Online College Courses

I am a full time student at a community college nearly an hour away. I take as many online classes as I can because it’s just too expensive and time consuming to go to campus every day.

Last semester I took all 5 classes online. I had Intro to Liberal Arts, Intro to Sociology, Algebra, Statistics, and State and Local Government.

The two math classes were pretty much the same. I did most of my learning, homework, and tests on mymathlab. If I had a question, my professors were pretty good about answering in a timely fashion.

LibArts was pretty in depth. We had a lot of reading, strict discussion board rules (our own post, respond to at least 2 other posts, initial post has to be made at least 24 hours before the week deadline, content is very important). I disliked about half the reading and hated the discussion boards (my classmates were mostly incapable of forming complete sentences). However, the class was excellent and I learned a lot.

Government and Sociology were standard online classes. Weekly reading, weekly discussion boards, weekly additional writing assignments for government, tests. I learned a huge amount in Government and it was, by far, my favorite class. Sociology was incredibly dull and had very little input from the professor (this irritates me more than discussion board conversations with people who can’t write).

I actually do have to take some classes on campus so I’m only taking 3 of my 7 classes online this semester (Precalculus, Intro to Psych, and Weather).

I absolutely love my precalc class. I have the same professor that I had for Algebra but he runs this class completely differently. He designed the entire semester worth of course work and we don’t need to buy the textbook unless we’re having a lot of trouble. I have had no trouble with anything so far. He’s great about posting on the discussion board and the class interaction is some of the best I’ve seen so far. The “classes” he designed are great (a combo of Word, flash, scribbles, etc.) It’s as close to being in a real class as possible without actually leaving the house. In fact, it’s better because I can learn at my own pace. I’m learning way more, much faster, than I ever have before in any math class.

Weather is neutral to bad. About half the reading is incredibly dull and the other half is really interesting. The book is not written in an exciting way. The “discussions” are crap. The weekly quizzes are annoying because my professor is incapable of writing a completely coherent question. One example from the quiz I took today: True or False - in a typical atmosphere gas molecules behave like elastic balls. :confused: What exactly is a typical atmosphere? Typical for what region? How do elastic balls behave? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an elastic ball. I’ve seen rubber balls but I don’t know if it’s the same thing. Unfortunately once you start the quiz, you only have half an hour to submit it and there are no do-overs so there’s no time to ask for clarification. My professor is nearly nonexistent. I have asked 2 questions on the message board, neither of which has been answered yet (it’s been over 3 weeks). I just don’t bother asking any more.

Intro to Psych is horrifyingly dull. I can’t even begin to describe how much I hate it. Each chapter is over 60 pages long, which would be fine if the topics even slightly interested me. I can’t stand psychology and I don’t understand why anyone would be masochistic enough to major in it. I was tempted to change my major to general studies to get out of taking this class. However, the class is self-paced, which is nice. Also, my professor is a retired psychiatrist and seems to genuinely want to help us, we just have to ask. The one time I did e-mail him a question, he replied very quickly with a very in-depth and helpful response. Doesn’t help me with my hatred for the subject though.

tl&dr (I think that’s what I’m supposed to do)

So basically:

  1. If the professor actually cares enough about their online students to create a decent class, it can be a great experience. My PreCalc class is an example of this - did I mention that I don’t actually need to take precalc? I’m taking it as a general elective because I really like my professor. I’ll be looking for him for Trig next. Don’t need that either.

  2. If the professor doesn’t care, the student wont either. My Sociology and weather classes are examples of this - which is a shame because Weather was supposed to be my fun elective this semester.

  3. If the student is lazy, unmotivated, or a habitual procrastinator (I’m working on this one), it’s going to be a complete nightmare. My professors ALL recommend a MINIMUM of 8 hours per week for a standard week and more if there’s a big test or paper due.

  4. And finally, the classmates really do make a difference. If your classmates haven’t figured out basic grammar or spelling, end every sentence with ha, ha (please someone kill me), or use l33t, then the class is going to suck mightily. Even worse than those classmates though, are the ones who haven’t figured out that a DISCUSSION does NOT consist of “good summary, I really liked that”. Also, a SUMMARY does not involve copying the article word for word. Seriously, has no one in my weather class heard of plagiarism? Lucky for them the professor doesn’t give a shit.
    So, that’s my opinion. I will definitely take more classes on line. The good outweighs the bad, and not just in gas savings.