If you’ve decided to go back to school and earn a college degree at home, you may experience a brief culture shock at first. Students who get a degree online often find studying and exams more convenient, but there are challenges unique to distance learning degree programs as well. If you have decided to finish your college degree program through an online university, you should be aware of the unique challenges you may face.

You may often find that deadlines are more flexible than in traditional degree programs. However, you have little recourse if you miss a fixed deadline, such as an online submission or post. Although you can argue that your internet service was down (which can and does occasionally happen), you aren’t going to be able to get away with this excuse very often. So, although the program is flexible, you are expected to take responsibility for your own education.

Furthermore, you are expected to be able to use a computer and email, as well as to take responsibility for learning any other computer applications used by the online degree courses you have chosen. While this may sometimes mean a large learning curve, you must be motivated and determined enough to meet this small challenge, or distance education degree programs aren’t right for you.

Some students also argue that nontraditional education offered by online degree university programs doesn’t offer the “full college experience.” While you can’t play college sports, pledge to a sorority, or go to a homecoming dance, distance learning certainly offers a full range of educational opportunities. Only you can decide which is more important for you; education or socialization.

Tags: college degree program, degree, distance degree, distance education degree programs, distance learning, distance learning degree programs, earn a collge degree at home, get a degree online, online degree courses, online degree university, university

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 9:19 am and is filed under Online Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.