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How to List an Online Degree on Your Resume

Posted by Berrack Obime Monday, December 3, 2012 1 comment
One of the issues that a lot of people who take online degrees have is how to list them on their resume. Unfortunately while online degrees have gained a lot more acceptance over the last few years there are still quite a few people who think of them as being inferior. This means that you are going to have to be careful about how you list them on your resume.
The best way to list an online degree on your resume is to simply not mention the fact that it was earned online. In most cases the degree itself will say nothing about being earned in this way so there is no reason to advertise the fact that you earned the degree online. That being said there are a few issues that you are going to run into in this regard.
The first problem that you are going to run into is if you took your degree from a school that is well known as an online school. This can be a problem as a lot of these schools do not have great reputations. The reality is that in this case your employer will likely know that you have taken an online degree and there is not a lot that you can do about this. If this is a major issue for you it is best to not get your degree from this school in the first place.
The other issue that you are going to have to deal with is that your degree may not fit with the rest of your resume. For example if you have listed on your resume a full time job at the same time that you were getting your degree an observant employer is probably going to realize that you got your degree online. This is particularly true if you got the degree in a city that is different from the one that you were working in. The best option here is to try to take your online degree from a local school and not put the date that you got the degree on your resume.
While it is alright to not put on your resume that you got your degree online you also don’t want to lie about it. There will be employers who realize that you did get your degree online and they will likely ask you about it an interview. In this case you need to acknowledge the fact that it is an online degree and point out that the online degree meets the same standards as the regular on campus degree.

Are Online Courses Accepted for Transfer by Traditional Colleges?

Posted by Berrack Obime 0 comments
Online courses can be a great way to get your education going but there are quite a few people who don’t want to actually take their degree from an online school for various reasons. This does raise the question of whether or not they can take the courses that they have taken online and transfer them to a traditional college. In most cases this is not only possible but very easy to do.
If you are planning to take online courses that you will transfer to a traditional college there are a few things that you have to make sure of. The first of these is to make sure that the online school that you attend is regionally accredited. This is what establishes that the school that you are attending is legitimate and that the courses will be recognized. For the most part regionally accredited schools only accept transfer credit from other regionally accredited schools, almost all traditional colleges are regionally accredited.
The next thing that you have to look at is what the transfer policy of the school that you are planning to transfer is. In most cases you will be able to transfer credits without a problem but a few of the big name schools with top reputations like Harvard and Yale put additional restrictions on transfers. One thing to pay particular attention to is the maximum number of credits that you can transfer in. Most schools require that you take at least half of the courses for your degree program through them so you have to make sure that you not take too many courses before you transfer. Some schools will require even more courses so you have to check on this.
One last thing that you have to look when you taking online courses for transfer credit is whether the course is acceptable for the program that you are planning to attend. This is particularly the case for math and science courses but it often applies to others as well. For example a course in physics for art majors is not going to be acceptable to transfer into a physics major program. There are courses at various different levels and you have to make sure that you take the course that is at the right level for the program that you are looking to transfer the credit to.

Can You Take Online Courses While Enrolled at a Regular College?

Posted by Berrack Obime 0 comments
In most cases you can take online courses while you are enrolled at a regular college but there are a few things to keep in mind. The first is that in most cases you will need to take the courses through the college that you are attending. Most traditional colleges offer online courses now and in general regular students can enroll in them. You will however normally still be limited in the number of courses that you can take. The online courses that you enroll in will count towards your course load and you generally can’t take more than a certain number of courses each semester.
It is also possible to take online courses at a different college than the one that you are attending but you have to make sure that you get permission before hand. Usually this requires that you get what is known as a letter of permission. If you don’t get this it is unlikely that you will receive credit for the courses that you take at the other school. The letter of permission is  usually pretty easy to get so this should not be a huge issue.
There are some people who take courses online that they intend to apply to a different degree while they are taking a full time program somewhere else. Strictly speaking this is not allowed but the reality is that in most cases the schools are not going to know. You will not be able to transfer credits from one program to the other if you do  this but other than that it should not present a huge problem even if it is strictly speaking against the rules.
There are in fact times when it might make sense to be enrolled in two programs at the same time, particularly if you want to get degrees that are not closely related. The biggest issue that you are going to face is finding the time to do all of the necessary work. A full load of courses takes up a lot of time, adding even more is going to require quite a bit of effort on your part.

