bachelor degrees, on the other hand, seem to be pretty desolate. There are a handful of well known, decent schools that offer online bachelor degrees, but majority seem to require existing credit or offer non-sense sounding degrees in favor of normal ones (i.e. I've seen schools offer degrees in Professional Studies, Organization studies or Interdisciplinary Studies vs. Computer Science or Physics). Occasionally, you can find a legitimate looking CS degree from a legitimate school, but the programs still seem be below what you would get in-person.
I imagine there has to be a number of uneducated, working people who want to achieve more, or who's career progression many be held back because they don't have that credential, but the only schools advertising to them are the for profits, who charge exorbitant amounts for what seem like below average programs.
This university launched an online MBA program early on, and built it out with a bunch of other offerings as well. We were genuinely ahead of the curve on a bunch of things, but we were also pretty separated from the rest of the university, physically and culturally. We had our own building removed from campus, and we did things a little differently. Not quite Silicon Valley agile, but comparatively. Meanwhile, the rest of the campus was adamantly against online learning, for years.
I think a big part of this is that we had an older faculty and institutional culture that was pretty set in its ways: they didn't see or recognize the value that the internet afforded their classrooms, and weren't set up to implement them. That's begun to change a bit as we got younger faculty, but there's still a tendency towards in-person learning, because of the tradition and training behind it.
I don't think this is necessarily malevolent on their part: they just haven't thought deeply about it. Plus, there's a lot of infrastructure that you'd have to build out to provide online learning: there are a lot of logistical obstacles in the way. You need to select a CMS, hire course developers, train reluctant faculty and staff, figure out how to make it accessible and ADA-compliant, design courses that make sense for online learning, then market to students who are willing to go up online to take their classes.
Those are a lot of hurtles to overcome for an institution, and it requires a lot of willpower and political wrangling within the institution in order to make sure it gets done. As a result... it just doesn't. I think it'll change with time, but it's like turning an aircraft carrier: you can't do it overnight.
I have thought semi-deeply about teaching online. I do believe it can be done well, but only with a lot of effort, and (at least in my department) I don't think it would save the university money, if done well.
Personally, I'm not terribly eager to invest this effort. I've had a poor experience with our university's training, and also I just like interacting with people in person better. Maybe I'm just being selfish, but there are a lot of other things I can do to benefit my university and my students, which I'd enjoy more, and I'd rather invest my efforts there.
That said, I do think that universities who are willing to hire faculty for remote work could develop fantastic online programs. There are tons of dual-career academic couples that don't get jobs in the same city, and try and make some crazy commuter marriage work. Hire them.
IMO universities these days are mainly in the real estate business. The maintenance on a building with multiple 1k person lecture halls isn't cheap. Faculty are underpaid. And yet it's more and more expensive.
Why is that the targeted benefit? I would think the main thing to gain from online courses is the ability to disseminate knowledge and learning to a broader swath of students.
If universities have to be closed for the next 6 months, And is this could happen again next year, online learning will be their only source of revenue
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The is very, very hard to do.
Look at how many BA students wash out at respectable institutions. At least 50%.
It required more than classes. It requires mentoring, encouraging, and shaping students to a degree that’s hard to do online.
Graduate degrees are different. They take in people who have already graduated, and who are more adapted.
Not many Ph. D students throw keggers five times a week.
And say what you will about whether or not a college degree is "important", everyone I've ever met[1] who has one has some key skills that not everyone has; the ability to work on a project over time, some ability to research a question, and the ability to work on "uninteresting" things to get to the "interesting" things.
Getting a masters degree is about processing information, organizing it into something you can use, and then demonstrating your skill at that by applying to to a problem of your choosing. These programs can "assume" you've got the basic skills already and work from there.
[1] And being a nerd is biased toward BS degrees rather than BA degrees but the trend seems consistent to me.
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Around 70% of students who graduate high school are going to collage. That’s a huge swath of people who are dealing with a huge range of issues.
University is a filtering mechanism as much anything. Our culture no longer has any formalized rite of passage the way indigenous cultures have. Getting through university, especially in tough programs such as math, hard sciences, or engineering, is the only rite of passage we have left. Even the days when someone could graduate high school and immediately get a factory job that pays well enough to support a family are gone.
In person colleges have stronger social bonds - for better or worse.
For example, some colleges are reinventing fraternities and sororities to encourage people to develop healthy habits.
Of course some frats are carrying on as they were.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_University
The Open University satisfies the requirements for US visas, so it can check some checkboxes. The cost may be higher for people outside the UK, but I haven't looked recently.
