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Thread: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

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    Default Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    I'm not sure if this should go in life support or dollar den but I decided to post in dollar den because having a career is ultimately about making a living.

    A bit of back story: I'm 27 and have been in the adult industry all of my 20s. I can see 30 on the horizon and I've decided that I need to stop being a fuck up and actually do something with my life. I have a prostitution conviction that has been expunged and normal college has not exactly worked out for me. As in I have failed 3 semesters because I stop going to class when I get depressed and forget to drop. The prostitution conviction makes going into healthcare a little bit iffy even though it's been expunged. After careful consideration of things I can see myself doing everyday for the next 40 or so years and weighing my options I have decided that I would like a career in Web Development.

    I love to travel almost compulsively so I've been thinking about online school. I found this program:
    http://www.fullsail.edu/degrees/web-...ment-bachelors
    but I'm a bit concerned. Will getting a degree online combined with my less than stellar GPA and employment history leave me completely unemployable? Also the total tuition for graduation is aprox $80,000!!!!!!!!! I am glamoured by their success stories page but I'm sure all those people have succeeded because they had the right connections, not because of their education.

    I am on academic probation so I can't exactly get into a normal school right now and my other option is Tulane School of Continuing Studies (I live in NOLA).
    http://www.tulane.edu/~uc/index.html
    I can graduate for aprox $40,000. But will graduating from a "School of Continuing Studies" leave me any more employable than an online degree? And the decreased flexibility could mean decreased earnings while in school. Also the online program is only 5 semesters.

    So I would really love some advice. Is going to school for a career in this even practical? And what do you think my best course of action is?

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    Be careful of spending the money. Lots of scams out out there. Im looking into Phoenix University (online).

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    I would avoid online schools unless they are connected to bricks and mortar schools. Many companies I worked don't consider them real schools and do not hire people from them.

    If you are on probation, I would suggest going to a community college.

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    my partner is a web developer and he did 2 years in a diploma course probably costing 2k.
    you dont need a degree but theres a big practical aspect to it so you may wanna attend night classes for tutorials. he did a lot of freelance sites during his time at school and the portfolio of them n experience got him most of his jobs. i think spending that much on an online course is not only unnecessary but prob a scam too. normally for online uni you pay per unit e.g. $800 each whatever units you want to do to makeup the degree.

    i go to a private uni doing fashion and i pay the same you do for your online course. doesnt sound right. keep researching, dont let the rush of the oncoming 30s push you into a bad financial decision.
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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    Thanks girls. Yeah that was kind of crazy thinking. I did a bit more research about that specific school and it does look like a scam. It's accredited but not an accreditation that anybody accepts : /. I found a computer information technology program at my local community college that offers a concentration in web design. Anybody have any idea of what kind of salary I would be making with an associates in that? And would it still be necessary to go on and get my bachelors? I know these are probably questions that would be answered if I spoke to a counselor there but I'm in total anxious panic mode tonight.

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    As anouk.oui said, with Web Development, it's more about your portfolio than schooling. This field changes very quickly, so it's also important to stay current in new programs and such. Start out with some college classes (a few online is totally fine too, but I'd be wary about getting my degree that way) to learn the basic skills and then put them into practice developing websites so you have a body of work to show potential employers. Build yourself a web portfolio as well and maybe start a professional blog on it. This will get your name out there and show people what you're capable of - you never know who is reading it and could hook you up with a contract or job.

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    ^ ditto. you wont need a degree if you have a good enough portfolio.
    we are located in sydney, aus and with 4 years experience he makes 65-72K p.a.
    i think starting out salaries are around 52k. freelancing usually pays better if you can get enough jobs lined up.

    yeh dont waste you money on an accreditation that not everyone accepts. i dont know the stats about where you live but he manages with a diploma fine. he also updates lots of sites and blogs for leisure and they are all linked. thats the important thing, no one really cares whats on the paper. when he was applying jobs he had to write code with a time limit.
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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    Many companies I worked don't consider them real schools and do not hire people from them.
    This is increasingly true ... not only for 'online only' college degrees but also for many community college degrees. Employers are discovering that graduates of such programs, statistically speaking, are nowhere near as 'productive' as graduates from established 'name' schools. Thus employers are reluctant to hire, knowing that they'll need to make a much larger investment in 'learning curve' / training etc. and may still wind up with an 'underproducing' employee.


    with Web Development, it's more about your portfolio than schooling
    this is true in other 'technical' fields as well. However, you still have to find a way to 'throw your hat in the ring' so that your portfolio will actually get looked at.

