Your Online Education Experience? 428
pspahn writes "I am currently enrolled at a very well-known online school. I was hesitant when I enrolled; now more than a year has gone by, and I am regretting my decision. The main problem is that I am not learning anything. I have several years' experience with Web design, yet I was not allowed to bypass Intro to Web Design 1. Similarly, there are other classes on my list that will teach me very little I don't already know, yet will cost me money all the same. Now, I do have a great desire to learn and to further myself academically, but I just don't see much value in continuing to take classes I could have aced in ninth grade. It is also difficult when fellow classmates clearly have very little intelligent input to offer and our online discussions are reminiscent of an AOL chat room. While it is possible simply to attend a local school in person, I would much prefer an online environment as it seems to be a more natural medium considering the content of my studies. I am interested specifically in Information Security programs. What online education programs have Slashdot readers been happy with and considered successful?"
My friend felt the exact same way (Score:1, Interesting)
As he said, "I didn't go to college to learn how to program!" angrily because the Information Systems major included C#, Java, and web programming. He decided to go to ITT Tech, which is currently losing a lawsuit because their students are unhirable. Stick it out. You'll be missing these days when you get into the upper 300 and 400 level classes. Think of them as easy A's or GPA padding for later, much harder courses. I know how annoying it is to show up for the stupid Economics classes that you can get a B just showing up for the tests, but that'll help offset the future "Oh Crap! I didn't know I was doing that bad!" class.
CS 110 - the "a printer is a type of peripheral" class - was the class that led to the most drop outs. 403, the CCNA equivalent where we're in the lab an extra two to three hours of the class, was a nightmare but we lost no one after that.
Ras.Algethi.42 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:College (Score:2, Interesting)
I just finished my Masters online (Score:3, Interesting)
I just finished my Masters degree with Walden University in "Information Systems Management".
So..my couple of cents:
What I didn't know when I signed up was that I would be in the first class through the program. A lot of the classes were very badly layed out, as in what we would be doing one week would not match up at all with what we'd done the prior weeks or would be doing in the next weeks. It was very obvious the courses had been built by a bunch of outsourced educators in possibly another country, right down to the spelling errors or idiosyncracies in the language in the project descriptions. If we had problems with any of the assignments, or were unsure of the wording, we'd bring it up with the professor and it would be fixed quickly. I think they all understood that some bugs were still being worked out, and I received a nice discount ($600 a semester) for being a guinea pig.
I do feel like I got a decent education for what I paid for and it being an online school. We never learned anything specific about any one product, ie IBM cognos, or MySQL or anything like that, but we learned in general what products like these were capable of, how to shop around for them, etc. Same sort of thing I learned in undergrad, we never got any certifications but I could easily pick up a CCNA, A+, etc because I've had all the ground work laid out for me and understand computers, networking and programing very well.
I was kept fairly busy with the assignments, in an average week I would work on 2 papers, usually 4-8 pages in length, and a group project usually around 6-8 pages, as well as group discussions, reading discussions and some classes required we keep a blog of what we were doing. We had quite a bit of group work, which was some what challenging. Its kind of funny, I had no idea what my group members looked like until in the last class we all found each other on facebook. Nothing like what I expected. I was also the only male, and am fairly young (24) while everyone else was in atleast their mid-30's it seemed.
I did have one really bad professor. I emailed him prior to the class starting and explained I would be on my honeymoon the first 2 weeks of class. I asked if he would rather send me the material early and I turn it in before I leave, or if it was ok if I did it when I got back. He said when I got back was fine. Well, I turned everything in the week I returned, only to get really bad grades for it being "late". I email him and am told "well I had to give you a bad grade for it being late, its only fair to everyone else.", and of course he stuck to his guns when I brought up the email where he said it was ok to turn everything in after I returned from vacation. He graded erratically throughout the class, never offering explanations for grades he gave. The class was badly laid out, and expected us to have a deep knowledge of Java in order to get an Apache Ant (I believe, its been a year and half) project built from the ground up, which I did not, and Java was not on the requirements for the entrance into the degree nor did I expect it, the degree was "how to be a programmers boss" not "how to be a programmer". The professor refused to help fix any of these problems, and I had to get in touch with the dean, who took care of everything for me and apologized for the problems we'd been having. After I got in touch with the dean, examples were added to the assignments involving Ant, so that instead of creating a project from a ground up, we had something to work with in order to get what we needed done.
