How to Choose an Online Study Pathway That’s Right for You

A quality education is crucial to a fulfilling career and future, and online learning has transformed how we attain these. It has made education more accessible and flexible, greatly expanding the industry entirely. But knowing what online course you want to take can be a difficult task, and occasionally, without the proper research, you can end up taking a course that’s not the right fit for you.

Whether you want to start a business management course because you want to enter the sales or managing department or you want to progress your career with BSN to DNP programs in Texas but completely online, choosing an online study pathway that is right for you requires careful consideration, and we will go through some of these below.

Know Your Motivations

Why do you want to study? This is the first thing you should be asking if you are considering embarking on an online study path.

According to a 2016 Pew Research Center Study, a large majority of Americans seek extra knowledge for personal and work-related reasons, and digital technology played a notable role in these pursuits; around 74% of adults considered themselves to be lifelong learners. So you should understand why you want to pursue your online study pathway in the first place.

For some people, it is because they just love learning; others are looking for something to revitalize their lives; and some are studying because they want to achieve greater success or breakthroughs in their careers. Knowing your motivations for why you want to study online can provide you with a bigger space for clearer goal setting, increased commitment and engagement, and overall better outcomes when you do begin taking the course.

Having A Criteria

It is important to decide what you want to take from the course. Some questions you should ask yourself when forming this:

• Are you looking to learn to improve your skills for work or just for fun?
• How many days can you dedicate to learning throughout the week?
• Do you seek to develop a specific skill or skills more generally?
• What topics pique your interest?

Some other basic yet essential things you should have in your criteria, such as whether course content can be accessible through the same interface, is consistent and predictable, as well as whether you can receive constant evaluations and feedback from your lecturer or tutor, and if student support is available.

What you want (and what you need) from a course should be utterly clear. You really do not want to have already paid for the course only to realize it isn’t what you want or need once you start taking it.

Understanding Your Career Options

Knowing what career options are available is tough for all of us – but it is nevertheless still important to think about when choosing your online study pathway.

You might, for example, be currently in an entry-level role yet dissatisfied with the pay or feel undervalued by your employer. Turning to an additional qualification can, however, expand your career prospects and opportunities, which not only allows you to upskill and have better knowledge but also gives you an opportunity for a promotion, salary increase, or a new and better career entirely.

What is crucial is that the majority of online courses are recognized by employers, which makes them worthwhile and for you to gain the most from completing one.

Narrowing Down Your Choices

Once you are familiar with what you want to study, what courses are available, and a rough idea of what institution you want to study at, you should start narrowing down your choices and setting them against the aforementioned criteria you made prior.

Which course best meets your needs and current situation? For example, if you are working full-time, your course should be easy to access before or after work and in terms of managing day-to-day priorities. You will need to have adequate judgment on whether you actually have the time to join and keep up with the course material or materials if you are planning on taking multiple. In the case of the latter, you can always choose to enroll and take them at a later time.

You may also have a child to take care of, and if you were to choose between taking an online course and caring for your child, you would obviously choose the latter. Yet if you have a penchant for wanting to balance these priorities out – to do both, that is – then you should filter out those courses that are heavy in content for ones that have a fast learning format with a minimum amount of theory/content to succeed.

Start Learning And Sustaining Motivation

You have browsed far and wide and finally decided to take the course and the type it will be. It is important at this stage to know that you will need to be motivated and stay productive throughout your program.

A rather jarring study conducted on the completion rates of massive open online courses (MOOCs) provided by major Ivy League institutions such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford shows that rates of completion stood only at around just 20%, and this can be due to an infinite amount of reasons. One of the biggest factors to a successful online course completion is self-regulation and sustaining the work towards the goal of completion – yet, clearly, too many students fail in this.

As such, it is important to ask yourself: Am I able to maintain my interest in studying this course throughout its entire duration? You would want to avoid a situation where you successfully complete one week of the course and then not do any of the remaining units – or even forget about it entirely.