Slashdot Mirror
Your Online Education Experience?
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?"
You will experience the same problems with other types of educations. You only study to get the paper, if you want to learn stuffs do it by yourself.
There is education and then there is training figure out which one you want and get it. Most everything these days is geared towards training.
College isn't about learning, it's about how long you can put up with all the crap you have to do and deal with the people around you.
I took two undergrad classes online, Intro to Political Science (my major) and Business Writing. All course materials were posted on Blackboard, and I do not recall any classroom time. My grades in those classes were atrocious, partially because the distraction of the Internet while trying to do the coursework was too much as a 20-something year old student. Obviously, YMMV, but I don't think you can beat having an actual live instructor teach you the material (even something as dull as a writing course).
If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
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.
When you deal with people in nearly any industry it will often be far more intimate than online discussions. I would suggest taking courses in person so at least you learn skills in an environment that will apply in your future career. Think about it: most customers would rather discuss their web designs (which you'll be making) in person rather than someone at the end of a phone line, chat room, or email thread. Taking offline courses helps you in so many ways. You'll discuss ideas with classmates, learn how to debate about best practices with others, and learn to learn through many different methods.
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
Hey, welcome to college! Going to an online school might have lowered the standards a bit, but it's all part of the same experience.
:) OR conversely, tough it out and do well, then get into a decent master program, and use your performance there to get into a top-quality Ph.D program
The truth is that academically most of college in just highschool part 2. For anyone who is getting a degree in a field that is already their passion & hobby (e.g. someone who has invested 10000+ hours of personal time into programming and then goes for a computer science degree), it's only in the final 1 or 2 years that the coursework is even worthwhile. The rest of the time is spent underachieving because the content is so rudimentary that you can't even stay focused. You think the colleges want you to just buy the quality courses at the end? Hell no, they want you for 2-4 years of tuition!... errr I mean "broadening experience!"
Furthermore there are always a few assholes in the class who think they know more than the professor, and take every opportunity to bicker with them about each point. You may know a lot about the current subject, but most of the professors are teaching way below their knowledge level anyways... So that's a check on "incompetent classmates" too (not even mentioning the ridiculous amounts of cheating that goes on to pass tests that have no practical value except testing your ability to remember things)
So yeah... welcome to college. If you want a real higher-learning environment, go for a masters and then a Ph.D with a quality advisor. First though, you need to get to that point... and a lot of us call it quits after a bachelors anyways ("it's good enough, and I can't bear another semester")
Academically and averaged out over the entire experience, college (bachelors level) is a waste of time. A lot of people don't even work in the field they got their degree in -- I learned hardly any practical knowledge in college courses that relates to my current job... Of course, it's not all bad -- you do learn how to learn (supposedly), and you learn rigor (lab reports, etc), and you do get a bit of exposure to other interesting fields. Furthermore, if you're not an hermit, you can have a great time with social life. Well maybe that last bit isn't quite applicable to you.
Summary: tough it out and get a degree, then forget the experience and get a well-paying job. You can be bitter all you want afterwards, but at least you'll have a good salary
I have several years' experience with Web design, yet I was not allowed to bypass Intro to Web Design 1
The same applies for real courses too. I did Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Maths at High School, and then when I went to Uni I did Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Maths - all over again. Pretty much the exact same thing as I did in High School. If I then went to do another science degree, I would get recognised prior learning. It basically comes down to the Institution has to cater for the fact that not everyone has done the subjects being taught. And in your case, you have experience - but that's not recognised (generally) as "prior learning".
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
Online schools operate on a loophole that allows them to collect a ton of money that is disproportionately applied to the students. The current administration is finally starting to close the loophole but prior to that these online schools have proliferated. They exist to collect this money; educating you is the fake front to this shady business.
DeVry, Unitek, Sequoia Institute, University of Phoenix, etc, are all scams. You learn nearly nothing, it costs a lot, there is NO JOB PLACEMENT no matter what they say and you have to bear the stigma/burden of going to an online school. We've had several online schools in California abruptly cancel all classes, fire everyone, and abandon the building(s) in question with no recourse for the students, even those about to 'graduate'.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Here's my educational boilerplate info:
- Go to community college. You can take all your GE, many of your lower division and some of your upper division courses there for cheap.
- Transfer to a university. You'll only have to take the courses you couldn't take in community college, and you won't be there very long.
- At both points try to take as many tests as you can to 'test-out' of lower classes you don't need.
- Sign up for all the grants and scholarships you can find. Most of that money is never disbursed.
Yeah, it's slow, but it's affordable even for the poorest of us.
