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Education

Distance Education - Pros and Cons? 42

Posted by Cliff from the before-you-take-that-long-leap dept.
xvrd asks: "I'm Swiss and got an Associates Degree in the US. Now (back in Switzerland) I'm thinking about getting a Bachelor Degree. Going back to the US on a student visa is not an option for several reasons and the programs offered in Switzerland either don't offer the flexibility I want or the classes I'm looking for. After some research I found some online colleges that looked trustworthy and offered interesting programs (Kaplan would even let me transfer all my credits). I've looked into the following colleges: Kaplan Colleges, University of Phoenix Online, and the University of Maryland University College. Before enrolling anywhere I'd like to ask the Slashdot community about their thoughts on Online Education. Any experiences you want to share? How does HR look at Degrees completed entirely online?"
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Distance Education - Pros and Cons? More

Distance Education - Pros and Cons?

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  • Depends (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lindsayt ( 210755 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @09:57AM (#4111097)
    It depends entirely on what you're doing with the degree. I can tell you right now that as a PhD student at a big school, it's not the type of degree but the institution that granted it. In other words, somebody with a BA from a good school is more regarded in academia than someone with an MA from a bad school.

    The unfortunate thing is, none of the correspondence/online degrees are from highly regarded schools yet. This is changing slowly - some good schools are beginning to teach online and correspondence courses, but none of them allow an entire degree program that way.

    If you're a working stiff looking for a degree for pay/promotion reasons, then probably any would be good but Kaplan is probably the least desirable. However, if you plan ever to go on in academia or really expect your degree to be worth more than just a one-time pay raise, you may consider the investment of a traditional degree.

    • Re:Depends (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SarcasticTester ( 586529 )
      Additional to all this, if you are looking for a bit of a student experience but cannot go to the US (or do not want to go there, that was my problem) there are many highly regarded Universities in Europe as well. I probably is worth your while to try to go to an esteemed university somewhere in Europe instead of doing an online one.
      One of the many benefits I found is that it really boosts your network of colleagues over the world which may come in handy in many ways (like finding a new job and helping you out with problems during your thesis etc.)
      So I would definitely go for a real university instead of a virtual one.

      • Open University (Score:2, Informative)

        by ajb69 ( 561899 )
        This is the path I would take. The UK's Open University (www.open.ac.uk [open.ac.uk]) - which was founded in the 1960s by the British Government to pioneer distance-learning courses - takes students from Switzerland for all its courses.

        The degrees - both arts and scientific - you get from the OU certainly are not "toy" degrees - they are run and marked by top academics, and given full weight by (UK) HR deptartments. For example, the OU regularly wins prizes for the quality of its students. It also has taken great pains to combat the disadvantages of distance learning by encouraging online collaboration.

        Drew
    • I think here in the UK the Open University (http://www.open.ac.uk/) is pretty well regarded. It has been around for a long time doing remote degrees.

      The Open University generally caters for those who have regular jobs and want to study for a degree in their spare time. Needless to say, that takes a long time and a great deal of motivation and self discipline. Accordingly, as an employer I'd have a lot of respect for anyone who managed to do it successfully.

    • Re:Depends (Score:4, Informative)

      by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @12:22PM (#4112191)
      RIT [rit.edu] has always been ranked very nicely. These folks [usnews.com] seem to agree.

      Their distance learning program looks pretty impressive, they have a number of full undergrad degree and Masters degrees [rit.edu] available online. I've been toying with the idea. Not MIT, but not at all a second rate school.
  • If you are looking for technical, factual, resume-building experience, go for it.

    However, in my experience, one of the most important aspects -- perhaps the most important -- of education is peer interaction. Whatever you learn from a textbook and a lecture, you'll learn ten times as much hearing your fellow students' questions, struggling with them over the assignments, and just chatting and exchanging ideas. Education is deeply social.

    An online setting can accomplish some of this (as we are now!), but it's no substitute. If you do go the distance route, make sure that you're doing lots of work on the interpersonal side to make up for that missing piece. Be aggressive about getting online with your classmates. Find other people at a similar level or with similar interests in your area. Don't get isolated. Interact.

    • However, in my experience, one of the most important aspects -- perhaps the most important -- of education is peer interaction.

      What you get in this area depends strongly on how the school's online program is setup. I got my undergraduate and first Masters from a large mega-university (the University of Florida). In my early thirities I got an MBA from an accredited online school. The level of classroom-type interaction was even greater in the online program than the traditional one. I've never been a very talkative, out going person but in the online program I found myself interacting much more than in a regular class.

      I do agree that you get much less social interaction in the online program but at that point in my life I was interested in the knowledge and the degree not the social, after-hours type interaction that many seem to think is an essential element of higher education.