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    hahahahahahaahahhaha

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    I'll also add that if obtaining an online university or community college degree fails to land you a job that is related to your field of study, if you attempt to seek a 'regular' job in order to pay the bills the fact that you hold an online university or community college degree can also work against you. The reason for this is that employers who are seeking workers for semi-skilled 'regular' jobs that don't actually require a college degree will consider those who hold a college degree as 'overqualified'.

    Specifically, those employers are likely to conclude that any prospective employee that holds a degree is accepting the employer's 'regular' job as a stop-gap measure, that the degree holding employee will continue to seek work in their chosen field, and that the degree holding employee will quit the employer's 'regular' job as soon as a 'better' job in their chosen field becomes available. This in turn means additional costs to the employer to replace the degree holding employee, to train the replacement employee etc. - i.e. costs and 'aggravation' that can be avoided if the employer sticks with only hiring non-degreed employees who are more likely to 'value' the employer's 'regular' job, more likely to continue working at that 'regular' job for an extended period of time etc.

    Thus under current economic conditions, given the 'dim view' most employers now place on online university / community college degrees, and also given no shortage of both new graduates from 'name' universities plus unemployed former graduates of 'name' universities that also have some direct work experience, investing in an online university / community college degree now arguably involves a new risk factor. That risk factor is that obtaining an online university / community college degree may actually worsen future employment prospects by closing the door on the fallback position of obtaining a 'regular' job, while not materially improving prospects of being hired for a 'better' job in their chosen field. This constitutes a potential 'double whammy' ... i.e. economic prospects actually being worse after graduation from an online university / community college than if they hadn't attended, plus also having to pay for tuition.

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    Can you go online to a conventional "brick and mortar" school?

    http://www.depts.ttu.edu/distancelearning/

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    $80,000 is too high if the university is Harvard. What you need is a state college distance learning program if you don't have a good state college or university close at hand. Get your Microsoft and Linux certifications for a couple of grand and you at least have your foot in the door. Get the degree from a reputable state school next to upgrade your credentials. In the tech field, private for profit colleges are a rip off! Even private not-for-profits colleges are too expensive for what they teach.

    HTH
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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    Education is indeed important for it can helps us to achieve what we want in our career. But it seems as though education is not that helpful especially when we failed to choose the right course. Usually, most of us look to out our personal likes and strengths on the subject of selecting a college major. The plan is, in fact, to spend the next forty-some years in that field. But these are difficult times. Graduates leaving university now are joining an industry with more than 9 percent joblessness. Those are the highest numbers since the Great Recession started. And of those that do find work, fewer than half find it in the selected area they studied for. Sad as it might seem, the fact is that some majors perform better than others in the job industry. A student just entering college, worried about employability when they graduate, should have a look at the lists shown below. Getting through school sometimes means taking out a short term loan or two. (See: )

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    ^^^ the only additional comment I would make is that, with the changes resulting from globalization, it's extremely difficult to try and forecast what sort of jobs will remain available in the USA over the course of the next 40 years ! It's probably a safe bet that health care professional jobs will remain in demand in the USA, since baby boomer 'patients' will be in the USA. However, it's unknown what sort of a future pay rate such jobs will offer as the result of gov't mandated 'reimbursement rates' for medicare / medicaid / national health care.

    It may NOT be as safe a bet for engineers, attorneys, and a host of other professions where a significant percentage of work can be outsourced to an even greater degree than is already the case today. Or put another way, the 9% unemployment rate which is beginning to be spoken about as 'permanent' may in fact just be the first in a series of steps which keep 'ratcheting up' the US unemployment rate even higher. This may indeed lead to a dilemma for future US college graduate professionals that is already being faced by, say, college graduate professionals from India or China ... i.e. if they want to find decent paying work in their chosen field, it may be necessary to move to a different country !!! And if they choose to remain in their home country, job prospects and available pay rates are likely to be disappointing.