To an extent, this is just how college is. How long have you been at it? I had a similar situation in a brick-n-mortar college; I re-took classes I'd gotten 4s and 5s from AP tests. Yeah, I was bored. But that stopped by the second year. Might be a question of whether your program is the right one.
if you already know enough to get certifications in the things you want to do, do that, and get a degree in something that would differentiate you from the hordes. I can't say more without knowing what you want to do, but as an analogy, I always recommend that CS grads get a second minor (math is usually the first) in a science, whether it be biology, chemistry, physics, or something similar. Why? Because you know another field that frequently intersects with CS, making someone much more marketable. I'm not saying that particular program is or isn't right for you, but the general principle still holds, I think.
In any event, good luck however you choose to proceed.
Take a look at the Department of Informatics at Fort Hays State University - you can take all of the courses (at both undergrad and graduate level) online to complete a degree. It is not one of those curriculum sets you can just ace - it is a challenging set of courses which encompass internetworking, web development, media studies, and information assurance. You can pick your specific concentration, but you will still get to see a little bit of everything. This is one of the best programs in the country for updated networking and web curriculum. It is both a Cisco Networking Academy and an NSA Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance. You can work toward you CCNA/CCNP/CISSP if that is the direction you'd like to take, or you can work toward an advanced degree in web development. I know these classes are quality because I have taken them - the internetworking series of classes were the most difficult classes I have ever taken. I loved the challenge and the connections you gain with classmates from around the world are invaluable. http://www.fhsu.edu/informatics/ Thanks for posting and good luck!
For profit educational institutions are never worth the money. EVER. You may get in cheap, you may even get out cheap. See if any employer will take your degree from Bob's University.
You have a choice to make.
In one respect, the Emperor has no clothes. College is a just a bunch of hoops to jump through to get a piece of paper that supposedly (but doesn't) mean that you have skills. What it actually means is that you spent a lot of money (and made the loan servicer and your college a lot of money) and you jumped through a bunch of hoops. The skills you could gain can be gained through checking books out from the library, camping at the bookstore, and googling everything. RTFM and JFGI (google the acronyms if you don't know what they stand for).
The upside to college is that there are some skills that are more difficult to learn on your own. Also, there are a lot of entrenched managers from older generations that won't look at your resume if you don't have that stupid piece of paper. So it can get you places and a modicum of respect, but you have to smile and say you learned a lot and deny that the emperor is buck naked.
On the other hand, you can just be self-taught. Web design can be learned through reading design blogs, reading web design books from the library, and a lot of experimentation and experience actually designing websites. Web design is a demonstrable skill that doesn't necessarily require a piece of paper on the wall. There will be some closed doors because of the lack of the piece of paper, though.
If you decide to go to college for web design, stay away from rip off online colleges that are just diploma mills. Four year colleges are expensive and unnecessary for a web design degree. Find a nice, cheap community college with a distance learning program and web design major available.
Build your resume with as much experience as possible and build an online portfolio of your designs. This will get you a lot farther than a piece of paper in many cases. A lot of clients are just looking for people who know how to design and they don't care where you picked it up. Show them what you can do.
I had an excellent experience with Walden University. I was able to attend virtual lectures from distinguished professors from Duke to Carnegie-Mellon. The work was at an appropriate level, and I feel like I learned a great deal. Your mileage may vary in different areas (I got my MA in Comp Sci).
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
US high schools make a significant effort to insure that every student has the opportunity to learn the skills the college, but most colleges are not going to make an effort to hold a students hand once in college, especially if the student is paying, especially if the student is paying with student loans. After all, there is another freshmen class next year, and they have the money from last years freshman class whether they earned it or not.
The second issue is much more interesting. The students at a college provide as much value as the professors. I did not go to any kind of high level college, but I met some good people who really enhanced my experience. People who could hold a conversation, work a problem, accept that ideas different from their own might still be valid. If one does not have such people in their college life, this beyond anything else is a sign that one might be in the wrong place, or perhaps that one is not effort in the most efficient directions.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
They are a cash cow. Little to no resources are put into them, and students gain (at most) some busy work to do while reading the book on their own. I have taken online courses at three universities. Each one of them charged more per credit hour (~50% more) while I felt like I learned much less from the course. I'm sure there are good programs out there somewhere, but none in the institutions where I have had experience. In order to do well in online courses, you need to be a self-starter. MUCH moreso than in a typical classroom environment. My advice, if it applies to your courses, is to use the heck out of MIT's OCW program. Those lectures have gotten me through many online courses where the professors had (for the most part) not even read the current text we were assigned to use. I have donated several times to MIT because of OCW, it is fantastic.
You know, the kind that advertise. It's a racket; they'll take your money, or financial aid money from the government, and give you a "degree". They don't want to let you skip "learning" what you already know because they want your cash. You need a legitimate institution, a community college or a state university.
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.
