Online Courses Make a Bachelor of Arts in History Possible for Busy Professional
"My nephew graduated high school exactly 20 years after I did," says Donna Davis, a 43 year-old college student living outside of Philadelphia. "I thought, somebody in my generation has to get their Bachelor's degree before the next generation does. And I'm actually going to do it!"
Donna is in her last semester of a BA in History at University of Massachusetts Lowell online and she's planning to attend the graduation ceremony in person. "I don't have to go, it's just my choice. But you have to go through the whole ceremony--it's not the same without it!"
She began her online education journey nearly six years ago, with the University of Phoenix. She was living in Las Vegas at the time and her employer offered partial tuition reimbursement for certain programs so she chose a management track.
"When I got into the first course of the core program, I hated it. I thought, 'Ok I'm in the wrong program' and why don't I study something I really like?"
Her decision led her to the liberal arts department of UMass Lowell. Her courses follow spring, fall semesters, with an optional summer course. For her last two electives, Donna is taking Accounting--a nod to her day job in an accounts receivable department--and Forensic Science for the Non-Scientist, just for fun.
Flexibility of Online Learning Makes Degree Possible
Donna says the main reason she chose online study was the flexibility. "I don't have to go to a classroom in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week," she says. "I can go to my regular 9Što-5 job, run errands and then at 11 P.M. I can be writing my paper. If I'm up at two in the morning I can be, it's entirely up to me."
Most semesters, her full course load--between three and four classes at a time--meant about four hours per day of class work per day. "I have to read through everyone's posts and see if I want to post, draft my posts, keep up with reading, write papers, research--and all of it's online," says Donna.
Though there aren't many requirements for real-time attendance, each instructor schedules a weekly live chat session via Blackboard, the school's virtual learning platform. "There is nothing that you have to attend, which is really helpful," says Donna, who juggles a full time job and a busy social life. Occasionally a teacher will email the class if the material being covered is particularly important, leading up to an exam, for example. "Some classes have a live video of the teacher giving a lecture and you can submit questions via chat," says Donna, "but the videos are also recorded and available to view on our own time."
Interactivity of Each Course Depends on the Instructor
She has found that the amount of interaction between instructors and students varies with the class. "Every week there's always some discussion questions that we need to answer. Sometimes the teachers will be very, very involved in the classroom discussion itself. Other teachers take a more hands off approach, and direct you to private email."
The most challenging aspect of her online courses has been conducting research. "Research can be very difficult sometimes. If you're searching online you often get tons of results and you have to wade through all of them," she says. "The online library has an 'ask a librarian for help' form but if you're on at two in the morning you're not going to get a response for hours."
Assignments Extend Beyond the Virtual Classroom
Some of her classes incorporate the offline world into the curriculum. Her Forensic Science for Non-Scientists class will have experiments that students can conduct with household materials, for instance. When she was taking a chemistry course, students were required to download lab simulation software so they could replicate experiments without actual chemicals and lab equipment.
Science is not the only course where Donna conducted offline research--for both her Community Psychology and Human Ecology courses she found a wealth of inspiration locally. She profiled a group that she found through Meetup.com and studied a nearby watershed area.
The flexibility of online learning requires that students be self-determined. "Being on your own you have to be pretty disciplined to get it all done," says Donna. However, the schedule is such that students decide when to get their work done. "It's just so flexible you can do it whenever you have the time," she says. For Donna, that freedom has made all the difference.
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