Learning Online and Loving It

             Just yesterday, I took my girlfriend out to dinner at Red Lobster before coming home to submit my math homework online.  Earlier today I took a break from playing with my kids to go and email the final portion of my marketing course project.  Yes, I'm one of the growing numbers of college students that are taking online classes, and I love it.

            A little over ten years ago, before the girlfriend and the kids, I was a high school grad ready to begin my first semester on campus.  Back then, I wanted to become a computer engineer pretty badly, and Rutgers gave me a pretty nice sized scholarship to pursue that goal.  I remember the daily routine of waking up at 7am, going to sit through a few 2 hour lecture sessions, participating in lab assignments, studying at the library, and all of the college student norms.  I also remember falling asleep in those lecture classes, not because I was up all night partying, but because I was just bored.  Sitting in a big room with 200 people; watching one guy talk about "stuff" often led to closed eyes and head nods for me.  After doing that for three years, I lost much of my interest in the program and dropped out.

            Living life after college led me to finding a great woman, buying a house, and having two children.  In 2011, a random thought popped into my head, "I should go back to school!"  I found Regis University's Business Tech program, learned many of my credits would transfer over from my 2001-04 college stint, and enrolled.  Regis is in Colorado, I'm in Jersey, I'm taking classes at Regis, but I'm still in Jersey... Perfect!

            A publication by Mehran Bozorgmanesh from the Islamic Azad University in Iran speaks of the many benefits associated with distance learning.  In his article "Online Classes and Traditional Classes in Adult Education", Bozorgmanesh lists time and geographic flexibility as the top two advantages of taking online classes.  Discussing geographic flexibility, Mehran notes that "It no longer matters where you live."  He later continues stating that students of online classes can "escape the monotonous lectures and long classroom hours yet be well acquainted with the study materials." 

            For me, Mehran's points are the exact reasons why I'm enjoying this tenure in college more.  There are no more lectures about "stuff", yet I'm still able to learn the same material while on my own schedule.  Taking online courses gives me the smaller classroom size that I enjoyed through grammar school.  There is greater interaction with other students and faculty, mainly due to the weekly discussion board assignments.  I feel that I'm learning a lot more by reading the opinions of others than I was from listening to the robotic professors speaking out loud to a hundred people.  I can still go to work, take care of my home, and be with my family, all while getting a degree.  I have freedom in how I learn that I didn't have before.  According to the 2010 Sloan Consortium Report online enrollment in post-secondary institutions grew 21% between 2009 and 2010.   If you haven't already, I recommend any of you reading this to try taking a class online.  If you're like me, you are going to really enjoy it.

Doug

References

Sloan Consortium, (2010), Class Differences: Online Education in the United States, 2010 Retrieved from http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/class_differences

Bozorgmanesh, M. (2011), Online Classes and Traditional Classes in Adult Education, Nature and Science 2011, 9(8), pp: 81-84, Retrieved from http://www.sciencepub.net/nature/ns0908/17_6409ns0908_81_84.pdf