Completing Your Thesis Without Interest October 22, 2009

Many of the distance education providers have fee structures similar to those of the regular universities. So before enrolling yourself in one of the distance education providers you must also find out if they offer any financial aid programs. If they do then what they are and what are the likely chances for you to get them. This will be essential to you in deciding the right distance education provider for you.

The Essential Point Is …

An essential thing to remember when you look for an online education provider is to see if the online school is well accredited and is based in the US. If it is operating in the US then you automatically become eligible for federal financial aid program. One way to check the online education provider’s accreditation is to see if their students are eligible for federal financial aid as a degree student.

Many of the online education providers have both physically appearing campuses as well as distance education programs. They provide federal financial aid to degree students of both forms. The point is if you are looking for federal financial aid then you must categorize those online education providers that offer this facility to degree students. As a student you should call their office and talk to a representative and get to know about financial aid federal programs that are being offered to degree students and especially those who are students of the online education system.

Scale Through the Rigors

We have learnt how essential it is to choose the right school so a student may be able to get financial aid from the distance education providers and it is only possible if they’re well accredited and basically operate in US. But choosing the right school takes time and effort.

You may come across hundreds of universities that provide online education but another interesting fact is that most of them actually do have financial aid programs to attract students. A very few number of distance education providers are not willing to facilitate students by offering any sort of financial aid to students. However, many of the universities are designing the financial aid programs to facilitate students and in future they can be found offering such aids to degree students.

The Best Way to Start with is Inquiring

Take opinions from students you know in your family and friend’s circle who have had experiences of online learning or are going to join one soon. Their information can be essential for your own decision making too. Send emails with your queries to a personnel of the school and make sure you get all your answers. Look up as many websites as you can to get fully satisfied. It is a fact that many of us can’t really finance our studies to attain a degree from an accredited school and financial aid is what most of us look for before anything else.

Avoid the Trap of Debt and Interest

Stay away from any loans if you are already considering one. Try to make your education free of any debts and why should u get the water over your hear when there are schools that offer financial aids to online education students.

If you have a job then save the maximum you can to meet your other expenses and contribute towards your degree program when you need to. Otherwise, you can drown in interest for 1, 2, 5, even 10 years. Don’t do it–it’s not worth it! Instead, persevere, and get your masters or Ph. D. degree interest-free.

6 Mistakes Made In Your Pursuit of an Online Masters/Ph. D. September 6, 2009

Studying online is not as easy because there are various things which one should keep in mind before going for studying online in any course offered by school. A survey was conducted for the students who are studying in online schools regarding the problems faced by them. Those problems are being gathered together for the viewers so that they avoid these mistakes and pitfalls being faced by students studying in online school. By viewing these problems, it will help in saving money, hassle and time as well. Some of the common problems being faced by students studying online are as follows:

1. Putting Thing off: It is quite necessary, to be up date and keep tracking of work, because it doesn’t take time when a simple small thing becomes hard to complete when there is less amount of time left. Never left your work for tomorrow, try to complete as much as possible on the current day. You should be disciplined and organized towards your work. Online studying definitely requires lots of attention towards your work. A thesis, in particular, is a big, big beast, and needs to be crafted lovingly over time. It can’t be rushed.
2. Future Employers: In the current environment, the working students do recognize the worth of an online school education. But the employers nowadays, due to large scam of education is being done, take online school degree as fake and unjustified. The diploma being issued by online schools are sometime not accepted by the employers regarding them as bogus. Especially with a grad-school education–academic institutes can be very finicky about what they accept.
3. Finding the Right school for online studying: In the current environment, choosing the accurate online school could be very difficult as there are various online schools available on the internet as they are offering degree of “diploma mill” online schools which sometimes looks quite similar. It is necessary to verify each and every field of the online schools before you enroll in it. Regional accreditation is extremely important.
4. Feeling Alone: Online school education is quite like a self study program in which student tends to feel alone and is unable to interact regarding issues toward studies with their teachers. By changing thoughts and communicating with other students helps in solving problems. There are chat rooms and online forums to stay in touch with the students and teacher. You have to make sure that your school has these. Also, keeping in touch with the professor mentoring you is crucial to your success.
5. Cost: Cost can be known as a major factor on which you have to control whether you are going to an online or regular school. Prices vary from schools to schools but the main thing which should be kept in mind is the benefits being offered by the schooling system online. Future should be the keen interest for the student as to reap their knowledge in proper manner and in appropriate school with reasonable cost.
6. Not Using Resources: online studying is providing a lot of resources at your fingertips. Online library is the main aspect of the online studying as it would have vast number of knowledgeable information available–not to mention the number of scholarly databases that your institute subscribes to. These will be invaluable when researching your thesis.