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kellydancer View Post
    I would avoid online schools unless they are connected to bricks and mortar schools. Many companies I worked don't consider them real schools and do not hire people from them.

    If you are on probation, I would suggest going to a community college.
    +1 for community college!!

    I went to Delgado and loved it. Small classes means more attention from teachers, and I found if you show you are serious, the teachers there will (mostly) bend over backwards to help you.

    I always thought people did online classes b/c they're cheap, but there's no way I could see the point of doing an online Univ. program if it's that expensive!! Like Kelly said, most employers don't consider that a valid source of education.

    PM me if you have any questions abt Delgado.
    Last edited by Natalllia; 12-27-2011 at 10:55 AM.
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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    Distance learning aka online pursuit of graduate and post graduate (undergraduate and graduate if you are in USA) programs is becoming a serious medium of education nowadays. If you have obtained an online degree from a reputable school then it is just as good as if you were to obtain it by attending classes in real time because your curriculum will be exactly the same. Furthermore, your test parameters will also be the same, which will guarantee your knowledge in the subject matter after graduation. A lot of people join the work force after obtaining a Bachelor's Degree. By the time they come around to setting their mind on obtaining a Master's Degree, they are deeply entrenched into their career. So it is not practical for them to discontinue their career in order to pursue a Master's Degree. In old days, they used to satisfy this with evening classes which constituted part time enrollment. They still do this for people who prefer physically attending classes on a daily or several times a week basis. However, this is not necessary with the advent of distance learning program. Also young professionals may tend to move a lot from city to city. This will interrupt their academic pursuit if they were in classes which required physical presence. On the other hand with the distance learning program, they can continue their education from any corner of the globe as long as they have computer and a decent speed internet connection.

    If you are seeking a career as a web designer then you do not need to spend whole lot of money on schooling. All you need do really is to hit the open source online resources that will teach you how to design a website. You will want to start out with learning HTML. Once you have mastered that then learn some basic scripting languages such as JavaScript and move on to mastering web design tools like Dream Weaver or Front Page. You may also want to teach yourself some graphic tools such as Adobe.

    But if you want to become a software developer then that is a different story. In this case, it will be best to obtain at least a Bachelor's Degree in computer science / engineering. To be honest though, I have come across a lot of professionals who majored in chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, etc but then pursued a career in software engineering without any schooling in software engineering. As far as the money is concerned, a senior software developer in New York can make $210K per year.

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    ^^^ the only additional comment I would make is that, with the changes resulting from globalization, it's extremely difficult to try and forecast what sort of jobs will remain available in the USA over the course of the next 40 years ! It's probably a safe bet that health care professional jobs will remain in demand in the USA, since baby boomer 'patients' will be in the USA. However, it's unknown what sort of a future pay rate such jobs will offer as the result of gov't mandated 'reimbursement rates' for medicare / medicaid / national health care.

    It may NOT be as safe a bet for engineers, attorneys, and a host of other professions where a significant percentage of work can be outsourced to an even greater degree than is already the case today. Or put another way, the 9% unemployment rate which is beginning to be spoken about as 'permanent' may in fact just be the first in a series of steps which keep 'ratcheting up' the US unemployment rate even higher. This may indeed lead to a dilemma for future US college graduate professionals that is already being faced by, say, college graduate professionals from India or China ... i.e. if they want to find decent paying work in their chosen field, it may be necessary to move to a different country !!! And if they choose to remain in their home country, job prospects and available pay rates are likely to be disappointing.
    You're just make stuff up again. I haven't heard anyone speak of a 'permanent' 9% unemployment rate. The unemployment rate will fall dramatically over the next decade as millions of baby-boomers retire.

    There have been economic downturns practically every decade. Each time the perma-bears were saying "this time it's different" and each time it wasn't.

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    I'll also add that if obtaining an online university or community college degree fails to land you a job that is related to your field of study, if you attempt to seek a 'regular' job in order to pay the bills the fact that you hold an online university or community college degree can also work against you. The reason for this is that employers who are seeking workers for semi-skilled 'regular' jobs that don't actually require a college degree will consider those who hold a college degree as 'overqualified'.

