M.J. Joseph asked:


Accredited online degrees are similar to traditional university degrees in many ways: both come from accredited universities, hire certified, knowledgeable professors, offer many different degrees and assist students with financial aid. However, online schools, distance learning and online education are also very different from the traditional collegiate way of learning.

With online degree programs, you:

Determine when you have time to study

With an online education, you create your own classroom. You aren’t buckled down to having to attend class at a specific time for a specific number of days per week. You don’t have to worry about taking sick days and missing out on lectures, assignments or quizzes. Sometimes, when scheduling classes at traditional brick and mortar colleges, students run into major scheduling conflicts, and are unable to take one or two classes because it doesn’t fit their schedule. This can make the students’ graduation dates further and further away, and they end up going longer than they expected, thus spending money on another semester of tuition. Online schools offer courses online where you work at your own speed on your own time, with no scheduling conflicts, so you graduate when you expected.

Give yourself an edge when applying for jobs

Although online schools offer flexible scheduling, many of the degree programs are very rigorous. Because you work on your own time, you never have an instructor nagging you to complete your work. You need to be very disciplined and organized, and you have to work hard, as well. However, taking this responsibility adds more credentials you can put on your resume. You had to work hard, be organized and be disciplined while in pursuit of your online degree, and those qualities roll over to any career choice. Employers will appreciate that you are a disciplined, responsible worker and had to work independently, as employers are turning to independent work without much supervision.

Become more technologically advanced

Enrolling in an online school allows you to work with many different forms of technology. Of course, you do most of your work on a computer. You also use different programs on that computer that you might have to use in your career. Taking an online course gives you hands-on experience with those programs.

Learn about real world problems

When you enroll in an online degree program, much of the curriculum focus is on your major. There is no need for general education classes that you will not use in your line of work. If you want to earn your accounting degree, you will learn about the steps to calculate accrued interest for a loan or mortgage, because that is what you will be doing as an accountant.

Online degree programs are not for everyone; they are for the self starter that likes to take their own initiative to succeed. There are definite benefits to pursuing your degree online, but you do have to be disciplined and organized. However, with some hard work, you can earn your college degree and provide yourself with more career opportunities.



Daniel Sauri

Jullie Harvard asked:


Nowadays, it is common to earn a degree through online education program. You can choose any major that fit your needs from degree programs offered by various online schools. Many of us are getting a degree for the purpose of career advancement or making a career switch. So, the acceptance of the degree in the job market is important. The common concern for most students who are planning to pursue their degree online is whether the degree earned is equally competitive with the standard degree which earned through campus-based university.

In deciding whether to go for online study or follow the campus-based degree program, the acceptance of the degree in the job market may become your key consideration factor. You may choose to pursue the traditional campus-based degree program just because you worry that online degree may not widely accepted in the job market, so it may affects your career opportunities after your graduation.

In the early introduction of online education, your concern about how the employers look at online degree may be valid. But the growth of online education in past 20 years shown that online study has become popular as more and more students are getting their degree through this channel. Statistics show that generally a degree that earned from campus-based or through online has no differences, but employers do have concerns about fake degrees issued by diploma mills.

The market demands have pushed the online education to growth rapidly, and it has becomes one of the most profitable industry which attractive diploma mills to compete for the market share. The diploma mills are unauthorized universities that offer online degrees that are not accredited by accrediting agency which approved by Department of Education. Those degrees that issued by diploma mills are illegal and they are not accepted in the job market. Employers nowadays are well aware about those fake degrees and they have tried their best efforts to reject them. So, if you are earn your degree from a diploma mill, the consequences may not just losing your job opportunity, but you may be dragged into a legal case due to holding an illegal degree.

Most employers have a list of accredited online universities and their degree programs, or they can easily access the list from the accreditation database from Department of Education’s website. Any degree from an unknown or suspicious online university will easily draw attention by the employers. If you are earning a degree from a reputable and properly accredited university, your online degree should have no different than the degree earned through campus-based university.

For students who are planning to earn their degree online, they should not worry about how the employers look at their degree because online degrees are wide accepted by most of employers. What you need to focus on is finding an online degree program that is properly accredited by an accrediting agency approved Department of Education. You can access to the accreditation information from CHEA.org website.

Summary

As long as you are getting a degree from an accredited online university, which the accreditation is done by an accrediting agency recognized by Department of Education, you shouldn’t face any problem when you use the degree to start your career after graduation.



LeRoi Wilkers