Online Education: The New Trend in Learning
If you don't think getting an online education is on par with attending a traditional school, think again. Since the last reported figure of 3.5 million online students was reported in 2006, online schools have been deluged with new students--bringing that number up to somewhere between five and six million, according to some estimates. These people are working on degrees to become lawyers, journalists, culinary chefs, architects, psychologists, law enforcement professionals, interior designers, accountants and more. In fact, there are few courses offered by classroom-based schools that can't be taken online.
Accepted and Accredited
Students aren't the only ones who have boarded the online education bandwagon; top educators are also recognizing the validity of Internet-based learning. In 2007's "Staying the Course," a comprehensive report on online education prepared by the Sloan Consortium and the Babson Survey Research Group, researchers found that most instructors felt they could better meet students' needs through programs like those offered by New Hampshire Online Education. "Both chief academic officers and online teaching faculty said that flexibility in meeting the needs of students was the most important motivation for teaching online," the report states. It goes on to reveal that public institutions of higher learning "believe that online education is critical to their long-term strategy."
For proof of traditional schools' faith in the quality of online schooling, one needn't look any further than some of the country's most respected institutions of higher learning. Accredited universities like Harvard, Yale, Kent State and Stanford have joined countless others that have added Internet-based courses to their curriculums. For these schools, one of the lures of expanding into the cyber world is having the ability to employ some of the world's most respected authorities on subjects, who were previously unattainable because they were unwilling to physically relocate to the universities' respective home bases. What's good for the schools is even better for the students, who now have the opportunity to benefit from the experiences of worldwide scholars. Without so much as setting a foot outside of New Hampshire, online education can leave students with the smarts of a world traveler.
Get Hired with a New Hampshire Online Education
While some employers once considered online degrees to be inferior to those offered by traditional schools, the acceptance by accredited institutions, the findings of credible researchers and the sheer volume of enrolled students have left them with no choice but to turn their way of thinking around. Realizing that holding a traditional degree doesn't necessarily mean a candidate is more educated than one with an online accreditation, most companies have stopped distinguishing between online and traditional degrees. Others have taken great pains to keep the members of their personnel departments well educated on the differences between true online educators and so-called "diploma mills" so people with quality online educations won't automatically be separated from those with traditional degrees. Furthermore, the results of a poll conducted by the Sloan Consortium reveals, "Academic leaders do not believe that there is a lack of acceptance of online degrees by potential employers."