All and all, it was a pretty good experience.
Re:Online classes are a waste of time (Score:3, Interesting)
That's an interesting take. The University of Phoenix is actually accredited, by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, which in turn is recognized by the Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Also, although I can't speak for UoP, the school I'm attending online offers recorded lectures (for aural learning and note-taking), discussion forums where the TA is active, opportunities to ask the professor questions live during class (naturally, this requires being online when the on-site class is being held) and plenty of homework to learn by doing.
I think you're also generally giving for-profit schools short shrift for little good reason; they don't spend (or seek) money based on football teams, or endowments, but are actively trying to sell the quality of pedagogy and student attention. From what little I've seen, they pay more attention to student feedback on teachers, and teachers aren't given free reign to treat students like crap just because they've done important research. That doesn't mean they're perfect, but - like community colleges - they have a place of value and importance in society.
So far I've done the traditional undergraduate degree, community college (actually after I got my Bachelor's), online classes, and yes a ton of learning on my own. They're all opportunities to learn and challenge yourself, with varying degrees and kinds of support infrastructure to encourage and help you. But they are definitely all different, and I think they do serve different purposes and subsets of the population.
Re:well... (Score:5, Interesting)
{
#begin rant here
I would both agree and disagree. I did the atrocious U of Phoenix for 4 classes and couldn't take it any more. It was exactly as the OP said and more. The discussions were extremely stupid and shallow and the classes either weren't particularly relevant or were below-level, but additionally the pace was absolutely bonkers. I was ASSURED by my advisor when I started that in no circumstance should I be spending more than 15 hours a week on my coursework, including all reading, discussions, and assignments and that it was easy to do with a job and a family, just like the ads say. Well what they should tell you is that you HAVE to have a family to do it because you have to have people who can do everything else in your life for you besides, eat, sleep, work, and study.
We were assigned an average of 900+ pages of reading a week over the courses I took and they expected you to read it all. Then there were the papers: the last course I took with them had 9 major papers due in 5 weeks, comprised of 5 individual and 4 group papers. And if that wasn't bad enough, being the local English nazi I was chosen by my group to be the guy to put the papers together. Normally work I actually kind of enjoy, except 2 members (out of 4) of our group could write at maybe a 5th grade level. I would open their submissions and would be presented with an opening run-on sentence followed by a colon and a list of talking points. That's it. Being that the pace was so insane and I didn't want to get a bad grade, I would end up re-writing their entire sections. Of course I would complain to the "professor" and was assured that the problem was being looked into and that the person's other papers were fine. Of course they were fine, the school had a department that you could send your papers to and they would coach you through every step of correcting your mistakes, all but doing it for you. But that doesn't help on the group papers.
Bear in mind that all of this was also after going to traditional classroom college for 2 1/2 years and getting fed up with the hoop-jumping and ball-playing and endless drama and politics. I eventually left all of it and got a job and have been very successful being self-taught. Of course it causes a problem getting through HR drones, but my take on it is that if you're so hide-bound about everyone having a piece of paper, then I don't want to work there. True, it's been tough at times but I've never gone hungry and I've had (in my oh so humble opinion) better jobs because of it.
end
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at the local community college.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, there were classes that the professor did nothing but spew lecture. Unfortunately thats unavoidable.
I had only taken one online course in my two years at the college, and it was a complete waste of my time. The title of the course was "Interpersonal Communications." It was the only section that the college offered when i needed the course. For anyone outta the loop, interpersonal means person-to-person. I understand that times are changing and tech allows us to communicate around the world as if we are face to face. This course didn't lend itself to that though. The materials should have been taught in a classroom. In addition to that, the assignments were nothing more than "busy work." Anyone remember that from grade school? Your teacher calls in sick, so a substitute gives you work that means absolutely nothing. Yeah, that was this course.
