online graduate education的利弊.doc

Online graduate education has become a popular channel for many students to pursue their degree. In fact many educators and policy makers view online education as the wave of the future. Is an online graduate degree program right for you? Consider the pros and cons of an online graduate program.The advantages of online graduate education are:1.Flexiblity:Attend online classes anywhere.In todays busy lifestyle, most people have no time to go back to school even they have intention to get more degrees for career advancement, job promotion or simply to learning something new. This is where one of the advantages of online education will benefit these people. Online education is able to provide you with a flexible learning environment from any location as long as you are offered with internet connection.2.self-paced:In general, you can complete graduate degree online in shorter period of time if compare to the same courses offer in campus-based programs. Unless you purposely delay your courses due to fail to proper manage your time.3.more choice:you can attend the online classes from your comfort home or any location that you find convenient to you. This also means that you can enroll into any online graduate program offered by any universities around the world as long as they make their degree program online. With that in mind, you do not need to worry about unable to find a degree that cant meet your career or lifestyle requirement.4.less costIn term of tuition fee, although its not always true, but in general, online graduate programs cost less than campus-based graduate programs as most of learning materials are in downloadable format and the credit hours required to complete an online graduate program is comparatively less. Hence, you could save some money by taking your degree online.The fact shows that most online students are successfully complete their degree program but 40% of them failed. Most of online students are pursuing their degree online because they are seeing many advantages of online education that can benefits them but the 40% that failed do not aware of the disadvantages of online education that cause their failure. Here are the major disadvantages of online graduate education:The Disadvantages of Online Education1. unreasonable scheduleThe advantages of online education can become the disadvantages if you are not the right candidate for online education. The flexibility of planning your own schedule in online education could be the disadvantages for you if you are a type of person that cant manage your time probably between your work, family and study.2. inconvenienceMost of your communication will be through email. You might miss the sound of an instructor or peers voice.The major disadvantage of this method of education is that you dont experience face-to-face socialization.3. inadaptationAs most of online learning materials are in text format, if you are not comfortable with this format and prefer to listen to the lecture instead of reading it. Then, it will become the disadvantage for you and you need to reconsider your decision before you choose online education to be your degree pursuing channel.In addi