6 Drawbacks of Online Grad Schools August 17, 2009

In early times it was pretty normal for students to travel quiet a lot of distance seeking for quality education. This travel would take days or sometimes it would even go up to a month. As the time passed and facilities started being introduced, the time for travelling started becoming shorter. However, in today’s world u don’t need walk outside your door for this purpose. The online learning has been introduced to facilitate those who are seeking good education with least effort. But there are some things about distance learning that are ignored by many. Below we are going to take a look what they are.

We will be looking at seven issues for which we disagree with the idea of online studying. Reading the points it should be kept in mind that by no means the purpose of writing this is to discourage anyone. But this should be taken as more of a help to those who are considering whether to start distance learning or not.

1. Some fields of education can’t be justified while studying online.
   Fields like that of engineering and medicine are two of those fields which can not be fully addressed online. We say that because most of the emphasis on these fields is of practical experiencing not theoretical. A student may watch a demonstration video but what if difficulties are faced in performing it practically. At this moment the students needs guidance from the teacher. This is especially true when your thesis requires some practical stuff and you don’t have access to equipment or tools (like software, or computer labs) for it.
2. Thousands of schools provide education. Many of them may provide better education than many of the other schools. Similarly, numerous schools provide online learning experience of good quality. But they might not be well accredited. This should be kept in mind because employers look for students graduation from an accredited institute. You may come across online schools with good accreditation but you must know if their degree is recognized in your country. Also, there are a lot of fake schools that sell crappy Masters and Ph. D. degrees. You have to be smart about how you pick one.
3. Online educational schools opens opportunities for more scams,
   There are various online educational institutes operating out there in the third world stating to provide the best of online education possible but in reality they are fooling the people and creating scams around the web. Even in first world countries, there are many schools providing online education with a degree which will be recognized, but the truth is they are taking out your money and in return providing you nothing.
4. There’s no teacher around.
   In many occasions the student will need a teacher to be around for guidance. A student will not know where he/she is wrong until a teacher points out. Especially when you have to debate back and forth, or throw around ideas, email can really slow you down.
5. Discipline is required for distance learning.
   It can be said with assurance that many people do not have the discipline required to attend an online school to take proper classes. Besides that many would want to skip the class since no one’s coming up to you and no action is being taken. Undertaking a thesis is a big project, and the laxity is even greater when online–you have to be that much sharper to stay focused.
6. Many countries do not have internet yet.
   Difficulties may be faced by those who don’t have proper internet service in their country. This probably won’t affect you much, though.

Distance learning can be great if one knows the benefits that can be taken from this facility. There are many advantages in online learning system for those who are willing to make good use of the facility being provided to them. However, good research should be taken before opting for it.

Evaluating Online Grad Schools August 8, 2009

One task that is to be done for online learning is to look for a good distance learning provider. There are many distance learning providers you may come across but you must know what you should be looking for and what makes a school better from another or which school is exactly the one for you. Best thing to do is to help yourself in this task is to first make a checklist and tick the things you would like to see in your online school. If you come across a school which do not have what you are looking for then you should move on. There are several others on which look at. For your help we are going to take a look at the important things you should keep in mind while choosing the best distance learning provider for you.

