Intro
Nowadays there are all kinds of courses available at your disposal online for a small fee. Nowadays it’s as easy as ever to enroll in online business courses, cooking courses, SEO courses and something becoming more popular by the day Digital marketing courses. So, whatever you’re interested in or whatever subject you need to improve or expand your knowledge on, you won’t have a hard time doing that. There are of course a couple of restrictions put on you when doing an online course, it’ll never be the same as doing a physical and personal course in a classroom. However, at the same time there are some great things about learning online via online courses that I’ll cover down below. Take a look at these pros and cons and hopefully this article will help you make the best decision for your needs and specifications
Pros
More flexibility
So, with online courses most of the time you won’t need to be somewhere at a certain time. For example – Let’s say you enrolled on a German to Arabic translation course, but this course is done the traditional way. You’ll have to schedule your day around the class. Whereas if you are doing it online without a rigid timetable, you can study at your own pace
Tight budget, no worries
Having a tight budget needn’t stop you from reaching your goals. When you’re studying your preferred subject online as opposed to in the classroom, your bank account will be a lot happier. Think of the extra expenses, so we’ve already established that classroom courses are higher priced but think of the other expenses involved in that. Transport and food expenses are the stand out. If your classroom is not on your doorstep, you’ll have put a little more money aside for these extra expenses
It’s more convenient, thanks to corona
Now we’re all living in uncertain times, yes, I’m aware we’ve got a promising vaccine. But we could go back into lockdown any minute. Imagine taking the plunge and paying hundreds and maybe even thousands of dollars for a course that has to cancel due to coronavirus restrictions. Your desk and laptop at home cannot be disturbed by this virus, so id consider it to be much more secure at this moment in time
You learn differently from others, that’s ok!
I know first-hand that not everyone has the same learning methods. I personally am mildly dyslexic; at school I would always struggle with reading and writing. But when it came to art class or home economics (cooking class) I would excel. That just proves that everyone is different (as cliche as it sounds). With so many teaching styles available for online learning you’ll be spoilt for choice, but if you live in a semi large city or town. It’s unlikely or you’d be very lucky to find someone whose niche
Develop more independence
Maybe you need it, maybe you don’t. But learning how to become a more independent and efficient human being is always going to help. Not having a schedule might such like a dream to you, but you’ll now have to manage everything yourself. You won’t have a teacher telling you were to be, and what time to be there. So, you could look at this as a con, or to be a pro. It depends if you think you’ll be capable of this challenge
Pro’s conclusion
So, what do you think? Looks pretty good right? I’m sure you are already aware that everything cannot be made up of pros. Just like castles made of sand will eventually fall in the sea, Jimi Hendrix was right. You need to have a look at the pros as well, this will balance it out a bit. I hope it’ll help you in making your decision to enrol online or physically in a classroom
Cons
Are you prone to loneliness?
If you are much more of a social face to face interaction kind of person, then doing a course online is kind of obviously not the right direction for you to go in. You may be the kind of person who relies on these day-by-day interactions, but like we already know. People come in all shapes and sizes, people learn differently, think differently and feel differently. So, if you can easily stay indoors for a whole week without having too much interaction, go for it. But if not then I’d give it a miss. Yes of course I’m using extreme examples, but you get the picture, don’t you?
Does this course look legit to you?
This can be a problem, courses that look as dodgy and sketchy as a guy in a black hoodie down a dark alleyway at 2am are in abundance online. So, you need to do a little bit of investigation into the site before you make that investment into yourself. Firstly, check forums, and contact people directly and ask them how their experience was with the course they enrolled on. Check if it’s accredited, this is important for obvious reasons. You know the rest, I’m sure you’re not stupid. Just keep your wits about you and your eyes peeled, just like if you had to walk past the guy in the alleyway
Distractions!
This is a very prevalent issue for many people, id day the majority. You will be bombarded with distractions when studying from home, of course not if you don’t have people at home. But your phone notifications can be a bummer also. Some of the distractions are in your control, but some are not. My recommendation would be to have what I like to call a ‘Power Hour’, it’s kind self-explanatory, focused with 0 controllable distraction for 1 whole hour. Take a break, then repeat if the same power hour again if it’s necessary
Con’s conclusion
So, you can see the cons now too. They are pretty easy to overcome so I’m going to conclude this article saying that it’s much better to go online, than go physical. But that’s a matter of opinion, good luck
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