by Myrianda

Created on: June 05, 2007   Last Updated: June 12, 2011

Online college has been praised by some and blasted by others. It has also been a nightmare for some while being a DREAM for others. I fall somewhere in the middle. In a week I will finally graduate with an associate's degree in business. In three weeks I will continue on to earn a bachelor's degree in IT. And I do mean EARN!

First, anyone who wants to go back to college needs to know that there are choices. For me online college was the best choice. There were no local campuses where I lived, I could not afford the gas to go to the colleges, and I felt constrained by the time tables of "ground campuses". So I started looking into online college and got sucked right in!

I looked at a few colleges, researched their accreditations, and looked at cost, course lengths, and degrees offered. I finally settled on the one I thought was the best choice. I asked a ton of questions, made sure I had all the information I needed and started off. Two years later I'm a good deal wiser and finally getting my degree. Let me tell you about my experiences I could write a book!
First, I was homebound, I couldn't drive, and there was nobody to drive me back and forth the 30+ miles to attend the nearest college. Online school not only saved me driving it allowed me freedom to move about. When I first started my counselor said, "You can go to class in Germany if you wanted to; it does not matter where you go". He was quite right!

I have moved three times, visited Canada, and vacationed in Florida all while doing my homework. I did not have the headaches of transferring schools, I did not have to stop taking classes, I did not have to withdraw from classes. I just had to make sure I had an Internet connection.

Online college has also been good because I could take off time when I wanted to, providing I did it at the end of a course. I've gone through a hurricane, separation, divorce, and other major problems and still have a 3.85 GPA. Which brings me to the next part of this writing: pro's and con's of going to an online college.

I've heard it said many times that online college is for those that can't make it in a real college as well as "oh the teachers just give good grades out because they want to keep the student's going through the mill". This is so not true!

First: online college is tough! Depending on the school you may have 5-9 weeks to learn what others learn in months! That's a lot of knowledge to take in in a short time! The classes aren't all easy either. As an

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