• Are they well accredited?
  The most important thing to look for is that your distance learning provider must be accredited. If that is not the case then you will have to face serious problems looking for a job. Your online school must be accredited from either of these organizations: NWCCU, DETS, MSA, SACS and NEASC. Usually different states in US have different criteria for these distance online learning providers. The schools usually have a list of regions where they are accepted.

• Set and meet your standards.
  You can’t decide whether a school is the right one for you unless you have a set criteria and standard that you are looking for. You may have missed a part of your course so you need to make sure if you cover up your credits on those subjects. The emphasis should be more on quality than quantity. Look up the internet for more comments and experience people have had with certain distance online learning providers.
• Reasonable cost.
  Like normal schools these online learning schools differ in costs too. Some may be expensive than others while some may even be free. Usually private schools are considered costlier. However, it should not be assumed that the high costs are due to the high standard of education.
• Online demos.
  Many distance online learning providers put up demos for students who are considering them and to know the standard of education that should be expected. But one should also notice if the school is being over-marketed.
• How long have they been there?
  Usually this is something people do not look at. But actually this is one of the aspects that will help you in decision making as it can be risky to choose a distance learning provider with less experience and not much of reputations amongst those who have been in your place before.
• Ask Grads. Ask existing grads how well they’re succeeding in getting a job, or a teaching position at a university or other academic institute. If the unemployment rate is high, that could be a problem.
• Look at theses. Many online institutes allow you to browse the theses of previous graduates. Take a look at some of the ones in your field, and evaluate them: do they seem good-quality? Are they rigorous? This will help you judge the quality of the program.

This was just to help you move in the right direction. You can now come up with your own queries and start making your checklist. Look up as many distance learning providers you could possibly get to know what others have and the school you are considering does not. This can be done easily with the help of a checklist and at the end evaluate and see which suits your criteria.

Grad-School Debt-Free? August 5, 2009

Online graduate programs can prove to be costly nowadays even if your distance education provider is less expensive than a real school you can go to. For those who are looking for cheap distance education providers, they have two options:

1. They can get financial aid as a student for their studies in order to be able to afford their distance education.
2. They can get a job.

If you get a loan, you will obviously need to pay it back as well. One must know that companies who provide loans are out there to make money not to support anyone. They charge high interest rates and make life difficult for students looking for affordable distance education. On the other hand it is also vital to keep your slate clean at the bank. This leads us to the conclusion that part-time or full-time jobs are the best options to afford distance education.

Look for a Job/jobs

There may be jobs you will come across that are suitable for you and pay you enough to afford distance education. Many people who live with their families find it difficult to bear the costs of education and to be able to afford the student is asked to take a part-time job to make it more manageable. But if you’re living alone or have a family, then part-time job would not be enough for you. In that case you will have to take a full-time job or a couple of part-time jobs. The idea is to make your studies manageable for you. You must feel that you are not working just to bear the costs but also to brighten your future with supporting your family as well.

Survive Within Your Limits

This is what you must do at any cost. Remember that the expenses you incur over your budget increase you in debt. All you need is to be disciplined and focused and make your graduate education debt-free.

See what expenses you have to make throughout this time and how costly will the debts be, if incurred, in any case. List down all the expenses you need to bear under your income you get from your job and plan your journey.

Often people don’t find distance education manageable even with a job or two. They are right it may not be that easy but you should remember your aim here is to make your education debt-free and less expensive than the real school you can go to. Decide what the expenses you must bear at any cost are and the expenses that will only make your distance education difficult for you and expensive than you thought. Be a responsible person and live a deft free life.

Fish around for Scholarships

Many distance education providers offer bursaries and scholarships to bright students. Choose an online school that gives such chances to students. Even if you are already enrolled a student, you should take your chances and see what you can apply for.

Loans for family

If there’s a case of student not being able to make things manageable and failing in minimizing the expenses then the student must take a semester or two off and look for a better or another job to be able to afford the distance education along with being able to support the family.

With these tips in mind, finishing your graduate studies without debt should be a piece of cake!