  • Years ago I found out through an employment agency that I had brains (yeah who would have guessed). I could enroll into HBO (Tech school one rank below university) if only I passed the maths exam. I only ever did low tech school (One rank above highschool) so I needed some training.

    Here comes the relevant bit. Experts from the employment agency looked at the options including self-studie, evening school, online studie and tutoring. Online studie was dismissed first for the simple reason that unless you already know the subject matter and are just tuning up or are simply brilliant you will need that teachers aid. Now the point of online is that the teacher is supposed to be there, when I looked it was still phone based. The experts just had never seen it work out. I took the experts advise and took a evening self-studie class where there was a professor who helped each in turn. I passed with flying colors.

    You are looking to continue a course so perhaps you already know most of it and only need to prepare for the exam, then it may work for you.

  • I've done distance learning in the past (at the college & high school levels), and in my experience, it really depends upon what you, and your profesor put into it. If you were to treat your classes as "real" classes, you could probably get a lot out of it, but in my experience, thats not usually how either group treats distance education, so it ends up being a lot like a semester of light study followed by CLEP.

  • Virginia Tech (Score:2, Informative)

    by AllMightyPaul ( 553038 )
    I think Virginia Tech [vt.edu] has a remote campus in Switzerland. I don't know if it's open to Swiss students or just to students going abroad.

  • be careful (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jeffy124 ( 453342 )
    it's probably best to choose a school that also has a traditional brick & mortar component.

    The Maryland school mentioned might be affiliated with UMD -- but it's not clear whether they're two different schools or not. U of Phoenix is like the Internet equivalent of DeVry. I see commercials on TV for both, and they look like clones and use similar pitches. As for Kaplan, I've only ever heard of them back in high school for SAT prep materials, which are typically useless, IMO.
    • DeVry and Phoenix have very little in common. Phoenix is a fully accredited institution and DeVry is not. Phoenix focuses on students with significant life experience, usually including some traditional university work. Phoenix has pretty normal, well-rounded curricula, whereas DeVry, AFAIK, is a "tech school," meaning that there is little, if any, emphasis on non-major topics such as English and Humanities.
      • That's bullcrap. DeVry Univeristy IS accredited. DeVry is accredited byNorth Central Association [devry.edu]. DeVry is definitely not as bad as say the American School of Technology where you can learn to be a Nurse, a Medical Technician or a DJ. To me Pheonix is worse. I get junk mail from them every day it seems.
    • University of Maryland University College (umuc.edu) is an independent university in the Maryland state university system. It is on the same campus as UM College Park, but is physically seperate, and organizationally seperate. It has been doing distance education for over 50 years, including much for members of the US military abroad. They have physical locations all over the world (test centers), and class offerings (in person) in Maryland, Heidelberg (and others), Germany and near Tokyo in Japan.

      (I work for UMUC -- best job I've ever had!)

      UMUC has much experience working with students in Europe and all over the world.

      FWIW -- U of Phoenix (our "competition") is a for-profit corporation, not a not-for-profit. You cannot use federal financial aid there. They do seem to offer courses at a number of physical locations around the US.
  • There are two big things to keep in mind when looking at getting a degree from an online university. First and foremost, make sure they're an accredited university, otherwise your degree is really just a piece of paper (Which may be all your looking for ;) Second, if you AREN'T just looking for a piece of paper saying you have a degree, make sure its a real university. I've heard from quite a few people that the University of Phoenix is a "Pay us money get a degree" program. (This also may be fine for you, but just check it out before you leap into it)
  • In my experience, HR doesn't look any further than what you've written on your resume.
    (I would even bet that 90% of the time you could put down some completely fake school and no one would even bother to check.)

    I would never do this sort of thing, and I would reccomend no one else do it, but my point is:

    If you can get an online degree from the univ of maryland or phoenix, who is going to know whether you got the degree completely online.
    As long as the degree is they are offering is just as valid as the ones the people who live in the dorms get, who cares.
    All HR cares about is the piece of paper.

    • All HR cares about is the piece of paper.

      On my resume I list my MBA from a school in Michigan without mentioning that it's from an online program. I'm sure that some day I'm going to run into the one in a hundred HR guy who's actually paying attention and wants to know how I could have gone to a school in Michigan while working in Florida.

  • This is kind of sad, but after spending a small fortune and graduating from a great school, I have NEVER had any HR people even comment about the school I attended, nor did they really care at the time. Could I do (x,y,z)? Sure. Did I have professional experience doing (x,y,z)? You betcha. Great. Got the job.

    It NEVER had anything to do with my college degree or the pedigree of the school I attended.

    That being said, do I regret spending that small fortune on a degree that obviously nobody cares about? Not at all. When I stopped having to deal with HR managers and started my own firm, my alma mater and degree became useful in that clients and potential clients that I would meet at conferences and such WOULD ask and recognize my school and realize that I wasn't just some chump that new a bunch of technologies that were taught in some technical school. I had a brain and new how to use it.

