Online classes and distance learning

[SagaLore]

Because my college is no longer guaranteeing evening classes for the bachelor's program I'm in, I'm forced to take distance learning classes if I want to continue the next 2 years for the degree.

They're using a system called WebCT.

Anybody have experience taking classes like this? I'm not talking about some University of Phoenix type course, but distance classes from a reputable college that has a traditional student body.

 

[Drakkon]

I both programmed and took classes on a webCT from the university of northern arizona.
webCT is kinda neat in that all the assingments can be generated and tests given through it and everything is all fairly well layed out (a lot depends on prof though)
Which version of webCT are they using? campus edition is what a lot of universities are on, its somewhat outdated, but it works. Vista is the new version that offers a lot more fancy features but has some usability issues due to the fact its all in java.

All in all taking a class in webct was easy enough. A lot of reading usually, but really it depends on the prof cause they can use any number of the options in the package to make it harder/easier.

 

[alent1234]

I have 1 year left at UoP and 5 CLEP's until I get my degree. This will be my third year. With CLEP's and trasfering in credits in from my military experience I was able to cut out 1 year of going to school.

As far as the school it can be a lot of work. The classes are 5 weeks long, several hundred pages of reading per class and a lot of writing. Almost no tests, but 2 papers a week that need to be researched. Length is 700-3000 words depending on the paper and how along you are.

It's not a center of learning like Harvard, but it's not a dilpoma mill like some people think. You have to do the work to pass. All the teachers have masters or Phd's and are full time employees in their fields. My current teacher is a lawyer in private practice, I've had an engineer with a phd in chemistry who was a consultant to manufacturing companies and my last class the teacher had a masters in finance or economics and ran his own consulting company. It's about on par with some of the other schools i've attended. They have a nice online library that has thousands of publications going back decades, doctoral dissertations, databases and other stuff. My wife uses it to get free access to medical journals.

After I finish my degree I plan to apply to law school. It's expensive, but it's probably one of the few ways in which you can work full time and go to school full time. A lot of employers have no problem with accepting the degree and a lot of others don't. A lot of fortune 500 companies also have special deals set up with UoP where they send their non-degreed people to get an education. I've had a mix of people in my classes. Everything from wage slaves in crap jobs to people who have run a business for many years and managers in fortune 500 companies that have worked their way up. There are also people there that already have degrees in something technical like CompSci and need to take some credits before they can start an MBA.