are online colleges any good?

Question

i just feel that they are of lower quality but maybe im wrong, i took some online classes during highschool and they were complete crap but...w/e cause it was highschool, i am only going to use this online school to get my AA so that later i will be able to transfer to a university but....i just want to know if they are any good...

how would they compare to a community college?

Answer 1

Look for an online college affiliated with a traditional college or university...especially good would be one that offers a "parallel" degree option.

For example, when I taught at Metropolitan State College of Denver, students could take all the "core" courses (the first two years of required courses) either online or in the classroom. Nothing on the student's transcript indicated whether the class was online or offline so an online degree was identical (in the eyes of employers and other universities) to an on-campus degree. Many other traditional colleges and universities offer similar online degree options.

Many traditional universities will not award transfer credit for courses taken at some (even most or all depending on the institution) of the "for-profit" online colleges (e.g., University of Phoenix). Others may make the student go through a lengthy process to prove a particular course was sufficient to award credit for a requirement at that university. For example, I remember working with a student that wanted to transfer a communications course from U of Phoenix and receive credit for a required course at MSCD. That student had to provide a copy of the syllabus for the course plus additional evidence about the textbook used, the type of assignments required and more to "prove" that the course was an acceptable substitute for our requirement!

Answer 2

Most of the time an employer will not know if you are taking online classes. And many top notch schools offer online classes and degree programs. Harvard, Columbia, and even Duke offer online classes and degree programs. The thing is to find a nonprofit schools that offers online degree programs and classes. Stay away from colleges that just operate online and have bad reputations. A degree should say online anywhere on your transcript or on your degree. I attended a state school and had courses online, no where on my transcript does it say those classes were online. I am also a current graduate student who is almost finished with an online degree and I am not worried about that either. As long as the college is reputable, accredited, you should be fine.

Answer 3

I teach on-line classes and "real time" classes at at community college. The on-line classes take more responsibility of the student. There is no specified meeting time, you check in when you can or want. I took a class on-line before teaching them. You don't see the other students or the professor for that matter so you tend to work harder than in a traditional class. In a traditional class you can gage how you are doing. You get so see how other classmates handle the situations presented in class. You see the people who do poorly and those who do extremely well.
In on-line classes, you don't really get to see those dynamics . You need to check in either by a journal or regular assignments. Its easy to just want to do the minimum work to just get by, but the conscientious student will always fear that they are one of the stragglers and thus over apply themselves.
If you need the teacher to interact with you and motivate you, then on-line classes aren't for you. If you just want to read the material, do the assignments and not be bothered with the other students, then an on-line class may be for you. It is the wave of the future like it or not. My traditional classes would run many sections one semester and then a few sections the next semester. Employment was irregular. On-line classes seem to always run even at the expense of traditional classes. Now that I teach on-line classes, I teach a full load regularly.
For the lower level classes, I think that on-line classes are OK. They aren't as fun due to the lack of interaction which I do feel is an important part of the college experience. It's not just the knowledge, but the social interaction that spurs growth. IF you take a few classes on-line though, it may expedite your matriculation to a four year university.

Answer 4

Please skip the online for-profit schools such as university of phoenix, devry u, strayer u, kaplan u, kaiser u as most employers don't view them as reputable and instead look into taking some online courses thru the local community college or university.