It’s really hard to overestimate the importance of knowledge and professionalism in a modern demanding society. A well-educated and competent person is of gold value to any employer/boss of a big corporation. Being successful in starting your own business also depends on your qualifications and skills. So, education (at university/college or self-education) is the key to your prosperous life.
Some decades ago we couldn’t boast of a variety of educational offers and possibilities a lot. Nowadays, in 2018, the situation has changed so drastically, that we may even get informationally overwhelmed with loads of options we can get and use in our education. Be it a fully online education or some online courses – there will be an option for students with all possible preferences.
Which one to choose?
There are numerous study offers in a large number of schools and universities all around the world: to your choice are presented associate degrees and certificates, courses and diplomas, and many more. The decision to take an online degree serve a multitude of purposes for different students: they are sometimes used to bridge the gap between different phases of the academic study or to provide additional professional training and qualifications. Available in a wide variety of subjects, taking a degree will help students develop valuable personal and professional skills, get a deeper knowledge of their major subject, broaden the outlook or introduce them to a completely new field of study and further of their interest or even career. And when we talk about numerous subjects, we mean it. Students can choose from such fields of study as languages, social sciences, aviation, art studies, technology, management and economic studies, humanities, business studies you name it!
For students it’s never been easier to choose the best college and learn online, getting the knowledge from top professors and other specialists from all over the world.
What advantages will you get?
Distance learning has a bunch of advantages and we are going to enumerate the most important of them:
- It’s much cheaper.
Seriously, in some cases you won’t have to pay for anything except the Internet (but you would do that monthly anyway) – especially if it’s just an online course. Lots of unis organize absolutely free courses available for everyone. In case you have to pay for the studies as it’s your degree that you’re doing in Open University, there is still money saving factor as you don’t have to pay for accommodation, food, books etc.
- Access to materials anywhere anytime.
Computer, laptop, tablet, phone – you can use any of your devices for studying plus a lot of online learning platforms have their own apps which make the process the most enjoyable experience.
- No language barriers.
Students are able to track and find thousands of courses in the language they are comfortable with so that they can study whatever they want. Or, it can be a great opportunity to boost their English skills alongside with studying the chosen course.
The number of platforms and resources offering virtual education is huge, so sometimes it may not seem so effortless to choose the right one unlike choosing where to find custom writing help for your school essays. Nevertheless, don’t be terrified, we are here to help you pick up wisely. According to our research (you could search Wikipedia on your own, but we just gladly did it to save your precious time), the most popular and trusted ones are the following:
- Coursera
This is an online project in the field of education, where universities with the world’s recognition (Stanford, Wharton, Princeton) provide students with free training courses on various topics. And the number of topics is really indescribable, ranging from art and health to business, physics, and statistics. Coursera gives you the opportunity to gain a little (or a lot if you are hardworking) knowledge and experience from the best teachers in your field of activity. Moreover, many of them also have their own business besides teaching, so they can provide you with real-life tips and tricks. Do you want to listen to the course in the subway? No problem: Coursera has mobile applications, and you can open the lecture anywhere and anytime. It is indeed very convenient and allows you to plan your schedule in advance and make classes in it when it is convenient.
- edX
In fact, this is an educational non-profit organization providing massive open online courses conducted by universities and research institutes from around the world. Created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, in April 2016, edX had 917 courses run by 96 institutions. Participation in courses offered by edX is free, however, it is required to obtain verified certificates informing about the completion of the course. The website has courses run by such universities as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley, the California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Cornell University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Toronto and many others. Most of the courses are run in English, but you can find courses in Chinese, French, Spanish, Turkish and several other languages.
- Khan Academy
Another non-profit educational organization and a website created in 2006 by Salman Khan, an American of Bangladeshi and Indian origin. The founder himself graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Business School (HBS). He considered the mission of the organization to be a high-quality provider of education for everyone and everywhere free of charge. Students acquire skills from the site through over 100,000 exercises, and can also learn over 7,000 video lessons. The lectures cover different areas of knowledge – mathematics, history, health, medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American history, art history, computer science. The videos from their Youtube channel were watched over 200 million times. Sounds impressive enough to give it a try!
By now you should have no doubt that it’s very possible to get your dream qualifications just with the help of the Internet and one of your devices. After getting to know so much about different learning platforms the only thing that can stop you is probably your laziness or procrastination, you know what we mean. So make sure you set definite goals and don’t let yourself give up on your future achievements.
Bio
Alyssa Johnson has been a freelance writer for quite a long time and every day she has to help and deal with completely different orders in different study fields. She really enjoys her job as writing is her passion, but sometimes finds it challenging to cope and keep up with all new information in a variety of educational spheres, so it was a life-saving solution for her to take up a couple of online courses to level up her competence. Thanks to this, she found a new passion and now studies the way our brain works alongside with assisting students with their writing tasks.
