Being an online Student

Being an online student has its advantages and disadvantages, though I think the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. I like the informal setting, or atmosphere that comes with being an online student. You can just sit at home in front of the computer with your meal sitting in front of you, eating while you are studying. You don’t have to wake up in the morning and rush to get yourself ready for classes, or having to worry about the morning commute to school. You can basically study at your own pace, during whatever hours are convenient for you. The disadvantages are that you can’t meet your peers personally, or your instructor. The opportunity to know someone personally is not available to you in the online classroom. So you really don’t know anyone that you’re interacting with online. You can’t hang out with each other after class, so to speak. My idea to create a closer class community is to have seminars using video conferencing. Of course, we would all need to have webcams in order to make this happen, but it would alleviate a lot of the anonymity. This anonymity is really the only thing I don’t like about the online classroom setting. Have any of you ever tried to contact your financial aid officer? It is almost impossible to reach him/her. Email is usually the best way to contact them. Not being able to walk into an office and sit down in front of an advisor to discuss whatever it is that needs to be taken care of is another disadvantage. But, like I said before, the good far outweighs the bad, in my opinion. What do you guys think?