Student Case
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You will have a hard time (if any chance at all) to make friends in an online class. You are basically just a name to everyone since you never meet each other.
You may never even meet the professor in real life. Now some may think this is not a big deal, but over time I think having a few professors you know well and can trust is essential to a college career. It will be the person you know where to turn to when looking for ideas of a new career or someone to help you choose another class. It took me 3 years of being in college and meeting all kinds of teachers to find a few that I really could look up to. In an online course I could never find this. I dont even know what mine look like!
It may be very hard to be disciplined enough to take an online class. Since you are never really meeting up on a regular basis, you could forget youre taking one completely. My first online class I didnt check the site the first two weeks and when I finally logged in, there was like 60 discussions I had to catch up on from other classmates. It taught me to check daily or even every other day to make sure I was up to date. (I had a dream once I forgot I was taking a class until the last day of class and failed it. That was scary)
Some people learn differently. Some people have to “hear” it to remember it. Other people have to take notes as the professor is talking to remember it. In an online course, many times you wont hear a professor talk. A few courses may have like a video learning experience, but the ones I took had nothing of the sort. If you are not part of any classroom lectures, there will be no notes to take. The only notes you could take are perhaps ones you find reading discussions or textbook.
Finally after reading all the pros and cons, my personal opinion on the matter
The verdict? Online courses are for me. Reason being is because I have a lot of family, friends, and even a boyfriend that dont even live in my college town with me. When I am taking an online course, the only thing I have to worry about is my job tying me down. Otherwise I can leave town for a while and not have to worry. In addition to this, I love the internet and I learn well using it.
I have been through my first 4 years of college doing classes in the classroom, and it wasnt until this past semester I started taking online courses. I love them, and I wish they were offered to me sooner.
My advice is to spend your first year in or two in college taking regular classroom courses to get into the groove of how college works. Make new friends, get to know a few teachers face to face, and then venture out into the online degree. If this is not an option for you, and you need to go straight into online courses, dont feel guilty. They are great, and you can still learn just as much!