    With that in mind, it comes down to what your purpose is for attending these distance learning courses. Forget about HR, they dont really care. But if it's just for yourself, I see no reason why not. BUT, look into how the CE credits are furnished. Who is the university furnishing you with CE credits? What is their reputation? And what do those CE credits count towards?

    Example: what is the difference between CE credits offered by Kaplan Online vs. Columbia Univ.? Big prestige difference, but technically, you might learn the same stuff in both.

    Just some food for thought
    • Just because they don't ask doesn't mean they don't care. My previous employer implemented a policy shortly before I left requiring that all new hires, even down to secretaries and receptionists, had to have a college degree.
      • My previous employer implemented a policy shortly before I left requiring that all new hires, even down to secretaries and receptionists, had to have a college degree.

        Nothing like over-qualified, bored workers spending all day sending out resumes.
    • I know that HR people at companies I've worked for (and interviewed with) *do* look at what school you went to. Sometimes, its because a current good (or bad) employee went to the same school. Sometimes its because a manager went to the same school. Sometimes, it is just a local school with a bad reputation in a certain field.

      What surprises me is how many companies still request (and look at) college transcripts after you have an established professional career. This falls into the category of bureaucratic policies that have overextended their usefulness.

      A friend of mine had an associates degree in CS from some DeVry type place that has since gone out of business. He has 20+ years of experience and is one of the best programmers I know. Currently, he is out of work. Several companies here in Huntsville will not hire anyone without a degree, no matter what the qualifications. A few that would accept his associates degree won't hire him because he cannot furnish official transcripts.

    • I have gotten my last two jobs PRIMARILY because I graduated from the school I graduated from, not because I had any skills, 'cause I didn't, at least not in the field I was going into.
  • The biggest problem I have had with the online classes is, they aren't classes. I have taken a few 'net only classes at my brick and mortar university (VCU). The biggest troube is the class isnt tought like a class. You read alittle bit and then a large amount of homework is given. The professors all used assignments to attemt to take up the slack of no human interaction. In a normal class I would spend about 1 hour studying and about 2 hours (+-) doing assignments. For my online classes I would spend about 4 hours (keep in mind there is no class time so reguard that as 3 class and 1 studying)studying, and usually 5-7 hours on assignments. Several times I had 11-13 hours of assignments to do for one class. The way a professors expect insane repitition of similar execises to make up for not being really tought anything just left a very bad taste in my mouth. Hope your experience goes better.
  • The University of Maryland University College?

    Can I get a Computer Science Degree in the Science of Computer Science Technology?

    (BTW, the name of that college *isn't* a typo)
    • "University College" is generally used as a catch-all for courses and programs that don't fit in other colleges/schools/departments/programs in a particular four-year university. For example, at my university [swt.edu] there is the fairly traditional group of schools such as the College of Liberal Arts, and so on. We also have a University College which is where all the lower division core courses live. At some schools, the distance education programs are administered by their University College, so I guess that is what they are doing. But I agree the name still sounds cumbersome...

  • Could be a viable option.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by luckycat007 ( 458002 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @10:29AM (#4111282)
    ...but depends on your goals and what you expect to achieve from a degree program. There are more and more "traditional" universities offering online programs, Univ of Maryland at Univ College is one of the good ones. I am currently attending a graduate program at Regis University, and have been very pleased with the experience thus far. Online discussion forums and group activities allow you to interact with other students.

    The important thing to note is that in an online setting the mode of teaching is different than a traditional classroom. The professors are more akin to "facilitators" that guide you through the education process, which will typically involve a lot more reading/writing than a classroom based program (at least this has been my experience at Regis). Since you don't show up at a pre-set time to hear a professor in a lecture, you learn from reading, applying what you have read to individual or group projects, and/or on-line research activities, and getting feedback from the on-line professor.

    For me, the online choice was the only one possible due to Monday-Friday travel related to work. I have found that is the case with many, but not all, of the classmates that I've had online. Some individuals that I have met dislike online education because of the lack of physical presence of other students, others prefer it over a traditional classroom setting, because they have more time to aborb knowledge over the course of a week while reading on-line forums/books/etc., vs. capturing a significant amount of information during class times.

    Just watch out for fly-by-night operations, or "degree mills" - before you join any program I would suggest making sure they are fully accredited by a regional accrediting agency (I believe there are 5 regional boards in the U.S., such as the North Central Assocation of Colleges and Schools).

    In addition, search the alt.distance.education newsgroup for information on specific schools/programs that you are researching. You can find a lot of interesting related web sites in that forum.

    How do HR departments treat online degrees? Depends on the organization. If the degree is from an accredited university that also offers the same program in a traditional classroom setting, this shouldn't be an issue. If you are interested in more "pure" academia - going back to get a PhD from a traditional university - I get the sense that you might face some resistance, but I think that attitudes are slowly changing. Again, the newsgroup offers a lot of information/opinions on this.

