Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Online Bachelors Degree

Education online is quickly becoming a widespread and popular concept. What started as a sort of interesting experiment has blossomed into a whole new method of learning. As an internationally used and enormous medium for communication, it was really only a matter of time before the internet was tapped as a resource and tool for teaching. Not only can you get a high school diploma or associates degree, you can also get an online bachelors degree or even some masters and doctorates.

While the variety of postgraduate degrees is somewhat limited still, you can get online bachelors degrees in a huge range of different subjects.

As far as I know, getting an online bachelors degree can’t be done completely online, but the majority of these programs are conducted by way of interenet classes, forums, and discussions. There is always some live element as well, however, so you have to make sure you can make it to the required area. Most programs that offer online bachelors degrees allow you to meet the live requirements in locations all over the place, as they realize their students aren’t going to be centralized in any one city.

The target audience for online bachelor degree programs has up until now been mostly those who never went to college. People who missed out on a chance for a traditional bachelor degree program can still get one via one of these online bachelor degree programs without having to quit their jobs, pay loads of tuition, deal with an applications process, and possibly move.

However, I suspect that as tuition on traditional college programs continues to rise, online bachelors degrees may begin to serve as a popular alternative to students just finishing high school as well.
While I’m speculating here, I know that personally if I had had the option to save a large portion of the money I spent on tuition for my bachelors degree I probably would have taken it. I can’t help feel looking back on my college experience that the money I spent was basically for four years of partying with the occasional test here and there.

The college experience can certainly be a lot of fun and if money is no object for you or you manage to land some good scholarships, then by all means do it. If money is tight, and a traditional bachelors degree would mean years of paying off loans, you might want to look into an online bachelors degree program as an alternative.

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