ReadyMinds.com (www.readyminds.com) is a global leader in customized, outsourced Distance Career Counseling Services and related training. I have personally spoken with a several wholly online schools who are utilizing ReadyMinds in some capacity. My point here is not to promote one company over another but to indicate that there is a growing trend for online schools to begin focusing on those all important “performance indicators”, one of which is career counseling and job placement.
In my last post, I briefly mentioned that online schools should also consider the ”less common” student services as part of their student experience repertoire. To expand on that just a bit, for example, I know of very few online institutions that offer career counseling and job placement services. Compare that to traditional brick and mortar schools and it is evident that there is a huge disparity.
In most online schools, the attempt to promote these services falls on deaf ears or takes a very low priority. Is it that key stakeholders of those schools are not interested in the student’s long-term well being, retention, and program enhancement? With the coming shift to performance indicators as key metrics for evaluating online schools, administrators of those schools need to wake up and begin piloting some of these programs. I recently have spoken with several schools that have implemented virtual career centers and are meeting with good success.
Do you know what your online school is doing?
12 Feb
Virtual Path To Diversity
The University of Maryland University College, which is primarily online, has a black student population of over 28,000, which represents about 32 percent of its student body. That’s an amazing and commendable accomplishment. And while many colleges have black graduation rates that lag their share of the student body, I recently read where UMUC black students receive 30 percent of degrees from the university. This accomplishment was recently cited at the annual meeting of the American Council on Education. It was specifically mentioned as an example of how online education can improve access for minority or low-income populations.
The more I have become entrenched in the world on online and distance learning, the more I have come to realize that online education can be a powerful tool to reach and educate different populations.
The journey of earning your degree begins with this question — Why Is An Online Degree Important To You? All the advice and information you receive from family, friends, associates, admissions counselors, and blogs like mine can not answer that question for you. You must answer that question — it must be the first step you take in this journey.
So is the primary reason you are wanting that degree for prestige, more money, a new career, acceptance? Although each of these could be an outcome of earning your degree they should not be the main motivating factors. Is it because studying online is flexible, convenient, and, in most cases, more affordable? Those might be some of the benefits but they can not be the true reasons.
You see, today there is a new class of adult, non-traditional students emerging – those who studies out of passion and curiosity — a true lifelong learner. This type of learner translates that passion in the online classroom to the workplace and becomes a dynamic boss, manager, or employee.