Taking a Step in the Distance Direction: One Student Shares Her Experience With Distance Education

Sheida Rezapour is a 4th year International Relations student, and has taken four distance education courses: EOSC 114 – The Catastrophic Earth: Natural Disasters, PHIL 220A – Symbolic Logic I, PHIL 435A – Environmental Ethics, and HIST 451 – Family and Community in Latin America. She has encountered different benefits from taking each distance education course. One summer, Sheida “wanted to take time off from attending [an on-campus] class,” so that she would not have to commute back and forth to campus. At the same time, she still “wanted to take a course over the summer that counted towards [her] degree.” She was able to do so by taking HIST 451 via distance education. Sheida took EOSC 114 to fulfill the science requirement for her degree, and took PHIL 220A to work around a course conflict. The on-campus section of PHIL 220A occurred during the same time as another course in Sheida’s schedule, and because of the distance education option, she was able to take both courses during the same semester. Finally, she took PHIL 435A because she “had a good experience with online courses, especially when they were reading- and writing-based courses.”

Having taken distance education courses from different disciplines, Sheida has found that each course has its own unique structure, layout, and requirements. For EOSC 114, Sheida had weekly required readings and quizzes. PHIL 220A is a “logic-based course,” and Sheida found it to be one of the most mathematically challenging courses that she had taken at university. Sheida’s other courses, PHIL 435A and HIST 451, were writing-based courses. She notes that she had to “read the content of lectures and articles, and write critical or research-based responses.” Sheida found that her writing-based distance education courses were very similar to her writing-based on-campus courses. Therefore, she found that these distance education courses “weren’t much of a surprise,” since she was quite prepared for the writing aspect of her courses.

For any course, whether distance-based or on-campus, Sheida recommends above all things to “stay on track.” She found that as long as she was keeping up with the course material, and participating on the discussion boards in a timely manner, she did very well in her distance education courses. Sheida’s dedication and persistence with her distance education courses paid off; some of Sheida’s highest grades came from these courses.

Beyond the course material, Sheida found that she learned how to better manage her schedule by taking distance education courses, especially since there were no lectures to attend. She managed her schedule by “setting a specific time aside each week,” which was similar to her “own set class time, instead of a lecture.” During this time, Sheida worked on “readings and assignments that were required for the week,” which helped her to keep on track with the course

Sheida liked the fact that the distance education courses didn’t interfere with her daily schedule, which included volunteering twice a week and taking courses on campus at night. She recommends making sure to “actively participate in the course and the discussions.” She also advises students studying via distance to “prioritize the class enough to provide some input into the discussions on a weekly basis.” This, Sheida says, was how she got the most out of her distance education experience.