Online school sucks

[dfrecore]

I think part of the problem is that you took crappy OL courses. Saylor stinks, it's like torture. The Insurance Ethics course is worthless. But I have taken some courses that I liked.

I don't love OL courses, BUT I also have a tough time sitting through a 16-week course at college. It's horrible. I did figure out that I can do 5-10 week courses though - I took an 8-week course last summer through my local CC. And I've taken some great management courses at GGU 15 years ago, where they had different formats - 10-week courses, and 5-week weekend-intensive courses - and I liked them all.

I also had terrible experiences at the first 4-yr college I went to, some of the teachers were terrible. The ones who were killing time until retirement after getting tenure were fun. And the grad student teaching Calculus for Engineering Majors who couldn't speak English. For weeks, I sat there feeling like I was an idiot, until every single person in the class flunked the first exam. Every. Single. Person. We were all engineering majors! The average at that point was 40%. I quit. Then I went back to CC a few years later and found that there were some GREAT teachers there, and I enjoyed myself (except the 16-week format).

I think you have to figure out how to get the best of both worlds. You have to take some classes somewhere to get the interaction (I recommend courses in your major where it's really important to you, or things that are really hard where you need more help from an instructor). At the same time, you can take online courses and/or study for exams.

It may end up taking you a little longer than people here who power through courses in a matter of days/hours, but you'll be happier for it.