At the insistence of my employer, I enrolled in online classes at University of Phoenix about 8 years ago. I was aiming for their MBA program. At the time, the classes were 5 weeks long, with a decent amount of weekly work and plenty of reading. Everything was online, including the mandatory newsgroup-style discussions.
After about three classes, it became clear to me that I wasn't learning much at all. I was also able to get by barely doing any of the reading, and just turning in a few well-written essays and keeping my virtual attendance up. In other words, I wasn't forced to think to earn my grades. There were no tests in any of the classes I had. For all they know, I could have been paying someone to take the class for me.
The instructors were nothing more than babysitting facilitators. They'd answer a question if you had one, and they'd grade your paper, but they were not instructing. They doled out assignments from plans that other people had written. Not once did they engage in a discussion or challenge you to think.
It wasn't until my fourth class when I realized the mistake I had made. The instructor was on vacation. Yes, vacation. For the five week class, he was literally gone and unavailable for the middle three weeks with the exception of one day (in 21) when he checked his email (to tell us he was on vacation). Yet the class continued on.
When the class ended, I complained about the level of "instruction" I was being given. They ignored me for weeks, and it wasn't until I encouraged about a dozen of the other students in the same class to stand up and say something. Finally, they wrote back and told me that I would be refunded for the class if I was willing to lose the grade that I had been given. Gee, thanks. And, only those students who asked were given that choice.
That was my last class, and I'm glad. A few weeks later I spoke candidly to the HR director and he told me he was glad I stopped taking them. He told me that when people come in with degrees from University of Phoenix he just tosses them to the bottom of the pile. He recognizes them as a diploma mill, and a BA from there is less valuable than a GED.
I've spoken with others who have attended University of Phoenix online and they all have similar stories.
University of Phoenix has employees whose job is to recruit students, and they earn commission for enrolling you. Their focus appears to be to get students through financial aid so that they have no problem getting their money. Once you're enrolled, and paid for, you're just a student ID.
Sadly I paid that "school" about $6000 of my own cash before realizing any of this, but hopefully others can learn from my mistake.
Have they improved since my experience? I sure hope so.
-David
What online education programs have Slashdot readers been happy with and considered successful?
I got my law degree through "IANAL but..." offered through Slashdot. Next week I'm going for my economics degree.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
For pre-U education to brush up your knowledge, there's Khan Academy to teach you everything from primary school to even college.
For formal university level education, you can get many of them free directly from university. MIT Open Courseware is one of the well known examples. You can find a list of them at Open Culture. Google Code University is a less known but great site that helps you start and search on your online education journey.
There are also video lecture collection sites that contain lecture recordings from various universities, such as Academic Earth and Video Lectures.
You may also interested in less formal technology videos such as BestTechVideos and Google Tech Talks.
You can download a lot of ebooks from the web. Here is an example list you can found on Delicious.
In case if you are only interested in web design, IMHO the best way to learn design and multimedia is go to a real college. But anyway, there are tons of resources for web design too. Delicious is a must have search tool for you to get started.
I'd love to provide more links that I have but I'm short of time. But as always, Google is your best friend!
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.
--Matthew
I studied 2 years at my local community college, and the experience was rather interesting. I attended some classes where the discussion was heavy and student input was valued by the professor. I feel i received the most out of such classes. The curriculum for my major(Networking Technologies) was fairly basic stuff that I had seen previously. If a teacher had simply spewed a lecture or read from a presentation I wouldnt have attended class, Most of my IT courses used a CMS, so i could log in from home to get the lecture or the presentation. Basically, the teacher did not provide anything I couldn't have gotten on my own. Students participating in the discussion was a completely different animal though. It taught me a lot, because it forced different interpretations of the material.
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)
Business Week has done a few scathing articles about for-profit colleges in the last year. One showed how they go into homeless shelters and try to get homeless people to sign up for student loan money. One college even went so far as to actually pay the homeless students for attending classes. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_19/b4177064219731.htm?chan=magazine+channel_features
Another story was about how they have gotten into the practice of buying up super small trade colleges so that they can get the accreditation. One of these for-profit schools bought an aviation school and "expanded" it into mainstream courses http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_11/b4170050344129.htm
A third story was about how these for-profit schools also target the military. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_02/b4162036095366.htm
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
I had to take several classes where the teacher told me that I could teach this class.
That is the problem when you have been working in the field and are now trying to join a system designed to start from zero AND to make money first.
Awesome world we live in, is it not?
Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
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 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.
http://saveie6.com/
I guess you never got the memo.
First there's the BS degree - and we all know what BS means.
Then there's the MS degree - More of the Same.
Finally, there's the PhD - Piled Higher and Deeper.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of truth in that, same as everything else in life, there's going to be a sh*tload of crap to shovel, and you're either the shovel or the crap.