It isn’t yet. But it will be.
Maybe he counts postal correspondence courses as online degrees, they’ve been around a lot longer.
my former manager got his MBA via University of Phoenix. A fact he tries to hide, while flying his “I have an MBA, therefore I’m better than you” flag as high as he can.
He is one of the shittiest managers I’ve ever been under, with no sense of team, no commitment to his people, and actually just told his folks (I’m still friends with many of them) that he is disappointed in their work because it’s not up to snuff, and that will affect his bonus.
If that’s an indicator of UoP MBA training, then I can see why they would be so discounted by HR folks.
Tristan – slowly doing a few classes every few years through local JC’s towards a History degree. Maybe.
I’ve actually encounted a few employers who say they give slightly more weight to an OU degree than one from most universities- because they’re mostly done part time, over a much longer period than a standard uni degree, so the fact that someone managed to finish it (and pass the exams), especially if they were working, is more impressive than the same degree gained by someone who’s living on campus and studying full time.
They do have a few modules which require attendance at one of their exam centres, in fact that might be compulsory for a full degree.
I am currently going to a mostly online college. However, it is a SUNY college, (State Univer. of NY) and at the end, I will have a SUNY degree.
And I can tell you, it’s far, far harder than a regular college. I have little to no guidance other than "On this date you should have studied chapters one and two and submitted the homework and participated in the online discussions). I have to do all of the work myself, without any lectures or guidance.
I’m also working full-time.
I think you’re going to see more and more online degrees. Not all of us adults can quit work and attend a normal school full time and normal schools just don’t the flexibility. I tried. I looked at four schools pretty closely when I was going back to school. Even the local community college? Nope. Most of their classes are in the daytime.
U o Phoenix is really expensive, btw. I looked at them, too. Their classes are high.
As someone with real MBA from a real business school, about 90% of my classes consisted of group projects. And since 90% of managing people is working in a team, you just don’t get that experience from an online school.
Teams don’t have to be physically located in the same place. I can’t think of a job I’ve had in the past 10 years that didn’t have people located all over the country, if not world.
If anything, being forced to figure out how to work with people who are not in the same office and may not be in the same time zone seems to be a very good skill to develop giving the modern business climate.
One thing my relative with the University of Phoenix degree told me was that just about everything she did was group and team-based projects. She definitely had to work with other people. I’m not defending a UoP degree - I think it’s crap - but I do think that the idea that taking online courses doesn’t teach you how to work in a team is not true.
Agreed.
Spain has UNED (Spanish Long-distance University), the country’s largest university, which has been around a lot longer than the Internet. The basic model is that most of the work is self-study, depending on the course you may need to go to classes/lab once a week (they have offices in every province capital and some other towns); you used to have to see a tutor once a week but tutoring is now available online (chat/email) so the requirement has been updated. While most often used for secondary degrees or to take a few loose credits, many people consider that someone who’s gotten a degree from it while holding a job has more merit than someone who’s gotten the equivalent degree from any other university that’s not the best in the country for that field.
The existence of UNED has made it relatively easy for people to accept other long-distance schools, but those not linked to one with actual on-site teaching are very bad; sometimes outright scams. There have been problems with some organizations using names that made it look as if they were associated with a “real university” when they were not, specially those offering Master’s programs (until very recently, the only Master’s which was officially recognized under Spanish law was in Labor Safety, any others were private titles with no government recognition).
I took a graduate course recently and I still can’t get over how horrible the hours were: one day we had to go in for only 1 hour, at 10; another, we’d have a class at 9 and another at 16. The few people who were trying to keep jobs had to do some ridiculous juggling. That kind of attitude on the schools’ part will only drive more people to look at long-distance options.
I have friend who has a nuclear engineering degree from an online University (I believe it’s Excelsior). They kind of specialize in online, distance education for armed forces personnel (though anyone outside the military can also enroll, it’s just a lot more expensive).
He says that compared to other standard brick and mortar degree applicants, he feels he is just as competitive in terms of jobs prospects. Of course, his hands on experience in the armed forces with nuclear tech probably helps a lot.
And I think that’s the crux. For working adults, with a foot already in the door but looking to enhance or finish their college education I don’t think it’s a big deal, assuming relevant experience in the field of their degree. Any prospective employers are going to care a LOT more about the 5 years experience than whether you went to your local college or Thomas Alva Edison College (an online school in Jersey).
For a young kid, brick and mortar will almost certainly open more doors for you, but again, once you have experience, most companies won’t give a damn.
But look how diverse they are! Not to mention their giant thumbs.
That’s a valid cause for concern, of course.
As I mentioned, I earned about half of my last 60 hours of credits through online courses. They were taken through an actual school with an actual campus. Even though the class was taken completely online, I still had to show up in person and present photo ID at least once per semester to take exams…and those exams were hard. There’s no way you could shirk the studying or have someone do all of the work for you and still pass.
I feel that this goes a long way towards negating services like the ones linked above.
But FWIW, my degree doesn’t reflect the online nature of any of my classes.
Finally to echo the sentiments of a few other posters; I’m pretty proud of going to school for the better part of 3 years while working full time, doing odd jobs part time, and having a kid. And not to play up a stereotype, but I had classes with plenty of single parents who were doing the same thing I was, but without the support of a partner. When I’m in a position to make hiring decision, you can bet I’ll lean towards ‘non-traditional’ graduates over someone who had a leisurely 4 years on a campus.
Yeah same here. Plus it occurs to me that when all is said and done, my degree will say “SUNY Empire State College”.
Anyway one of the classes I am taking this semester is 100% online. it’s a math course, but there is still online discussion.
One is an independent study, and one is a workshop, so both of those provide in-person interaction as well as phone, e-mail, and discussion board conversations.
It’s the wave of the future!
I have done both on line and off line classes and my degrees do not state that some of the classes are from online. Maybe if the school only does on line degrees you can weed them out of interviews, but it is impossible otherwise.