Online Associates Degree?

I didn't get my associates degree online. Oh no. I got it the old-fashioned way, with my butt in an uncomfortable seat. I confess. I earned my two-year degree over too too many years--by attending a county college. There was little talk of online associate degrees, or any online degrees for that matter, back in the mid 80s and early 90s. While I started out my college career in a systems analysis track, that changed rather quickly.

It took just one horrid class with a clueless "professor" to get me to reconsider my goals. I happily landed in a computer art program before computer art was considered a career path.

I was lucky in that I landed in the field just as things started to heat up ...

Educators love to hammer home the fact: the more you learn, the more you have the potential to earn. I took what I learned and was able to apply it to my career. One way or another, I made it work.

The killer was that I probably spent as much time in my car, commuting to and from school as I did in class.

While the days of mailing in a matchbook to learn meat cutting by mail have past, there's a whole world of new possibilities in online education, from business and programming courses through computer forensics and networking.

Online education can be a great thing, but there are great differences in the quality and the costs of the courses, from school-to-school. You'll want to make absolutely certain that the institution you choose is properly accredited. It's imperative that the investment you make in your education--both in time and in dollars--pays off in the long run. As you matriculate credits, you need to be able to take them to another school, if necessary.

If you're thinking about getting an associates (or other) degree online, you must check into all of the alternatives. Do your research. Take what you read on a hype website or in a glossy brochure with more than a grain of salt. Talk to folks that are attending or have graduated from that institution. Make sure you know how much it will cost before you sign on the dotted line.