The Drawbacks of Earning an Online College Degree

Getting your college degree online may seem like a great idea. The thought of being able to do your school work from the comfort of your own home is appealing on many levels. Many people believe that if you get your degree online you don't have to quit your job or even cut back your work hours. It seems ideal if you're a stay home mother or father. The idea of perusing an online degree seems ideal to many people because they think that it means they won't have to change their lives. But before you jump in with both feet there are some things you need to be aware of.

College is Hard

First off college is hard. It's not like high school. You can't just breeze by without opening your book. To be successful you must work hard. That means that you must be able to dedicate many hours to studying. If you have a full time job you may find it difficult to be able to balance work, home, and school.

College is Hard

Secondly, college is hard. I know I said it before but it's worth repeating. If you have a difficult time learning in a traditional setting with a desk, students, and a teacher then you are going to find it very difficult teaching yourself the material. Because really that is what online learning is. You're teaching yourself. Quite often your "teachers" will have learning modules and notes for you to study but what it really boils down to is reading and teaching yourself the material.

College is Time Consuming

Thirdly, online learning is time consuming. Not only are their chapters to read, quizzes to take quite often you have to participate in discussion boards. A discussion board is set up like any web page forum. The teacher posts a question and the students each give their opinions based on assigned reading. Often there are a minimum number of your fellow student's responses that you must also respond to. This means that more time must be spent devoted to your online classes. There will most likely be homework as well, lots and lots of homework.

Class Time

Fourthly, you will be limited on how many classes that you can take at a time. Now most colleges don't set a minimum amount of classes that you can take. But trying to take more than two or three courses at a time may seem near impossible. Like I said before online learning is very time consuming. Quite often an online course has more work required than a class taught in a traditional classroom.

Accreditation

Fifthly, not all online programs are accredited. I know several people who received their degree online only to find out after a lot of hard work that their diplomas were basically worthless.

After reading this if you're still interested in earning your degree online then my advice to you is to do your homework. Make sure the school you're looking at is accredited, make sure that you have the right equipment (a dial up connection is going to be too slow), and make sure that you have the time to devote to school. If you do and you think online learning is for you then go for it.