It’s legitimate, source: I know someone who did it and is working as a webdev in PDX.
You think you'll do an online degree in your spare time and it turns out it's a decade of work and costs thousands of dollars.
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https://asuonline.asu.edu/online-degree-programs/undergradua...
The stigma for attending one of these schools is terrible. Not undeserved, as they are predatory and for profit. But so are community colleges, in maybe different ways, but for the same reasons.
I keep it on my resume even though I work in IT. I’m personally proud of it as an accomplishment despite the crap I catch whenever it’s brought up.
Mind you this was 10+ years ago. Maybe things have changed.
I'm not from the USA, but UoP is notorious.
Could not recommend this school enough.
Disclaimer: I do not work for WGU or any of these affiliates. This comes across as a bit like an advertisement. I really do think it's been amazing for her.
Just like the "B&M" classes I took previously, some classes are great, some less so, some hard, some less so. Anyone who thinks a school like WGU is "less good" probably has not actually experienced it and / or has a reason to protect the status quo. A student does have to self direct more in online programs, for a fact. But with that comes much more flexibility and scheduling freedom. And the price, at least for WGU, can't be beat.
I second and can vouch for this one. I completed my B.S in 3.5 yrs with WGU, and it was one of the best decisions I made. Competency based (don't need to waste 3 months doing a course I already know about), and flat-fee (2.8k a 6mo term). It is very affordable and if you're self-sufficient, WGU is a great option. Really flexible and good curriculum if you're self-motivated.
Then after a while I started contemplating going to grad school, more of a nice to have for personal development reasons.
But I couldn’t without a completed undergrad. So a little over 2 years ago I enrolled in WGU and now I have 3 classes to go.
Out of curiosity are what is your major? WGU undergrad degrees dknt seem like they would qualify you. Many CS Masters I've seen require 2 or 3 courses of calculus where the WGU C.S. bachelors looks like it only has 1 course.
Now take a Master’s program. Most people are done with college and are working full time. If you seriously want their business, you better offer them every flexibility in the world. It’s a whole different game.
One group is literally groomed to hand you money, often not even their own. The latter is a group that is no longer part of that setup and will make an independent decision based on a variety of factors.
I'd say online doesn't work for all programs or courses. But do you need to sit in a room with 1k people in order to learn calc 1? It's just the prof going through some examples on the powerpoint/overhead nothing more. Asking questions isn't easy either.
Upload some lecture videos and then hold office hours instead of lecture hours. It's not like what you taught in psyc 100 last semester is much different than this.
What university is that? It sounds awful.
> But do you need to sit in a room with 1k people in order to learn calc 1? It's just the prof going through some examples on the powerpoint/overhead nothing more. Asking questions isn't easy either.
> Upload some lecture videos and then hold office hours instead of lecture hours. It's not like what you taught in psyc 100 last semester is much different than this.
That's only kinda true of 100-level courses and massively popular generals, and quickly becomes false the farther you advance.
And even if it is a 100-level general, you can still ask questions if you're motivated and curious. When I was considering a career change, I retook general chemistry and a few other lower-level science courses as an adult. I asked a lot of questions, though many were picking at things that were too advanced for the course. You can't do that with a recording.
I have learned literally more than 99% of my knowledgefrom strangers on the internet and ad hoc conversations on irc and reddit.
So? What's your "knowledge" and who were the strangers that taught it to you? It could be anywhere from Alexander Graham Bell to Alex Jones, but knowing IRC and Reddit, my money is that it's closer to the latter than the former.
Not everyone indulges in "ad hoc conversations and events with professors". Some maybe, but most people just get by with minimal work.
I've done both for a very long time. There used to be value in going to the computer lab and spending hours and hours working through problems with peers and seniors.
But that doesn't happen anymore. I've learned just as much in slack chatrooms with fellow students at Georgia Tech, if not more.
If you want to learn, you'll learn. If you don't, you won't -- no matter what the environment is.
Events and conversations might offer superficial exposure to new ideas or areas of interest but actual understanding requires extended, focused thought that nobody else can do for you.
I self studied for a long time, topical, learned online mostly. You can do this, and can be very successful.
The point of academic environments is much like that of an office over remote work. One of the pros is the cross pollination of ideas across expertise barriers. This is where innovation happens, faster and more frequently.
For example video chats or text chats or audio chats or VR chats.
Honestly when people make statements like the one you made, it makes me suspect they actually don't understand the internet.
Plus there's no replacement for the ancient human social tradition of eating a meal with someone after a long day of work.
I don't know why this pattern makes my blood boil, but it does.