Online College Course Forum

Most of the country's higher education establishments that offer degrees are adopting a strategy of delivering at least some of their programs online. The growth in this strategy has been quite startling, with 49% of institutions seeing online programs as a critical long-term strategy in 2004, and 56% in 2005.

This change in strategy means that not only will you have more choice of online programs, but you will find universal acceptance of your qualification regardless of the mode of delivery. Online programs have moved from a peripheral activity with some questions about their quality to part of the mainstream offering of most institutions.

Good collaborative evidence that online studying makes you slim, and I do agree about cafeteria food. However, I also have to announce that there is also contradictory evidence, that eating and studying have been known to go hand in hand.

I asked 5 of my colleagues what they thought, and 2 of the five agreed that they tended to find that sitting at the computer meant that they did eat and study. However, the other three said that they found that being absorbed in study meant that they really didn't even think about eating, and that they found it easy to keep to diets etc.

My advice is to keep the food to a minimum. If nothing else, it means that you don't have to clean the keyboard as often!

Studying an online program makes you slim! Two students enrolled on online programs in my Polytechnic have complained to their tutor that they are loosing weight during their study periods. Apparently they both mostly study early to mid evening, and they eat their main meal before they start to study. Because they are working and not watching television, they don't snack after the meal.

Good side effect!

There are some online programs that can never be delivered entirely over the Internet. For instance, many degrees in geography, botany, and other geophysical areas need to have some intensive field work, as do degrees in the agricultural sciences. These kinds of programs will deliver many of the courses online, but arrange field trips in the vicinity of groups of students, or alternatively arrange joint field trips with institutions that are situated near the geographical location of students.

This mix of delivery can be very stimulating, allowing you as a student to meet other students and to discuss online program issues face to face. Don't be put off this kind of program by the need to attend non-online courses, you can really benefit from them.