The Online Degree Dorm Room

Engineering Degree Online | Planning for College

Posted by bposton on November 14th, 2006 — Posted in engineering degree online

If you’re the average college bound high school senior, you have a lot of thing so think about besides ordering your cap and gown and getting a date to the prom.

You need to also be thinking about college - a lot

Such as - What major should I choose? (that’s always a big one), Should I stay in state or try forthat school of my dreams that happens to be thousands of miles away? What are my options in terms of financial aid?

Of course, another question you can also ask yourself these days is - should I be on campus, off-campus, or…

online???

Most high school guidance counselors probably don’t recommend online schools, but you need to know that they are an option.

Yes, you can argue that you’ll “miss out” on the whole “college dorm life” thing, but let me tell you - life in the online degree dorm room is pretty sweet

No roomates to wake you up in the middle of the night. No running to the next class after missing the bus on a rainy day…

…you get the idea, right?

However, either which way you go, you still need to think about planning for college. Here are some of the steps in that process:

Preparation - searching for and choosing the right college, including entrance exams, selecting the major, ect

Selection - Planning camous visits and finalizing on your major (at least the one you think you want to head for at this point). This is when you should also consider online degree programs as well.

Application - Applying for admission. This is a very important and often under-planned step. Applications can take a long time especially if they require essays or “personal statments”. And there are always deadlines for getting them in, along with your SAT, ACT scores and transcripts from high school. A college interview may also be required, espacially when a scholarship is involved.

Decision - Sorting through all those acceptance letters and deciding which college is best for you.
Payment - Applying for financial aid, work-study programs, education loans. scholarships and more.

So if you following this planning process, you have a much better chance of finding the right school, submiting the best application possible and developing a sound strategy to pay for it all.

Ben

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Engineering Degree Online | A Three Part Primer about Online Degrees - Part 2

Posted by bposton on November 8th, 2006 — Posted in engineering degree online

Here’s part deux of my quick primer on taking online courses or getting a
degree online

So how much PC skill do you need?

Well, if you’re reading this I’m gonna assume you have some skills with a PC 

Here’s the skinny on how much skill and PC power you need to take an online degree program.

First of all, Universities and colleges hire companies to help them develop their E-learning programs,
at least from the technical end of things. In doing so, they try to make sure that those technical details
of “going to class” online are so easy enough that anyone who has surfed the Web can do it.

What kind of comupter do you need?

Well, I’ve taked about this in an earlier post, but bascially any Internet-ready laptop or PC
should be enough to tackle the class. However, it’s still a good idea to check with the school
you’re thinking about attending and finding out what their requirements or recommendations are.
 
You should also try to find out what hours their tech support staff are working during the week
and if their support is just via email, or if you can talk to a live human body on the phone.

Oh, and if you are still living in the dail-up world, you’re in trouble. Taking classes online
will require that you upgrade to a broadband Internet connection of some kind (DSL, Cable Satellite)
so you’ll moste definitely hae to bite the bullet and do that before starting a class.

So much for part duex. Next post will be about what to expect when taking an online class.

Ben

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Engineering degree online : No Child Left Behind…in College?? - Part 2

Posted by bposton on October 21st, 2006 — Posted in engineering degree online

Here’s part 2 of the quote from Eugene Hickok about how the government is trying to making colleges more accountable in how they educate their students.
“The Intercollegiate Studies Institute recently released a report from the National Civics Literacy Board, on which I serve, showing what sort of information the public needs and why it is so important that it be available. The study tracked student knowledge of American history and civics at select colleges and universities, with the goal of determining how much students learn in these subjects over four years of college. They measured the change in knowledge by evaluating freshmen and seniors.

And the results were appalling: college seniors failed the civic literacy assessment with an
average score of 53.2 percent.

This sort of information is important for tuition payers, policy makers and institutional leaders to have when trying to determine the difference a college education can make. Institutions of higher education need to report an academic bottom line.

While they’re at it, colleges and universities must make it a priority that their students graduate. While most tuition payers assume a baccalaureate degree takes four years to complete, the truth is it takes typically more than six years. In 2003, only 34 percent of graduating students had completed their degree in four years or less.

There are reasons for this, some of them understandable. But in far too many institutions, the emphasis is on enrolling students, not on graduating them. And far too often, that includes enrolling students who are not adequately prepared for higher education, and who therefore drop out after one or two semesters of struggling, or else spend most of their time in remedial or developmental courses that are not really college-level. Behind the impressive numbers of low-income and minority students enrolled in higher education are grim statistics regarding completion for a degree.”

Eugene Hickok, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, was a deputy secretary of education during President Bush’s first term.

The final part 3 of this quote is coming later today…

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