Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Education You Should Know
Online education has become a popular channel for many students to earn their degree. The fact shows that most of the online students successfully complete their degree program but 40% of them failed. Most of the online students are earning their degree online because they see many advantages of online education that can benefit them, but the 40% who failed are not aware of the disadvantages of online education that cause their failure. To avoid becoming one of the statistics of failure in online education, you must first understand the pros and cons of earning your degree online before you make the decision to earn your degree through this online channel. Here are the main advantages and disadvantages of online education that you should know about:
The advantages of online education
In today’s hectic lifestyle, most people don’t have time to go back to school, even if they intend to earn more degrees to further their career, job promotion, or simply to learn something new. This is where one of the advantages of online education will benefit these people. Online education can give you a flexible learning environment from anywhere as long as an internet connection is offered.
With proper time management, you can easily plan your online learning sessions to fit your busy schedule and follow your own study pace to complete your degree program. Another key advantage of online education is that you can attend online classes from your comfortable home or anywhere that is convenient for you. This also means that you can enroll in any online degree program offered by any university around the world, as long as you do your degree program online. With that in mind, you don’t need to worry about not being able to find a degree that might not meet your career or lifestyle requirements.
In general, you can complete a degree online in a shorter amount of time when compared to the same courses offered in campus-based programs. Unless you deliberately delay your courses due to poor time management. As for the cost of tuition, while this is not always true, online degree programs generally cost less than on-campus degree programs since most of the learning materials are in downloadable format and the hours credit required to complete an online degree program is comparatively less. . Therefore, you could save some money by earning your degree online.
The disadvantages of online education
The advantages of online education can turn into disadvantages if you are not the right candidate for online education. The flexibility of planning your own schedule in online education could be a disadvantage for you if you are a type of person who cannot manage your time probably between work, family and study. If you are this type of person, a pre-planned schedule may suit you well, allowing yourself to study at your own pace with your own schedule may cause you to not complete your degree program.
Since most of the online learning materials are in text format, if you are not comfortable with this format and prefer to listen to the lecture rather than read it. Then it will become to your disadvantage and you will need to reconsider your decision before choosing online education as your channel to get a degree.
Are you able to communicate well through chats and discussion forums? You need to understand that these media are the key communication channels in the online learning environment and you need to be able to adapt to them, otherwise it will become to your disadvantage.
Summary
By understanding the advantages and disadvantages of online education, you will have a better understanding of how these factors will affect you if you choose to earn your degree online.