Aah, if finding the best online university were only as simple as googling it! Unfortunately, web spiders can find the online schools (and there are thousands) but they can’t tell you which ones are actually good. Search engine ranking does not equal academic ranking. So how do you separate the qualified schools from the quacks?
There are several factors to consider before deciding which school to invest your money and your time in. The first, naturally, is the university’s regional accreditation. You would never go to a lawyer who had never passed his bar exam, would you? Nor would you see a doctor whose credits are limited to reading “Medicine for Dummies.”
In much the same way you should check if the school’s curriculum, teaching method and overall quality of education has met the standards and requirements of your country’s educational board, and that they have been given the proper accreditation. It doesn’t matter if a school is cheap—if it’s not going to be recognized by other schools, or will generally send you useless material and provide unreliable service, then you have thrown that money away.
Aside from verifying whether or not a college has been accredited, you also have to weigh which program is better. “Better” is relative; some schools have specialized in some courses. They are good at that particular field, and noticeably weak in others. You should also look at the quality of the faculty. How many years of experience have they had in that area? Do they have teaching credits? Are they available to he students and actively participate in discussion groups or consultations, or are they difficult to contact?
This doesn’t mean to belittle the issue of cost. Naturally you need to stick to a budget, and if a school is too expensive, then you may find yourself struggling more on paying the bills than actually studying. Luckily online education is, by nature, less expensive than traditional programs. And you can enjoy a flexibility of study hours that lets you continue to work at the same time. You can also get a student loan.
Today’s university students are lucky. They have, at their disposal, a huge library of books, the Internet, online discussion groups that let you brainstorm with classmates in the middle of the night.
However, there is no substitute for good old-fashioned hard work. There is no gadget that is more effective than simple human discipline and determination. Unfortunately many students fail in this regard. They have no study habits, and the independence of the college environment make it even more difficult to “obey” a rule when there is nothing except their own willpower to enforce it.
The secret is concentration. Without this valuable still, it becomes near-impossible to master any subject matter despite reading the text book over and over again. Thoughts wander, your attention distracted by phones, TV, your nails. Get to business. You have to clear your head of any other non related thoughts, and get into “the zone” where only you and what you are reading matter. Yes, sometimes it helps to be “narrow minded” if it means narrowing your focus to what you are studying!
You will also need to set up your own study area, preferably in an area where won’t be any people moving around and talking in the vicinity. Sometimes a small thing like moving where your desk faces—so your back is to the noise, and you’ll face a blank wall—can make a difference. You can also get an answering machine so that you won’t hear the phone ringer, or if you’ve got a chatterbox roommate, playing instrumental music on your iPod to drown out her conversations on the phone.
Also work around your body clock. Look at your natural patterns of activity. Ahen are you more energetic and alert? What time of the day are you able to get things done really quickly? If you can work for long bursts during the early morning, then take a nap after dinner and wake up at one. You’ll get more done than if you forced yourself to study during the evenings.
It’s best to take breaks instead of forcing yourself to study for long chunks of time, where your concentration dips. Schedule 10 minute breaks.
Your performance in academic exams play a very large part in your ability to get into a good college, and staying in it. It can be extremely competitive, especially for larger schools or more difficult courses. You will have to study hard and develop the skills and concentration to use that time efficiently.
Whatever the work involved, it’s worth it. In some cases, your exam can be the biggest basis for your grades. Not all teachers will really give a lot of weight to class recitations or projects. Quite a few will schedule a midterm and a final exam, and in those two tests lie your future.
There is a common misconception that studying for an exam refers to the two or three days before the test when you are feverishly memorizing your notes and books. Those days are just a review of the subject matter. Ideally you have already mastered it. You have attended all the classes and done all the reading homework already. You have made your own notes and at least comprehend the basic subject matter, and can talk about it intelligently.
But if you have skipped classes, never taken down your own notes, or still feel as ignorant about the topic as you did when you first enrolled for it, you’re in trouble. No amount of cramming (and using other people’s notes too!) can make up for the hours of “study time” you missed throughout the semester. The curriculum was meant to be mastered over several months to work, not several days.
And that point becomes very very clear, in fact, when preparing for college entrance exams. When you prepare for an entrance exam, you are being tested for the skills you were supposed to learn in the high school curriculum. Technically, the most you can do is to go through a “refresher course”. Some high schools do, in fact, offer a few weeks of review. But the pace of these classes are very fast. It should give you an idea of the topics to focus on during your personal study time, and also to help you practice handling the pressure of the exam.
