Who has gotten their associates or bachelors degree online?

Looking into my options for online schooling, I would like to get a bachelors degree in psychology and minor in business management, my problem is I have my fall semester of welding to attend (Will graduate with a career cert in december) and my welding instructor said there's a very good chance that he can get me a job within 2 months of graduating at a local shipyard, which will be at least 40 hours a week.
None of the local community colleges offer classes on fridays or weekends, and with a 1 hour commute each way I'm not sure how feasible night classes during the week will be.
So my best option is online.

 

Definitely only doing an accredited course, I didn't know about the for profit schools, thank you for the info.

 

I do not know if you are still looking for an answer to your question but I came across this thread and figured I would share what I have learned/been told throughout my education.

First off, I agree with the response by Burgh, avoid the for profit schools. They may workout for some people, but its a gamble and not worth the risk given their tuition rates. Also, you do not want to invest all the resequit effort, money, and time into your education and have it be tainted.

Second, it depends on what your options are; like you said, you have some restrictions in your availability. I completed my Masters online because no schools in my area offered the program that I was interested in and I work out of town occasionally. However, I was told by a professor not to go the online route since I was attempting to break into a new field due to the important connections that are made with professors and other students while attending classes on campus; these could be the difference between getting a foot in the door somewhere or not.

It also depends on the reason for your education and your goals. If you are looking break into a new career path and have zero connections in the desired field, online would be tough, especially anything related to psychology. However, it would matter less if you were just looking to get a BA and then go to graduate school or get a promotion at your current employer or field.

I recently received a tentative job offer for a position that I find desirable because of my online Masters Degree even after being told not to go that route. Part of the reason is because its a niche field so there are not a large number of qualified candidates to compete with. Another reason is that I obtained a volunteer position in the field that helped give me hands on experience and enabled me to make connection (I highly recommend anyone seeking a new career pathway to try to find a relative volunteer position).

The biggest thing is that you need to separate yourself from other candidates. Give employers a reason to pick you out of the other hundreds (or even thousands) of candidates that are applying. Hiring managers would likely prefer on campus education, but there are ways to mitigate any perceived inadequacies in online education (e.g. volunteering, high GPA, connections, letters of recommendations from prominent professors, etc...). After completing my BA on campus at a state university in 2009, I applied to hundreds of jobs and was lucky to be invited to an interview once every 80 applications, and I had no delusions of grandeur, I was applying to entry level, low paying jobs in an attempt to get my foot in the door. Hopefully hiring is picking up, but it is still going to be competitive and competing classes online could put you at a disadvantage.

 

Thank you for the info.
The field I would like to go into I already have local contacts for, and it's really not that important to have contacts to get a job (in this field).

I am hopefully gonna start classes spring semester (not sure where, still researching) but that depends on what my fall semester does and if I get the job that I will be testing for at the end of semester.

 

It sounds like your in a similar situation to my girlfriend. She was a RN and wanted to work at a better place so she got her BSN online since she had experience and connections. She applied to 3 jobs after graduating and got offered all 3, regardless of getting an online degree. My only other advice is when selecting a school, if all things are equal, select one that has prominent professors and/or a recognizable name, whether its national or in your given area of interest. A prospective employer may not care or realize your education is online that way. After my bachelors I did a online certificate program at a state school and I have never been asked if it was online or on campus.

 

My wife got her masters in Accounting (bachelors is in music education) from Liberty University. It took about 1.5 years and was fairly straight forward. after she graduated she immediately got a job in accounting and could hold her own against others who has just been hired. I would say Liberty did good by her. I have no affiliation with Liberty, just an opinion.

Carl