Working 9 to 5 or having to balance a family can be just one of many reasons why more and more students are taking on the role of the non-traditional student.
For Park students, they offer their non-traditional students the option of night or online classes to help them graduate in a timely manner.
“Online and evening courses have been a necessity to me while pursuing my degree,” said Emily Frame senior in business with emphasis in marketing and a minor in management. “Not only am I a commuter student, but I am also married and working. Due to my need to work, taking strictly daytime courses has not been an option if I want to get my degree in a timely manner,”
More students are finding the option to customize their schedule to fit their life style.
“It’s my senior year now and I have taken a combination of daytime, night, and online classes to accommodate my busy schedule and graduate on time,” said Frame.
While Park has tried to keep consistency between their day, night and online classes, students are finding there to be significant differences.
“There are several major differences between daytime and online classes that I have personally noticed,” she said. “With daytime courses, there is more interaction and notably fewer assignments. Learning is highly discussion based for most classes and it’s easier to absorb the content being taught. Online classes, though shorter, are much more labor intensive with stringent deadlines.”
“Every week there are discussion posts, quizzes, papers, and other assignments,” said Frame. “I find I have to be more involved with my online courses than I do my daytime classes which seems opposite to me because the whole reason most people take online classes is because they don’t have the time to commit to sitting in a classroom.”
Students are not only finding differences in the formatting of their courses varying from day, to night, to online; but they are also noticing differences with the students and professors they encounter.
“I’ve noticed that in my night courses class discussions are far better, students are more professional, and professors are more friendly and approachable,” said Zachary Hausner senior of finance and mathematics with a minor in psychology.
While the courses offered for online and evening classes may accommodate to students lifestyles, it is not always their preferred method to learn.
“Personally, I am not a fan of online courses, particularly for upper level courses,” said Frame. “I probably learn about half of what I would sitting in a classroom with an instructor. Last Spring 1, I took nine online upper level credit hours. By the end of the 8 weeks I had completed 78 writing assignments consisting of discussions, papers, and other homework assignments all while working two jobs. It was insane and I would never do it again. On the other hand, Gen Eds are good for online classes because the content is simpler.”
Other students find certain qualities about online classes that both like and dislike.
“I have found my online courses not to be as intense as those taken in class,” said Hausner. “So therefore are not of a high quality to me. But on the other hand, it saves me time to do other things.”
Park recently made changes to their evening course scheduling, which students are finding quite beneficial.
“I tend to really like my night classes, especially if they are in the blended format Park recently introduced,” said Frame. “With the blended format, I only have to be in a class once a week for three hours and participate in an online discussion board. For me, night classes are the perfect ‘in between’ format of daytime and online. It’s still a shortened term which is the major benefit of online courses but still in person with an instructor which is the major benefit of daytime courses.”
More and more schools are trying to meet the needs of their students by offering courses for day, evening, and online students, and Park is making that commitment as well.
“I feel that Park is one of the most accommodating universities I have encountered for non-traditional students,” said Frame. “They provide many options through their online, night, and daytime courses. Not to mention the many campuses located across the country. Another major benefit is that my degree will not reflect that I took night and online courses. I have found employers sometimes discriminate against degrees that were earned via online or by night classes. With Park I could have taken all online courses and my degree would never reflect that it was obtained through online course work.”
