Society has been changing at an extremely rapid pace and what was once considered the standard progression of life events has transformed into something very different. Fifty years ago, in a day where the world had never heard of such things as obtaining an online degree or ISPs, young girls learned typewriting in public school only to settle down with a husband and children. Boys became breadwinners, moving into their father’s shoes to take over the business and continue the family legacy. These goals in lives were to be admired and respected, their pattern of daily life and expectations to be desired.
These types of restrictive roles in life no longer fit anyone in our modern, information filled world. Having children is being put off or sometimes even set aside completely for bigger things and grander goals. Women are coming out of the kitchen, shedding the mother role to be psychologists or lawyers, while men learn to be hard driven, competitive professionals in the business world. What links most individuals in top paying careers today no longer has to do with which store your parents worked at, but which university provided them with the credits they needed to receive a solid, recognized online degree.
Online degrees have transformed over time as well. The education that used to be offered by negligible ‘degree centers’ or certification offered via the distance courses of twenty years ago are incomparable to the quality of virtual education today. Training centers would mail papers and documents that students would read, study or work on and return to the center, again by mail. The process was slow, open to cheating, and the degree at the end of the course never really earned the respect of potential employers or businesses. Today’s online degree programs are efficient, recognized and of the highest quality. Indeed, college and university students directly on a reputable education facility receive exactly the same training and information as the same facility’s distance education students taking the same courses. Top ranked colleges offer most of their courses online and the curriculum, material and quality standards of education are identical to that being offered on campus.
In fact, an online degree may be more valuable, possibly having even higher quality content than classroom material. Usually, only top professors are the ones asked to construct courses for students geared to receiving their Bachelor of Arts or their Masters’ Degree through distance education. Having an expert who can provide material rich lectures (exempt of the background noise, shuffling feet and coughing that you would hear if you were in the lecture hall) and recommend the latest, best textbooks to compliment the course may be better than the live person at the front of the room delivering lectures. While most people do enjoy receiving information through human contact, humans will be humans, which means they can fall sick and be absent, forget to mention crucial points, or get distracted by something else going on in the room and lose their place.
The convenience of studying to receive an online degree is one of the biggest selling points in distance education. At many educational facilities offering online degree programs, students are not required to take full course loads per semester, which means that the working person or time crunched individual can have access to education as well, and take one course per season to bank up credits towards their degree. What’s more, students can achieve their online degree goals relatively cheaply, eliminating the need for housing and transportation. Usually all that’s required is a computer and an internet service provider. Ease of access and the ability to attend lectures or work on course material at any time of the day, in the comfort of our own home, is a very large reason why more and more people are turning to online degree courses.
Certainly, education in any form, be it in a virtual world or the physical one, is very important. Only through information can we better ourselves and use the knowledge we’ve acquired to improve our lives. With accredited educational facilities able to provide high quality training at the snap of our fingers in whatever form we prefer to receive it, people are now able to acquire better training and skills to move forward in the world and aim for their attainable goals.
By: Andy West
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