Oshwal

Over the past decade, many schools have seen a great increase in online education, whether an actual physical university is providing more and more online classes, or entire universities are online, offering degrees without ever even having met their students. While for some situations, online classes and degrees are extremely beneficial, but automatically integrating them into a physical university for students can lead to some conflicts in interest.

Online classes and degrees are great for people who are working, have a family, travel frequently, or have other life circumstances that prevent them from having a rigid class schedule to adhere to. This way working parents can manage their studies without having to sacrifice time with their kids and more easily manage their household schedules. Or sometimes, after heading down a certain career path, one might change their mind about their career decision and want to pursue another degree to gain access to their desired field. Continuing to work in a certain area while pursuing a degree in another can be very challenging, but is sometimes necessary for both financial reason and building your resume. Taking virtual classes also allows for more independent study, which is some student’s best learning style. When one is responsible for their own studies, and can keep a disciplines schedule, they frequently benefit more from research and reading OYO.

Some students, and this speaks for the majority of students, are more likely to absorb and really learn university level material if they are in a physical classroom interacting directly with the teacher and other students. The immediacy of discussion concerning advanced topics is necessary to quickly integrate new knowledge and have more complete comprehension of complex ideas. But with recent budget cuts and a tough economy across the country, more and more universities are looking to convert a greater number of courses to online instruction, a process that actually costs the student more (and extra fee is usually added to their bill) and, for most, reduces the value of learning.

I believe student should only be able to take course online if they are general education requirements that fall outside of their major requirements. For example, an art and design major may be able to take a math or foreign language course online, Or a math major may be able to take his required philosophy course online. A student who is unsure about their chosen major, or hasn’t declared yet, should definitely take their courses in the classroom, however, because you can’t really get a good feeling for a subject matter online. Taking offline courses may prevent the student from discovering a new passion for a field or career, which is what we’re supposed to develop and come to understand about ourselves while we’re in college. One might want to get an electrical engineering degree to design everything from a cutting edge home security alarm to managing massive networks, and then change their mind after taking a very compelling philosophy course and instead pursue law after obtaining their ethics degree. But that wouldn’t happen unless they were taking all of their classes in the classroom rather than online.