By:Steven Briggs
Online college classes have many advantages over the traditional on campus versions but there are also some pitfalls which the virtual student can fall prey.
College classes taken on line in a virtual setting at a for profit school often come with a flexible schedule which the working adult can use to be able to attend school while still holding down a forty hour a week job. This has opened up a world of new possibilities for people who formerly just could not find the time necessary to attend college even at night due to work schedules which were subject to change at any time or any number of other reasons which might have taken away the idea of getting a better education.
While it is great that online colleges often offer a flexible schedule the downside is that students or potential students fail to realize that the term flexible is in meant in respect to which hour of the day the student cares to log in for their class assignments but it does not mean the student can ignore deadlines for assignments to be turned in nor should they expect any kind of extension period to be offered. If the assignment is late it will not be counted the same as would happen at an on campus school.
Online college courses are often accelerated so the student can obtain their degree sooner than would otherwise have been possible. This is a very attractive attribute to the potential student but quickly loses the appeal when in practical use. Students that fall behind are seldom able to regain the pace because as the name suggests the accelerated courses do not wait for students having troubles. Unlike their counterparts, the accelerated classroom does not have the teacher available to help that student limp through a particular tough time.
The online student isn't completely alone however and in fact has one of the best student's resource that exists today which is the student forums. Classmates can log into them at any time and post any question or help answer any questions they feel equipped to address and oddly enough these discussions often are as much help to those answering questions as they are to those that raised them. Further is these forums have previous years discussions in archive and as one might imagine nearly all the questions to come from students of this potential graduating class have been pondered by those that preceded them. Savvy students will use the search function to read old discussions to get their answers.
The college will provide extensive help in gaining your student loans but once the college has their money the support dries up and it is up to the student to be either capable of passing the courses or getting help from outside sources in order to keep up with the pace of the class.
Students and former students have complained of teachers leaving classes in the middle of a semester. This simply means the college has a high turnover rate and it should not effect the pupil. There have been complaints of the schools not providing internships as promised. Many of the success stories include the fact that the student had to find their own internship so expect the same. There have been complaints from graduates that their college had promised to place ninety percent of their graduates into corresponding jobs but did nothing for them. Expect to be in the ten percent which do not get help from the college finding a job.
To sum up if you are an ambitious, aggressive person you will probably do well with gaining your degree on line but if you are one of those people who needs to have their hand held through most processes then it might be wise to seek a more traditional means of gaining a better education.
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