    Good luck with your studies.

  • After an argument with higher calculus I dropped out of university, got a job, and later picked up my studies part-time by correspondence - the traditional mail, books and paper kind.

    If you are a good learner and/or have time to dedicate to your studies (a couple of hours a day, preferably), I think this is an excellent way to go.

    I completed my degree through UNISA [unisa.ac.za] (the University of South Africa). They offer a number of excellent courses in all faculties, including postgraduate studies; have over 110,000 students, are recognised worldwide and examination centers in many countries.

    Some of the faculties are most suited to international students than others. The computer science department, for example, accepts most tutorial submissions online. I see their home page has links for online registration and payment as well.

    UNISA will allow you to transfer credits from recognised institutions (up to a maximum of half the total needed for your degree).

    This is a bit of a shameless plug, but if you're going to get a qualification, it is worth getting it from a known, recognised and respected institution.

    Some information on requirements for foreign (non-SA) students [unisa.ac.za]

  • The most prestigious degree you can
    find has to be the University of London-External Programme. But it probably requires a fair amount of discipline.
  • When I was in college (SUNY Oswego) I worked in the Distence Learning Dept. There were some net based classes but some of our classes were via cable TV and PicTel(Sort of Video Conferencing).

    The Cable TV classes were in a small studio, the professor would have powerpoint like slides, an ELMO (Kind of like a video overhead projector, he could write on tranparent plastic with a marker like a blackboard) and a phone hybrid for call in questions. I was the tech for this (Switch between sources, audio, video, make sure the cable company had us, ect.) This seemed to work well and we had students throughout upstate NY. They still had that interactive student-teacher relationship.

    The other sort was PicTel (Video Conference). There would be a traditional class but would have students particapating from other sites. There were cameras, monitors, and mikes at all sites. The coolest thing was that the teacher would wear a infrared device and the camera would follow her around the room as she talked. She also had an ELMO so all sites could see what she wrote clearly. They also were able to ask questions in real-time.

    I got payed for being the tech support for these classes, a good gig for a student at the time ('96 -'98). I think the students got more out of this kind of arrangement than any of the Net based courses. It was more expensive and sometimes buggy (Video COnference hung up on sites sometimes) but I think it was worth it.

    I don't know if they still do it but I did interview at a company that was doing something similar with more corporate classes.
  • At my community college I took several programming classes online, C++, assembly, and java. I agree with what some else posted here, light studying followed by a CLEP. Not to much interaction. Most of these classes were spent writing the code the night it was due, and forgetting bout the class tell the nexr assignment. Finally the final comes around and crank that one out, open book of course and its all good. The thing about an online class is that you only get out what you put in. that can be good or bad. For me it was ok because these programming ideas I already had a pretty good handle on and didnt have to waste my time in class learning stuff I already knew, or could grasp very quickly. Giving me more time to study my physics and stuff.
  • anyone have any experience with ACCIS? [accis.edu] I'm been thinking about trying to get a CS degree from here.. They seem ok.. Anyone?
    • nyone have any experience with ACCIS? [accis.edu] I'm been thinking about trying to get a CS degree from here.. They seem ok.. Anyone?

      I'm in ACCIS. They've been great. I've also got friends in it. You can email me brent@bmetzler.org if you'd like more details.

      -Brent

  • First, note that not every distance degree screams "DISTANCE." I went to the University of Waterloo [uwaterloo.ca] on-campus for one of my Bacholer's degrees, and am completing my second Bacholer's via UW's Distance Ed program. Degrees completed by UW's distance ed. program simply say "University of Waterloo".

    Personally, I feel I learn more on-campus than through distance. On-campus learning allows a lot more room for discussion (with the prof and with other students) which I find very valuable. Plus, because on-campus classes require me to be in class at set times, I find it a lot easier to keep attending and keep up with the material.

    Distance Ed is a lot more flexible, but this can be dangerous if you procrastinate. It's much harder to stay on top of all the material when it's completely up to you to do so. However, if you get through that, you can turn it into an advantage during interviews -- it's a great example of self-motivation, independant work, perserverance and organization.

  • The University of London (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dimwit ( 36756 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @03:39PM (#4113900)
    The University of London was founded by Royal Charter, and is therefore (AFAIK) completely accredited. It's External Programme [londonexternal.ac.uk] is open to anyone, anywhere in the world. Part of the charter of the school is that degrees are treated exactly the same, no matter where or how the degree was earned. That is, a degree earned by distance learning is treated the same as a degree earned brick-and-mortar. It's the largest university in the UK, so it can't be all bad...:)

    Just my two cents. And, for the record, I'm an American and former expatriate in Europe.

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