Online Classes: Yea or Nay?

jmcglone · Feb 1, 2010

Hi, all--

I'm working on a piece for EO about online classes and their pros/cons. In the interest of wanting to know what you think (and maybe a little quote-fishing), here are a few questions.

Have you taken classes online?
if you haven't taken classes online, would you?
Did you see any advantages? What were they?
Disadvantages?
Do you have other thoughts regarding online classes?

Know that the chances are pretty good I'll use a quote or two from you. You'll get credit and I'll link back to your post here at the forum.

TeamCaffee · Feb 2, 2010

I have taken classes through Grantham University. As a member of OOIDA you were offered a discount on the classes.
There were many advantages to taking the classes online as you could do your school work at your convenience. I was taking business courses and enjoyed each one of them.
The disadvantages were some of the classes had to be proctored and that was a nightmare in this line of business. I had a very hard time getting someone the collage would approve of to be the proctor. The collage just did not seem to understand trying to find a place on a short notice that will let a truck park is not easy. Trying to find someone on short notice that will jump through the hoops the collage requires and then babysit you for a couple hours was an even bigger nightmare. When the down turn came in this business one of the first things to go was the on line classes and I have not started them back up.
I think the online education is great and I really enjoyed each class I took. I was sometimes frustrated at the lack of some of the teachers feedback. The classes are expensive and you actually go through them rather quickly.

jmcglone · Feb 2, 2010

The thought occurred to me that there are probably a number of online schools offering trucking classes that aren't accredited, are generally bad, or are otherwise scams. If you know of any, I'd love to know what those are. Has anyone out there had a run-in with one of these schools? I'd be interested in your story if so.

transporter · Feb 3, 2010

i would take online classes. i probly will take some business and computer classes in future but right now to many things going on with me. i am curios has anybody tried phoenix

chefdennis · Feb 3, 2010

I have thought about taking a few online classes and my wife keeps asking when i am going to do it, i just haven't gotten around to it...so yea..while i have thought out the all of the issues involved, i can say i would do it...and i will be looking forward to reading your article.....

greg334 · Feb 3, 2010

jmcglone said:
The thought occurred to me that there are probably a number of online schools offering trucking classes that aren't accredited, are generally bad, or are otherwise scams. If you know of any, I'd love to know what those are. Has anyone out there had a run-in with one of these schools? I'd be interested in your story if so.

Acceridation is relitive to what your goals are but what is more important is the quality and transferablity to other schools that really matter.

The first issue with many of the online schools has to do with the quality of education you get. Many many of the accelrated degree programs are not well accepted in some of the professions, like some part of the IT profession. When hiring people, a lot of recuirters look at the school as part of a committment to stick with things - accelrated degree programs allow too much flexiblity and sometimes those resumes go right into file 13.

Thew transferablity of credits matters too. A lot of people will use online classes to fill gaps but fail to talk to their target school to find out if the credits are transferable. This leaves them in a situation to pay for the class a second time.

Accredation is not as important as those two, for example there are a number of Medical Information Technology schools that are not accredated but they are accepted as CEU schools, which means they count towards professional certifications - like Auditing certs.

Trucking classes? I would like to know what is a trucking class?

cheri1122 · Feb 3, 2010

I haven't taken any yet, but it's definitely on my 'to do' list [which is currently running into the year 2117, I think] - not for any specific degree, but just whatever I'd like to learn more about. I have done some 'distance learning', studying at home & taking ACT-PEP or CLEP tests at a local college, and liked the concept of learning at my own pace very much - love learning, hate classes!