thoughts on online delivery? (1 Viewer)

[azure_]

I'm thinking to do a bachelor of science offered by Central Queensland University through online delivery as the unis near me are all very far from home, is there any disadvantages in doing so?

I really don't care about the social side of things, I'm more so worried about being disadvantaged as in not having the resources and materials that are somehow otherwise not accessible online (which I honestly can't think of any). Or perhaps online education isn't valued as much?

Thanks in advance!

 

[jazz519]

I don't think it's a good idea for that type of degree. It can work for degrees like business ones however not in my opinion for something like engineering or science which needs other skills than just knowing your content.

Social side as you outlined isn't important but degree quality and what you actually gain for it is something that I would question a lot. If they are basically just reading off slides, making you watch videos and stuff then you can literally just do that yourself on a website like Khan academy or youtube. So you might not really be getting value for what the degree costs.

I'm doing adv science at uni right now and have experienced both the in-person version and online delivery after covid happened. Doing the science degree (Chemistry for me) online during that covid time, it felt very useless in terms of actually gaining any skills that will be useful for a job or further study like a PhD or masters.

The lectures side of thing was fine and it didn't seem that much different to doing it in-person or online, so no disadvantage in that respect.

However, a very very significant part of doing a science degree is the lab work. Speaking from my chemistry degree and how it was conducted it was a complete waste of time. You can't learn lab skills by watching some video of someone doing it or a powerpoint of images of what happened.

Even though sometimes they might try to paint it in a different way and use fancy words like interactive online lab, it is far from that. Another subject I had online the labs were basically just using excel every single week and analysing data and writing report based on that. None of the fun stuff of actually doing the degree which is doing the experiments.

Other than that the lab skills are very important, the only way to learn these skills is by getting hands on practice in the lab yourself. If you do online degree for science I worry about what career prospects there is in that respect because you can't get hired to work in a lab or industry because at the interview they would ask you what technical skills do you have with say for example do you know how to use this type of instrument or technique. Saying you know the content well probably isn't going to cut it.

If it's a science degree where the major is not as dependent on labs or you going to do something like being a school teacher then maybe it could work. But if any of these things above are relevant I would highly advise against doing that.

 

[azure_]

I don't think it's a good idea for that type of degree. It can work for degrees like business ones however not in my opinion for something like engineering or science which needs other skills than just knowing your content.

Social side as you outlined isn't important but degree quality and what you actually gain for it is something that I would question a lot. If they are basically just reading off slides, making you watch videos and stuff then you can literally just do that yourself on a website like Khan academy or youtube. So you might not really be getting value for what the degree costs.

I'm doing adv science at uni right now and have experienced both the in-person version and online delivery after covid happened. Doing the science degree (Chemistry for me) online during that covid time, it felt very useless in terms of actually gaining any skills that will be useful for a job or further study like a PhD or masters.

The lectures side of thing was fine and it didn't seem that much different to doing it in-person or online, so no disadvantage in that respect.

However, a very very significant part of doing a science degree is the lab work. Speaking from my chemistry degree and how it was conducted it was a complete waste of time. You can't learn lab skills by watching some video of someone doing it or a powerpoint of images of what happened.

Even though sometimes they might try to paint it in a different way and use fancy words like interactive online lab, it is far from that. Another subject I had online the labs were basically just using excel every single week and analysing data and writing report based on that. None of the fun stuff of actually doing the degree which is doing the experiments.

Other than that the lab skills are very important, the only way to learn these skills is by getting hands on practice in the lab yourself. If you do online degree for science I worry about what career prospects there is in that respect because you can't get hired to work in a lab or industry because at the interview they would ask you what technical skills do you have with say for example do you know how to use this of instrument or technique. Saying you know the content well probably isn't going to cut it.

If it's a science degree where the major is not as dependent on labs or you going to do something like being a school teacher then maybe it could work. But if any of these things above are relevant I would highly advise against doing that.

Cheers for the insights, much appreciated.

I would mention that I'm solely doing it for a competitive GPA that I'll later use to apply for Doctor of Dental Medicine along with GAMSAT at USYD, so I wouldn't really 'use' my degree at all in that regards? I agree with the technical skills, but that wouldn't matter if all I'm trying to get out of it is a high GPA right?

 

[jazz519]

Cheers for the insights, much appreciated.

I would mention that I'm solely doing it for a competitive GPA that I'll later use to apply for Doctor of Dental Medicine along with GAMSAT at USYD, so I wouldn't really 'use' my degree at all in that regards? I agree with the technical skills, but that wouldn't matter if all I'm trying to get out of it is a high GPA right?

That's the ideal scenario though in terms of it all goes well which may happen. However I would make sure you have a backup plan. If say for example you try and can't get into medicine since some people won't as it's very competitive, then you will be left with a degree that won't leave you with much job prospects. That's why it's better to do a proper degree that actually has some good job prospects on it's own in the scenario that occurs.

 

[azure_]

That's the ideal scenario though in terms of it all goes well which may happen. However I would make sure you have a backup plan. If say for example you try and can't get into medicine since some people won't as it's very competitive, then you will be left with a degree that won't leave you with much job prospects. That's why it's better to do a proper degree that actually has some good job prospects on it's own in the scenario that occurs.

Good point, I was thinking not having to spend 2+ hours traveling on a daily basis plus having the support and comfort of home would help me grind out the GAMSAT and my degree in the long term, guess it's just a huge gamble.

 

[jazz519]

Good point, I was thinking not having to spend 2+ hours traveling on a daily basis plus having the support and comfort of home would help me grind out the GAMSAT and my degree in the long term, guess it's just a huge gamble.

The travelling aspects sucks a lot I know that as well as it takes me around 3-3.5 hours a day in travelling in total to uni. So I feel your pain on that. It can be really annoying and tiring. However one thing you are overlooking in that is that you don't need to go uni every day. It's not like school where attendance is marked for things like lectures. Labs and tutorials yes because you have assessments and marks every week for the skills aspect.

What I did to reduce that problem of having to travel so much is try to fit all your classes that are in-person on 2-3 days. So if you have a lab on say monday try to pick the tutorial that will also be on the monday. If you have 2 labs for your subjects and you can fit them on the same day that's even better. It might seem like a really long day but you will save a day of travelling and can use that to be more productive.

That's what most people do. So they end up going uni 2-3 days when the class requires it, but the rest like lecture just stay at home and watch it. Because honestly the thing about people saying "learn better in-person" is not much of an advantage at uni as the lecture might have 50-300 people and so it's not really individualised. It's more just you listen to what the lecturer saying and write down notes, which is different from school where you may gain more from learning in-person for a content lesson because you can ask questions as the class size is not that big.