not to attend, then there's an alternate assignment posted under seminar, and it tells you what you can do to get your grade that way instead of attending. Sometimes it will be a report, essay, discussion question, or practice problems. It all depends on what the class is, and who your professor is.

For each unit, you're graded on your seminar, discussion, and project. The seminar is basically just meeting in the seminar room that's on your remote, and you are in a chat room talking to your professor and your classmates. The professor can talk to you about anything you need to know or want to discuss pertaining to your term, unit, or a specific assignment. It's just an easy way to interact with your classmates and professor, and get a better grip on what you're learning.

Your discussion is under each unit. This is where you go to see what the professor's question(s) is for the week. You post your response under there, and then you are required to comment on two of your classmates posts. Your professor will comment on your posts as well, that way you know if you're on the right track with what you're doing.

The project consists of something related to the weekly topic. Depending on the class it could be a 2-4 page paper that requires extensive research, a short survey, a quiz, an essay, or just having to answer a few questions. All of this has to be typed up in Microsoft Word, and then turned into the dropbox on your class page.

Your grades are normally posted within 5 days from the day you submit it. If you can't get it in on time, then you can let your professor know, and they'll give you some extra time. You technically have the whole ten weeks to turn in all of your work, but if you don't turn it in within the week, then sometimes you'll get points deducted, but again that depends on the class and the professor. Your weeks begin on Wednesdays and end on Tuesdays at 12am (eastern time).

There's just so much that this school has to offer, and I would recommend it to anyone. This is a really great school, and for anyone who's interested in going back or know's someone who is, I would definitely look into this one. They will help you anyway possible to get where you are going.