Time Management Tip – Dartmouth

There are several documents here with some good time management tips for college students.  Things like planning your week, creating a master plan, even a  4 year plan.   From the document on a  personal schedule:

“Schedule your intensive study/ review time for each class. Try to schedule some study time  each day for each

class. Learning is more effectively and efficiently accomplished in  shorter regular sessions than in longer irregular

sessions. Also, use more of the day (i.e. morning, afternoon) for studying. Evening is often an ineffective time to      study. When you schedule study time, be task-oriented rather than time-oriented. Think in terms of “blocks of

time” and what specifically needs to be accomplished, not hours of study time…”

A lot of the tips are very useful.  Not your usual “just expect to study 30 hours a week per class” junk advice.

NY Times:Online Education More Effective Than Traditional Methods?

I just came across this interesting article from the New York Times on a study done for the US Department of Education.  The study found a significant statistical difference in scores on assessment tests, with online students scoring an average of 59% and traditional students scoring 50%.  You can also read the 93 page government study here: full study. It’s an interesting study, and it considers a lot of variables that come to mind in the argument of online vs traditional.

Online Education – Masters Degree at WVU

While I’m on the topic of West Virginia University, I recently found some very interesting information about their Masters programs. The university is now offering several degrees completely online. That’s right, I said completely online. I’ve looked into masters degrees since I started working towards my bachelors, and most of the masters programs were either from completely online schools, or from tiny institutions. It’s great to see that the bigger, state universities are getting into this type of education!

A question that must get asked a lot (based on the fact that I’ve seen it on on the FAQ page of nearly every brick and mortar institution offering online degrees that I’ve looked at), is whether or not your degree is “marked” as having been obtained online versus the traditional route.  The resounding answer that I have seen in every case is no. The degree you get online from a school like WVU is the same degree as every other student who physically went to the school.

WVU would have definitely been my first college choice, but because of the distance from my home, it was not viable. Through their masters program I may yet be a WVU alumnus!

Graduate degrees offered online.

Undergraduate degrees offered online.

Newsweek Article on Finishing College in Three Years

This article in Newsweek magazine discusses some of the benefits of finishing a Bachelor’s degree in three years rather than the traditional four.  It lists the tuition savings and quicker work-force entry as two of the big reasons for shortening the amount of time spent in school.  Another thing mentioned is the maintenance, upkeep, and energy costs being wasted on college campuses for the three-four months out of the year that no classes are held.