On their surface, online classes might just be the best thing ever. You don’t want to get up at 8 a.m. three days a week? Take an online class. You want to worry about your homework once a week, if that? Take an online class. You want to do your studying in your underwear, beer in hand? Take an online class.
If only it were that simple.
I mean, each of those facts is true (and I might have used each piece of logic I mentioned at various times when registering for classes), but there’s much more to online classes than that. They’re not quite the easy A you think they’re going to be, but if you treat them as a regular class, you might have even more success than you would in a lecture hall.
Pay attention.
See how big and bold those letters are? That’s because this is the most important thing you can do when you take classes online. I’m in online classes Nos. 4 and 5 (and 5 1/2, but that’s a long story) this term, and this is the single most valuable skill I’ve learned. You have to keep track of due dates, assignment formats and exam locations. And if you lose track of any of those, you end up on the fast track to an F, which nobody is looking for.
The one thing I never realized when I first took classes online was that there was nobody to remind me about all the things I needed to do. I missed a couple of assignments. I even nearly missed a test once, registering for it on the last day and having about two hours to study for it. That was unpleasant. But once I learned how to manage the syllabus, I had more success in classes.*
* We’re not going to discuss what happened to me at the start of this term. Let’s just say I relapsed and leave it at that.
Don’t buy the book.
It’s a really good way to save money for the requisite study-beers.
But it’s also a better way to make sure you actually comprehend the material. Professors will often post entire lectures online, making it so you don’t have to go through the book and wade through all the information just to find what your professors consider pertinent.
And even if they don’t, the Internet is a valuable, valuable resource. Just take what you’re being asked, dump it into Google, and more likely than not somebody’s created a website with every answer you need. Because you have to do the searching manually, you’re more likely to remember what you found anyway.
Stay organized.
The beauty of every single person having a cellphone nowadays means that you’re carrying your light-up, noisy-as-you-want calendar with you wherever you go. So just put your assignment due dates in there and set the notification for a day before, and nothing should slip through the cracks.
If you just keep your act together, you’ll be able to find success in online classes, even as you sleep in until 11 a.m. every day. That’s the real reason to take classes online.