What to Look for in an Online Degree Program

Posted by Berrack Obime 0 comments
The most important thing that you have to look for in an online degree program is that the school that you are planning to take classes with is properly accredited. This means that it needs to be regionally accredited. There are six different regional accrediting agencies across the country and they are the gold standard when it comes to accreditation. There are lots of different types of accreditation that a school can have but the only one that really matters is regional.
Another important factor that you will need to look at when you are choosing an online degree program is how the courses are delivered. There can be a huge variation here, some will have a rigid schedule that requires you to watch lectures and submit assignments at specific times while others will allow you to work at your own pace. Some courses will require that you take part in online chats while others will have no interaction at all. It will be up to you to decide which structure you like best.
It is also important to think about how you are going to write exams for your courses. This is why it is often a good idea to take your courses through a local school as you can usually write your exams there. There are some schools that have exam centers across the country but these are rare. If there is no local exam center you will need to arrange for a proctor to administer your exams which can be a major hassle.
For most people cost is going to be a major factor in choosing an online degree program. Some schools can be very expensive while your local state university is likely going to represent a pretty good value. When it comes to online degrees there is not a lot of benefit to taking an expensive degree so your best bet is to go with a school that is relatively inexpensive.
One last consideration when looking at an online degree program is the reputation of the school. There aren’t really any online schools that have a top reputation like Harvard or Yale so this is not really something to look at. There are however some online schools with a reputation that is not particularly good, this mainly applies to the ones that are heavily advertised. In general you will find that the best option in this regard is a local state university as they are well respected even if they don’t have a big time reputation.

Do Employers Consider Online Degrees Credible?

Posted by Berrack Obime 0 comments
Whether or not employers consider online degrees to be considerable will depend in large part on where you got your degree. There are some very good online degrees and some that are of questionable value. Therefore you are going to want to make sure that you get your degree from a school that is of good quality and which has a good reputation.
There does seem to be a bit of an issue with employers looking down on online degrees, or at least not considering them to be as good as regular degrees. This is less common than it used to be but it does still exist. That being said there are ways to get around this problem so there is no reason to give up on distance learning if you are in need of a degree and don’t want to return to school full time.
The best way to make sure that potential employers look at your online degree in a positive way is to not tell them that you have an online degree. If you take your degree at a school that offers both online and regular programs the degrees themselves generally don’t say anything about being earned online. The standards to get the degree are the same either way so there is no reason to tell potential employers that you got the degree online or if you do tell them you can point out that the degrees is the same as the on campus degree.
The best option in most case for people who are looking to get online degrees is their local state university. This is because the school will be well known in the local area and it offers on campus degrees, in fact the vast majority of graduates will have earned their degree on campus. If your local state university does not offer the program that you want online then a state university from another state is probably your next best option.
If you are going to go with a school that offers only online degrees the best bet is to go with a school that is not widely known. If you do this employers will generally just assume that you got your degree on campus. The schools that seem to cause a credibility with employers are the online only schools that advertise heavily like the University of Phoenix, they are well known and have a bad reputation which makes degrees from them of limited value.

What Schools Offer the Best Online Degrees?

