Can anyone give me any sort of a very rough idea how much work is typically involved in a half-summer, on-line only, community college (US), entry level course? The local community college is offereing a few on-line courses in the month of July that I am interested in, and I am wondering if I should stick with just one of them, or stretch and try two.
The courses are just basic pre-requisites, History I, and Government I, so I’m guessing the work won’t be too bad, but if anyone has done these type of courses before and could offer some insight, that’d be great. The course catalog is no help, and my next step will be to just call the professor, but starting here is never a bad idea.
Oh, the reason I am concerned is that I have a full time job and kids, so I don’t have unlimited time to devote to this material.
I’d stick with one, to start. Unless you have the time and are an extreme self-starter. The lack of face-to-face instruction can be a bit of a drag sometimes, and you miss out on any real peer/peer interaction. On the plus side, you can work on your own schedule.
I’ve taken a number of on-line courses over the years. They ranged from the “Interesting, I can’t wait to get back to work” to the “OMG, not more pedagogy!” I’m guessing these will tend towards the former.
I agree with keeping it to one course. Working full-time and taking more than 1 course is possible, but I’ve never found it enjoyable.
Unless there’s some compelling reason to take 2, take one and enjoy it in a relatively unhurried state. I’d lean toward the history, because I think that would adapt better to the online format.
If you were taking one of my online courses, the workload would be slightly higher than in-person because you wouldn’t have the discussion component to ease the reading load.
I started with the history class as I mentioned before (U.S. History, pre-Columbus - 1877). The class format is 16 chapters, with a 10 question, multiple choice quiz for each chapter, and a 3-5 page paper. Before the term started, I started looking at some of the practice quizzes on line, and they seemed pretty easy. When the textbook came, I realized that I’d be able to burn through that class pretty quickly, so I rushed to enroll in another, managing to sign up for History and Literature of the Bible (actually a pre-req issue, but sounded pretty interesting).
So far, the history class has been a breeze. I’m exactly 1 week into the month-long course and about 1/2 done with it. I have managed to score 100% on the first 8 quizzes as well.
I just received my text for the religion class and I can tell already that this one will be a bit more challenging. Although there are fewer quizzes, and otherwise the class format is the same, the text is certainly more dense, and I have ABSOLUTELY NO background in this material. Whereas I do remember some U.S. history from grade school, I have no experience with the Bible (we weren’t church goers). For example, I recognize the word Torah, but Neviim and Kethuvim? Forget it.
So that’s my update. History looks like it will not be a problem, Religion - maybe. In any event, I’m really looking forward to getting into the Religion text and learning something completely new.