Online Education: How to Make it Work

by Sonja Albrecht
Online Degrees Columnist

Education is what you make of it, whether you're sitting in a traditional college classroom or in your home office, studying online. E-learning has ushered in a new era of options and flexibility in higher education--and it has become perfect for the hard-working, self-motivated professional who's ready to move up in the world.

Wake Up!
With freedom comes responsibility. As Dr. Joe Boland, Director of Georgia Tech's Center for Distance Learning, puts it, "Because distance learning allows so much flexibility for the student, it also requires a much higher level of discipline." Boland reports that "the professor is moving from the 'sage on stage' to the 'guide on the side.'" Gone are the days when a student could snooze away in the back of a lecture hall. To be sure, e-learning students can snooze away in front of the computer screen, but the lecture is still waiting for them when they wake up.

Get Busy
The online student is expected to take charge of his or her education and use the professor as a resource, not a taskmaster. Gary Witover, who has pursued both an online master's in strategic intelligence and a physician assistant degree, finds that "[y]ou get out of it what you put in. If you just want a degree, you can do the minimum. If you really want to learn something, the resources are there and you need to take initiative to make the most of the experience."

The Choice is Yours
Witover learned this firsthand in the course of his two online education experiences. In both cases he got what he came for--but what he came for were two different things. The online military master's was a prerequisite for promotion, a "'check a box'-type thing." The physician assistant training, by contrast, "is an entire career change. It's a vocation, not a formality--a chance to learn a different set of skills. I'm really doing it for the sake of learning the material, not just for the degree."

So is online learning an education, a piece of paper, or nothing at all? It can be any of the above--you make the call.

About the Author
Sonja Albrecht works as a writer and editor for an online media company. She has also taught college writing and completed a Ph.D. in English.

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