The Online Experience to School

          

           Classes I take at San Francisco State will prepare me for my future career in Marketing.  Having transferred from College of Marin a semester ago, I have only completed fifteen units at State.  But the courses I have taken have been specific to my discourse.  A couple courses I’ve taken are International Business, Marketing, and Information Systems.  All these are required business courses that really introduced me to what exactly business is and how it affects the globe. 

            The odd thing is, with these classes being so important to my major, they were all online courses.  I never actually stepped into a classroom when I took these classes.  There are both advantages and disadvantages to a set up like this.  An advantage is that I don’t actually have to get myself to campus for a lecture.  This way I could schedule work with out having to worry about getting to a class.  Another advantage is I never had to print anything out and turn in a hard copy to the professors.  This saved paper, time and ink, which ultimately saved me a little money.  Chancellor of the University System of Maryland, William E. Kirwan, said that online courses cut costs by 25% and give students more personal attention.(Source) In my personal experience, I didn’t receive any more personal attention in online classes than I did during in-person courses.  I found that being away from campus made me more distant from the college.  

            Disadvantages I found to online courses is, as previously mentioned, the feeling of disconnection to the university.  I was only on campus one day a week that semester and commuting at the time so I never really felt part of the university.  Also from a more ethical point of view, if the costs to actually teach the class are lower, and we are trying to cut costs, then why does our tuition continue to rise?  My own expectation is that if a student participates in a cost cutting class, then their tuition should reflect that cost cut.  According to a financial aid guide, the annual cost of tuition increases about eight percent, which means it doubles about every nine years.(Source)  I believe that if students take the risk of an online course then their tuition should be lowered to reflect the lower costs on behalf of the university.

            Despite the courses being online, I did learn about business that makes the world turn.  International Business taught me about the downstream and upstream stages of the value added chain really affect the product’s quality as well as its price.  This will help me understand how different areas of the world have different expertise that makes their product more valuable than others.  Marketing is especially important because it is my major.  Marketing gave me a complete overview of what it takes to get a product to the market and how to make that product appeal to a certain market.  This is really important to making money and to stay in business.  Information Systems taught me about how to manage a business using a computer.  This class was really specific in its use of excel to manage business finances.  This is important for a company to have up-to-date reports of their finances so that they know if they need to make cuts, or whether they can expand.    All of these courses are connected because they all have to do with aspects of business.

            Overall in my experience with online courses, I would say it was a good one.  I passed all the classes and I got an overview of the business life.  I would not discourage others from going the online route because although there is that disconnect from the university that I felt, it does free up my schedule to do what I want and I get to complete the work on my own time.  And although I felt less teacher attention, I still learned what I needed and I will use it for the entirety of my career.