Anyways, the OP asks about taking unnecessary courses. At the community college a program exists just for this purpose. My school called it Credit By Exam(CrEX) For select courses, a student can be given what is, essentially, the course final. If you pass the exam you're given the earned credits and exempt from the course.The test still costs money, but for my school it was about 40% of the tuition for the class, and you save about 15 weeks of invaluable time. You might look into a similar program for your school. It might not apply to all of the courses you are capable of skipping, but it just may get you out of the most basic intro courses. I was able to skip Intro to Information Systems(starts by teach the student how to power on a machine) and Intro to Windows and DOS Concepts(a course that started with basics of windows GUI and ended with writing simple batch files)
Re:Online schools are a scam (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Online schools are a scam (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Online schools are a scam (Score:1, Interesting)
I do not believe you have done any in depth research into the matter, only looked at the heavily marketed schools (i.e. for profits), and therefore probably should not be giving advice. For instance, you are obviously not aware that many online schools are non-profits, regionally accredited, and have their origins in traditional places (e.g. regents or governors). In particular you should investigate Excelsior University (began with the Regents on NY) and Western Governors University (Governors of several states started this one).
There are tons of scam schools as you mentioned and online learning is not for everyone. However for the right student in the right set of circumstances who is willing to do the needed research into schools, online learning can be a vastly superior option to traditional schools.
Re:well... (Score:1, Interesting)
I would also add, that on your own most people can't seem to figure out what their true limitations are. Lot's of people I met thought they were badass at teaching themselves computers. Some couldn't use Linux, arrays in their chosen programming language, etc...
Sometimes it gets completely ridiculous. It seems like simply because someone can get SOMETHING to work on a computer and know more than the totally ignorant, they think they're a complete badass.
Having a teacher (if he or she is decent) will get you familiar will all the stuff you don't know in a hurry. I'd say the real problem with going to school/university is that so many students don't want to be bothered with learning anything, they have to do it at a slow pace.
And yes, I'm serious when I say they can't be bothered with learning. A number of students at my university for example, were self taught (I'm self taught too BTW) and thought the university should just accept their word for the fact that they were badass and hand them a degree. And that the teachers shouldn't try teaching them squat. They couldn't seem to accept the fact, that the university expected them to prove themselves and wanted to teach them SOMETHING. (Note: I don't intend to say that all self-taught people are that way, I certainly wasn't)
And other people... Well... What can I say? They can't even be bothered to teach themselves the simple stuff. So yes... School is generally slow, sadly enough.
Re:well... (Score:4, Interesting)
To mangle a Monty Python quote, "I'm 32, I'm not old". Everyone on my team is actually within 2 years of each other for what it's worth. Also when I conduct interviews I'm MUCH more concerned about what you know, what you can do, and how well you learn and think than what kind of piece of paper you have.
Yes, I have little patience for bureaucracy, always have and always will, but I've by and large learned to deal with it or side-step it as the situation calls for. What I have ZERO patience for is pedagogy and jumping through arbitrary hoops that have no relation to the task at hand but are there to waste your time or prove that you have the patience to jump through hoops. I have too much shit to get done and life is too short to waste time on that.
Online is a student loan scam (Score:2, Interesting)
Unless you are going to get a ton of money do not bother with online courses.
Part of this movement is a big scam to get people like yourself in debt [projectonstudentdebt.org] that you can't bankrupt yourself out of and can't scale back. CNN reported alot of these phony online courses simply put you debt that you have to pay up to $600 - $2,000 a month and do not get you the dream job to pay for the degree.
I may sound cynical but my wife and I are about to go broke and go hungry because of our $2,300 a month in student loans that we can't get out of unlike other loans. We made more money at minimum wage because 70% of her income did not have to go to her masters degree.
Go to a real university but watch your back as you make sure the degree you obtain gets a job that can pay for it.. Part of the reason for going to college is to gain network connections that can help you land a job out of college. There are a lot of sharks in the university market and it is looking similar to the housing craze of 5 years ago. Online learning tops it as they mostly charge you but offer little benefit in return. The people at HR really do not care if you have an online degree or not. They care about experience. My wife got a real degree too and it only caused us misery. Online programs are costly too and offer an inferior education in return. If you put in the money make sure you get the right results and connections.