Elysian Shadows

Hey everyone,

I recently graduated and now I'm starting to weigh out my options as far as which path to take in CS. I wanted to know how you guys feel about online schooling and if it would be a bad idea for this field. I do understand that at a lot of colleges group projects are incorporated in the course, and can be beneficial. Alas, if I chose to earn my degree online I would miss out on things such as this. If anyone has taken this route, or know someone who has I would like to hear from you and get your opinons on it.

As always thanks for your input.
-Brock

P.S

If anyone knows any good schools to check out feel free to list them!

In my opinion it would be better to go to a proper, physical college. Seriously, I don't see any reason why you would want to do it online?

RyanPridgeon wrote:In my opinion it would be better to go to a proper, physical college. Seriously, I don't see any reason why you would want to do it online?

Cost for one thing. Getting your degree online is dirt cheap in comparison. There are plenty of other personal reasons, but I think that's the most widely recognized reason.

Yanno, most people are gonna tell you to go to a 4 year college, including me, partly because we went to those. but i have met a few people who went to online colleges and work in the CS field and make close to trip digits. A 4 year degree is get you in the door easier than an online college, but really after that it means nothing. my dad had a co worker that was a director at IBM that made 400k or so a year, he had a horticulture degree.... point being is that just get your foot in the door, after that degrees mean squat.

Online degrees are generally frowned upon due to the fact that most "online colleges" are unaccredited. I would definitely not recommend it. It just doesn't look good.

RyanPridgeon wrote:In my opinion it would be better to go to a proper, physical college. Seriously, I don't see any reason why you would want to do it online?

/agreed

What people have to realize is that many large institutions offer online learning in conjunction with their in-class studies. I have taken several online classes at my university and they can be just as educational as long as you are willing to put extra effort into your own studies. I will admit that I prefer a face-to-face lecture in comparison with online studies but you could absolutely get an excellent education from mostly online work. I can't really base my opinion off of 'strictly' online schools but online work in general has exponentially improved over the past 5-10 years.

GyroVorbis wrote:Online degrees are generally frowned upon due to the fact that most "online colleges" are unaccredited. I would definitely not recommend it. It just doesn't look good.

You certainly want to be sure you're getting into a legitimate accredited institution. In reality if attending a school isn't completely impossible I'd recommend that over an online degree any day, but there's certainly nothing wrong with taking courses online.

A good way to go, if you're seriously considering online, would be to register for some online courses (from an accredited institution) and see how you like them. I can tell you right now that the most difficult thing about an online course is that you can control the pace you go at, but by the same token that can be a great thing. If you're taking something you really enjoy then you can rush through it as fast as you like (for that stuff that just clicks) or at a slower pace (say you're taking a linear algebra class and find yourself wanting to stop and take more time on the topics relating to projective space as it relates to 3D graphics).

I took a math course by distance and it was great. I had already gone to school for a year and a bit at the University of Alberta in something I decided to switch out of, and I think in a lot of ways I really didn't develop the kind of study habits I needed since I wasn't totally devoted to what I was studying (ended up not doing so well by the time I left). The distance course I took gave me the time I needed to develop the necessary study habits to teach the entire thing to myself. You need to develop those study habits to do well at a regular institution as well, but it's easier to let that slip by since the courses will progress whether you put in the effort or not - and by the time you see the consequences it's often too late to do anything about it (which, although screwed up, seems to be the structure of our entire educational system... but that's another topic). With a distance course, if it's something you want to move ahead on and you are committed to doing well, it kind of slaps you in the face if you're not putting in the effort since the course never progresses. If you're studying something because YOU want to do it, then distance would definitely be worth a shot. You may even want to do that as kind of an interim phase before going to another college/university. Personally, one of the reasons it worked well for me was that I WANTED to do the course and move forward in it, so it was like a thorn in my side when I wasn't making progress. I tend to be better at motivating myself than most people I know though, whereas I don't respond so well to cattle prods (give me a "why" and I'll drive myself - give me a "do it" and you'll get stubbornness, it's just how I am).

As far as picking a place, as I said above be sure to pick a place that's accredited (unless there's some specialized program that has exactly what you want, but you haven't really expressed that so I'd say stick with accredited). Here's what I'd look for:
1) They have the program/courses that you want. There's no point in going somewhere that doesn't.
2) They're transferable to other institutions. I'm not sure about most distance colleges/universities in the US, but most of the good ones here in Canada have transfer agreements worked out with one or more institutions to make sure you get full credit for all the courses you take if you decide to transfer.

Hope that helps!

Edit: I'd like to add that I'm going back this fall to a regular institution. I'm incredibly glad that I took the course that I did, but for me that was more of a temporary interim thing between leaving and going back. You could do that same sort of thing if you make sure that the courses are transferable. You don't need to if you pick an institution with a full degree that you want to go for, but it leaves that option open - I found there's a lot that you can learn about yourself by doing a distance course - and picking a place that's transferable gives you flexibility if you decide to set off on a particular path that you didn't think about before.