    Specifically, those employers are likely to conclude that any prospective employee that holds a degree is accepting the employer's 'regular' job as a stop-gap measure, that the degree holding employee will continue to seek work in their chosen field, and that the degree holding employee will quit the employer's 'regular' job as soon as a 'better' job in their chosen field becomes available. This in turn means additional costs to the employer to replace the degree holding employee, to train the replacement employee etc. - i.e. costs and 'aggravation' that can be avoided if the employer sticks with only hiring non-degreed employees who are more likely to 'value' the employer's 'regular' job, more likely to continue working at that 'regular' job for an extended period of time etc.

    Thus under current economic conditions, given the 'dim view' most employers now place on online university / community college degrees, and also given no shortage of both new graduates from 'name' universities plus unemployed former graduates of 'name' universities that also have some direct work experience, investing in an online university / community college degree now arguably involves a new risk factor. That risk factor is that obtaining an online university / community college degree may actually worsen future employment prospects by closing the door on the fallback position of obtaining a 'regular' job, while not materially improving prospects of being hired for a 'better' job in their chosen field. This constitutes a potential 'double whammy' ... i.e. economic prospects actually being worse after graduation from an online university / community college than if they hadn't attended, plus also having to pay for tuition.
    Might be different over there in the US, but here in Australia we only list skills and experience relevant to the job you are applying for. A recruiter for a medical receptionist doesn't care about a diploma in web design or tractor driving or anything unrelated to reception work or medical knowledge because it is worthless for the job in hand. The only exception is if it will be the first job you have ever had, the training is only relevant in that it shows you can apply yourself and stick to completeing a goal.

    In my experience online education is much much harder. You don't have the support you have in a bricks and mortar school. It is difficult to ask questions - even more so if you are unfamiliar with the correct terminology, You can't brainstorm with fellow students or discuss and explore options you hadn't thought of but they had. Getting out of the house is beneficial, you need a chnge of scenery from time to time and having structured class times makes it difficult to put school work off until later.
    Unless you are very disciplined and really really into the subject (I suspect not otherwise you'd be half way there already utilising the many excellent online tutorials) you'd do much better going to a physical school.

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    ^^^ Indeed the USA is different. Potential US 'straight job' employers will evaluate the complete running history of an applicant ... from 'high school' graduation date, to any jobs held between high school and college, to college graduation date, as well as any and every job held since college graduation. US 'straight job' employers will also question any 'gaps' in that history, and count as a negative any prolonged periods of unemployment / employment outside the field of the applicant's college degree etc. This is actually a significant problem for US exotic dancers and camgirls, who must 'explain' their dancing / camming work even if it has no real bearing on the 'straight job' they are seeking.

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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    I wanted to add this:
    Being on academic probation should not prevent you from being accepted into a community college. As I said before, I had registered for four classes when I was 18, and stopped attending w/o ever officially dropping. So when I went back to the local NOLA CC years later, I had 0.0 GPA. I was allowed to attend, I just remained on academic probation until I pulled my GPA up.
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    Default Re: Help! The Truth about Online Degrees?

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    ^^^ Indeed the USA is different. Potential US 'straight job' employers will evaluate the complete running history of an applicant ... from 'high school' graduation date, to any jobs held between high school and college, to college graduation date, as well as any and every job held since college graduation. US 'straight job' employers will also question any 'gaps' in that history, and count as a negative any prolonged periods of unemployment / employment outside the field of the applicant's college degree etc. This is actually a significant problem for US exotic dancers and camgirls, who must 'explain' their dancing / camming work even if it has no real bearing on the 'straight job' they are seeking.
    Actually it really depends on the field. When I seek jobs in a highly competitive field like public relations or broadcasting they want all of this. However, since I am now seeking jobs in a highly technological field (e-learning/instructional design)I and finding they are less interested in my GPAs or my experience versus my skills. This varies on age I'm sure but rarely do I encounter someone asking my high school or college GPAs because they are so long ago.

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