So I've finally decided I'm going to get on with my post-secondary education and stop being a jobber. I have to upgrade 1 class before applying for university, and since I work full time I decided to take the class online so I can keep making money. Now I haven't taken a course online before, and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice that will help me get through this course quickly and effectively, while still being able to incorporate some SC2 in my daily life!

Southlight

United States11768 Posts

February 07 2011 20:13 GMT

Not sure about undergraduate (if that's what you're taking), but graduate courses often take up a significant amount of time and effort. Online classes depend from teacher to teacher and uni to uni, but generally they're just a discussion board in which certain topics are open for a specific amount of time, and so you must "participate in the class" by joining in the discussion. Online classes also tend to be more liberal in assigning chunks of reading for you to do, because you're "entitled to" a certain amount of hours of lectures per week, but it's hard to gauge that via textual reading, so they feel perfectly okay assigning more reading than you'd expect otherwise.

kcaz

Canada387 Posts

February 07 2011 20:17 GMT

It's just a highschool class I need before I can apply to university

Southlight

United States11768 Posts

February 07 2011 20:22 GMT

Hah, no clue then.

Scorcher2k

United States802 Posts

February 07 2011 20:33 GMT

Don't take a math. I went to take my calc online and it was this ungodly horrible online book deal with a video professor who used food in like every movie and fluffed the shit out of it. I wanted to punch the guy in the face and get a pizza at the same time.

Entertaining

Canada793 Posts

February 07 2011 20:46 GMT

audit a course?

_romantic

United States455 Posts

February 07 2011 20:48 GMT

Some classes are good to take online (e.g. programming) while others are just retarded to take online (like history or any that requires discussion). Cost-benefit analysis IMO.

MrRicewife

Canada515 Posts

February 07 2011 21:13 GMT

I took correspondents online after high school, 99% was online, two tests in person.

I'll tell you this: the reason why some people drop out of college and then continue attending certain classes is because teachers are crap. If you can self-teach yourself, do it. It doesn't make sense to pay someone to teach you something that already exists on paper.

With that being said, some people can't self teach and need someone to interpret and help comprehend some things for them. I know I couldn't learn math by myself, but everything else was a breeze. Chances are learning online is a good choice because if you really get stuck, you can ask friends or TL for help.

[Eternal]Phoenix

United States333 Posts

February 07 2011 21:31 GMT

On February 08 2011 05:48 l0st_romantic wrote:
Some classes are good to take online (e.g. programming) while others are just retarded to take online (like history or any that requires discussion). Cost-benefit analysis IMO.

History requires no discussion at all. It's just a list of facts and reasons. All you gotta do is read a book and regurgitate information. In fact, history is possibly the best class for online since it's just memorization and no problem solving.

Offhand

United States1869 Posts

February 07 2011 21:44 GMT

#10

I don't think one high school level online course is going to require a significant amount of time. Hell, I took three regular college classes while working fulltime one semester, you should have plenty of free time.

Tzel

United States72 Posts

February 07 2011 22:06 GMT

#11

Stick to your schedule - make sure that you're getting a significant amount of work done every day. I slacked off taking pre-cal over this past summer, and it turned into taking pre-cal over the june to november. not fun. A good framework is putting maybe an hour, hour and a half in a day, maybe five days a week - should still give you plenty of free time

kNightLite

United States408 Posts

February 07 2011 23:43 GMT

#12

Yeah online classes are fine. Just make sure you take them at an accredited university, there's a lot of scammers out there.

I'd also echo the suggestion that you don't take math/stats classes online. I had a horrible experience trying to take an upper level stats class online. Doing math online is still very clunky, it's so much easier to understand concepts when you have a teacher in front of you walking you through a problem step-by-step on a whiteboard.

The more "squishy" classes such as social sciences work great in online environments though, because it's mostly reviewing literature, discussion, and writing papers. All of which are easy to do on PCs.

Southlight

United States11768 Posts

February 07 2011 23:59 GMT

#13

On February 08 2011 06:31 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:

Show nested quote +

Obviously in his case it's HS-level history so maybe that's true, but at least in undergrad+ online history is nightmarish. My undergrad history class was graded entirely on essays.

Ulfsark

United States958 Posts

February 08 2011 05:58 GMT

#14

Have a set time everyday that you do your work for it. It can be easy to blow off considering the SC2 icon will stare you in the face.

Joementum

787 Posts

February 08 2011 09:15 GMT

#15

Blow off SC2 if you have to. I doubt the class will take much time out of your daily life though. Just make sure you don't wait until the last 2 weeks to do all the work. All my friends do that in some online courses they take in College and they end up doing shitty because they assumed all the work would only take them 2-3 days when in reality, it would take them 9-10 days.

Bosu

United States3247 Posts

February 08 2011 11:05 GMT

#16

Online classes are great. I have taken probably 10 of my classes online. I would have taken more online if they were offered. Some are ridiculously easy, especially a few years ago when my school first started them. I have spent anywhere from 30 minutes a week to 6 hours a week on 3 credit classes. I would say they all averaged out to be less time then I would have spent on a normal class getting to school, studying for tests, and time listening to lectures in class.