Posted by Berrack Obime 0 comments
There is of course no easy answer to which school offers the best online degree, there are lots of factors that have to be considered. There are however a few things that you are going to want to look at when you are choosing a school so that you can get the best possible degree for your needs.
The first thing that you are going to want to look at when you are choosing a school for an online degree is to make sure that the school is regionally accredited. This is the guarantee that the school that you are attending is a legitimate school and that the courses that you take at that school will be recognized by other schools. There are thousands of schools that are regionally accredited so there is really no reason to even consider one that isn’t.
Unfortunately regional accreditation is not a guarantee that the school is particularly good, just that it meets a minimum standard. Therefore the next thing that you have to look at is the degree requirements that the school has. This is where things can get tricky as one of the biggest problems that online education is facing is that a lot of the for profit schools are setting requirements that are quite low for the simple reason that a harder degree program would reduce the number of customers they get.
When you are choosing a degree program you have to make sure that you not choose one that is easy, ideally you should be choosing a school that has degree programs that have the same course requirements that they have for their on campus students. This of course means that you would be limiting your options to schools that have on campus programs. While there are a lot of good online only schools you will probably find that regular college that offers online degrees is the better option.
There are other factors that you are going to want to consider as well like cost and reputation which is why I generally recommend to people that their best option for an online degree is their local state university, providing of course that they offer online programs. If not there are lots of other state universities that do which are also good options if your local school doesn’t offer the degree program that will meet your needs.

Do State Universities Offer Online Degrees?

Posted by Berrack Obime 0 comments
One of the most important things that you have to make sure of when you are getting an online degree is that you get one from a school that is well respected and which people are familiar with. In most cases you will find that the best option for this is getting one from your local state university.
The vast majority of state universities do offer online degrees, to be sure there are still some that don’t but the number that do now far outweighs the number that don’t. In general this is the best option for most students considering online degrees for a few different reasons. The main one is that the degrees are going to be respected by local employers, in fact you really don’t even have to put the fact that it was earned online on your resume. While a state university may not have the same reputation as say Harvard it is certainly better than getting a degree from a for profit, online school that has a bad reputation.
The other reason that your local state university is a good option is that it is almost always the cheapest degree that you are going to get. If you are doing an online degree there is little reason to pay more than is necessary since the higher priced schools are not going to provide you with any benefit that you wouldn’t get from the state university.
The biggest issue that you are likely to find with taking online courses from your local state university is that will likely have a fairly limited number of degree programs available. Usually they just have the more popular programs like business available. This can be a bit of a problem but there is a way around it by getting a degree from a school in another state.
One of the biggest secrets about taking online courses at state universities that few people realize is that in most cases with online courses  you can get in state tuition rates regardless of whether you live in state or not. This means that you can take courses at state universities in other states for about the same cost as taking them in your own state. This will greatly increase the number of degree programs that you can choose from. Each individual school will have a limited offering but when you look at all of the state universities in the country you can find most degree programs available.

Are Online College Degrees Just as Good as Regular Degrees?

Posted by Berrack Obime 2 comments
The best answer to whether or not an online degree is as good as a degree that you get by actually attending a college is that it depends. One of the issues that you are going to find when you start researching schools that offer online degrees is that there is a huge variation in terms of the quality of them. In general if you pick a good school that has a decent reputation in the distance learning world you should get a degree that is as good as any other, the problems start to occur with some of the online only schools.
The most important thing that you have to make sure of when you are choosing an online degree is that it is regionally accredited. This is supposed to be an assurance of quality and in theory and online school that is regionally accredited meets the same standards as a regular college that is regionally accredited. In reality however the standards that are required for accreditation have declined pretty dramatically, the result is that there are a lot of online colleges that are not up to the standard that you would expect.
Most of the issues that you will find with degree programs that are regionally accredited but not up to the same standard are the strictly online, for profit schools, although some of these have started to offer classroom attendance as well which just makes things more confusing. A good example of this is the University of Phoenix which was clearly set up as a money making venture more than as an educational institution. The result is very low standards and a degree that is not well respected despite the very high tuition rates.
The other issue that you are going to face when it comes to online degrees is whether or not potential employers consider them to be the equal of a regular degree. Again this is going to depend on where you go to school. The best option is generally to attend a state university, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the one in your state. State universities while not generally considered the equivalent of schools like Harvard are generally respected and should not cause an issue if they appear on your resume. In addition almost all state universities have far more on campus students than online ones and in almost all cases have the same classes and requirements for both.

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