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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.
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.
Yep, that's pretty much what your typical college dropout says. Dunno about you but I did learn quite a bit.
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
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.
There is nothing particularly interesting about a 5-digit ui. I'm pretty sure lots of AC comments come from people that have been here quite a bit longer than I have.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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.
College is what you make of it. As someone said above, if you're interested in education, you'll learn. If you're interested in being trained for a job, you'll do that work and not much else.
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!
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 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.