Life as an Online College Student

Before you decide to go to school online you need to do your research. There are unaccredited online colleges that do not offer college degrees that are legitimate. The department of education always asks for a school code before you complete a FAFSA to get funding for your college education.If you are charged a fee and then suddenly are mailed a college diploma then that college is not an accredited institution. A college degree needs to be earned by a reputable institution in order for an employer to take the person seriously.  You should always make sure that you are attending an accredited online college so that you get the best education possible. You do not want to waste your time and money going to an unaccredited online college.There is a stipulation that you do not have to pay back federal student loan money if the college that you attend has no accreditation or for some reason loses their accreditation.

When I take tests online I am always frustrated because my internet connection always fails somehow. You can only access your test once. If your Internet connection fails then you have to email your professor and have the test reset. This is a very time consuming task. The tests can be difficult because if you select the wrong bubble, you get it wrong. Many times I have reviewed my test and have seen that some of the bubbles were not the same as I had originally filled them in. You always have to be careful when you take a test online. You need to save your answers frequently in case you get booted from the exam because of a lost internet connection. This is aggravating to me but I have to get good grades on my tests in order to keep my grade point average in good standing. Have you ever taken tests online before in an online college setting?

Now, I have taken online college courses and every semester I am charged one hundred dollars for my technology fee. I am always stunned at how many hidden fees there are when you go to school online. I get charged technology fees, and they charge you for transcripts, text books, etc. Everything is so expensive. I am surprised that so many people do actually attend college courses because they are so costly. I know many people who now have to find better jobs just to cover their college loan payments. College degrees can be good for your career outlook but now millions of people have college degrees so it does not separate you from the other job applicants. As far as these technology fees are concerned, I can never get an exact answer about what they pay for. I guess maybe to access the site, or to pay the people who have to maintain the school’s web site and online college features.

In response to a comment that I got I decided to elaborate on online college discussions. Now, as an online college student I can tell you that I prefer larger classes to smaller ones especially for online discussions. I post a lot of responses because I always seem to come up with something new to say. I have been in large and small classes. I have even taken an independent study course online where I was the only person in the class. I prefer doing online discussions where people actually want to participate. I have had classes where the subject material was very hard and people did not understand the topics that we were discussing. We are supposed to read our text books and take information from it and cite it in our responses. This way even if you cannot think of anything to add, you can still get points for actually putting forth an effort and writing something. I like it and I think it is a good way to get to know my fellow classmates.

Today is January 3, 2009. It is a Saturday. Yet again, it is a cold, blustery day outside. I watched some of the NFL wild card playoff games today. I think that some players just do not want to actually play in the playoff games. I can understand that. It is hard to play football for sixteen weeks straight. It must be hard to be constantly flying around the country.It is a hard lifestyle to live. Yes, these men make millions of dollars but they miss time with their families and children. I could not live the lifestyle. I am not big on being rich. Many people dream about it but in my opinion people with money become materialistic and constantly spend their money as soon as they get it. I am not big on name brands either, they seem like such a waste of money to me. I am still on Christmas/ Holiday vacation. I am getting bored. I am sad to say that I actually miss going to school full time.

Today is January 1, 2009. Today is Thursday. It is the first day of the new year. 2009 is finally here everyone. We are all excited. I love a new year. It makes me feel bad to not go through with my New Year’s resolutions. I always say that I will lose weight and cut out sugary foods and junk food but I never can go through with it. My school vacation is still going on. Today has been boring so far. it is very cold. My window is broken. It will not close and good luck getting the super to come over and fix it. The man does not like to fix anything, why do we even pay rent if people are not going to properly maintain the building? We have two washers and two dryers for thirty apartments. One of the dryers is broken and the other does not fully dry the clothes. I have to hang up my clothes when they are wet because you can put quarters into the machine all day long and your clothes still will not end up being fully dried.My new year’s resolution will to be to try to lose weight, hopefully I will. I want to be healthier.

Today is December 20, 2008. Today is a Saturday. I spent my day doing boring errands. I went to Walmart.  It snowed yesterday so I could not go yesterday and it is going to snow tomorrow so I could not go on Sunday so I decided to go today. I did not enjoy my shopping experience.It is five days until Christmas and people are frantic. I saw so many carts that were overfilled with presents. I spent about four hundred and fifty dollars so far on Christmas. I did not find man things I liked but I did find a few buys on food. Then, I went to McDonalds and got two cheeseburgers, they were ice cold when I returned home so I had to re heat them which made them not taste very good. Then, I tried to put together a toy box, but it is cheap and plastic and the screws are not fitting into the slots. I got frustrated and put it away. I will try and finish it later this evening. I wrapped some presents, I need to wrap more tonight. I want to finish all of my Christmas preparations so that I can put up my Christmas tree.

Today is Monday December 8, 2008. It is a very cold day here. I hate the cold weather. It makes it hard for me to be motivated to get my school work done. I heard from my employee benefits group members. They seem to be working on our final project. This is great news for me. I have been very worried about our final project. I have continuously blogged about this final project because it has to be eight to ten pages long and is due this week. My team mates emailed me this morning. I hope that we do chat because I have not seen anything that they have put together.I always send out my work but the others do not seem to want to share the work that they have done with all of us. I hope that this changes soon. This is my last week of the semester. I am so happy about this. I feel like jumping up and down or something. Hopefully, I will get everything that I need done accomplished.

My semester ends in about two weeks. I am very excited. However, I am dreading research papers, final projects, and final exams. I am always excited to have a semester ends but as soon as one semester ends, another semester is sure to begin within a week or so. It takes so much time and hard work to finish a college course.I get incredibly stressed and I feel like I am never going to get everything that I need done, completed and finished. Still, there is no progress on my final project for my employee benefits class. I wish my team mates would contact me but they have not done that yet. I am especially worried because it is twenty five percent of our entire final grade so it is crucial for us to get a good grade to pass the course. I am hoping since it is week six of seven next week, that they will email me so we can get our final project started and completed as soon as possible. I love the holidays, I could use a break from school. It is hard to end a semester in college, but I am looking forward to being done with these two courses.

My college assignment is to take a company’s current benefit program and make it better. We are working in groups of three to research a company, work with the company’s benefits manager and formulate the company’s benefits program. We are having a hard time since the research paper has to be eight to ten pages long. We are having trouble getting started with the project and it is due in a little over a week. I am very worried about this assignment because it is a huge part of my final grade for my employee benefits college course. My teammates are all girls, we try and keep in contact but it is hard dealing with the fact that everyone has such busy lives. One of my teammates has a son who needed an emergency tonsilectomy so she has not been in contact with us. The problem is we picked her company so we need vital employee benefits information from her. It is going to be hard to make our deadline.