Online Meteorology Degrees

If you are interested in the weather a career in meteorology may be a good option. I order to start a career as a meteorologist you are going to need to get a degree, ideally in meteorology or more likely atmospheric science. A lot of people would like to earn their degree online, this begs question of whether or not it is possible.

Unfortunately the options when it comes to online meteorology degrees are pretty limited and the few that do exist largely require that you already have a background in the field. A good example of this is the Bachelor of Applied Science in Weather Forecasting at the University of Arizona. It is intended for air force weather technicians and is therefore not available for most people.

Another option if you have military experience the degree in operational meteorology at Mississippi State University. If you don't have military experience they also offer a degree in broadcast meteorology that can be done partly online. There is also a masters degree in applied meteorology that is available for people who have a bachelors degree in a natural science. This may be your best option for an online meteorology degree.

With the very limited options for online meteorology degrees the best option may be to get a degree in another science like physics or chemistry and then enrol in a masters program. Admittedly online degrees in any of the hard sciences are hard to come by they are out there if you look. There are then a few online masters degrees in meteorology that you can choose from.

If you have an interest in meteorology but are not looking for a career as a meteorologist you do have a few options for courses that you can take. Penn State offers a certificate in weather forecasting for example. These courses are intended mainly for people who need to learn about the weather for related careers, like pilots or flight dispatchers or for those who simply have an interest in the weather.

Are Exams Required for Online Courses?

In almost all cases you will be required to write an exam as part of your online course, in many cases more than one will be required. In fact I would say be very wary of any online university that does not require exams. Exams are how students are evaluated at regular schools and so you should not expect it to be any different with online schools.

Since exams are generally required as part of an online course the obvious question would be how do you write them. This is where things can get a bit tricky. If you live near the university you are usually expected to write it there. Most will set up testing dates, usually on the weekend and you just show up and write the exam.

A lot of online schools, particularly those that have a lot of students from outside the local area have set up testing centers in major cities. These work basically the same as the ones at the school itself.

If you don't live near the school or a testing center you are going to have to make your own arrangements to write your exams. This is where things can get a bit complicated. You will need to find both a place to write the exam and somebody to proctor it. In most cases you will be expected to this at a local school with a local teacher as the proctor. In some cases it may be possible to do it at the library.

If you do have to get your own proctor it will add significantly to the cost of your degree. You will have to pay both the school and the proctor for administering your exam. In general you should expect it to cost somewhere between $50 and $100. This really adds up if you figure that there are about forty classes as part of a degree program and each likely has one or two exams.

Because of the difficulty in writing exams it is a good idea to make sure that know where you are going to write them before you register with an online university. The last thing that you are going to want is to find that you get near the end of a course and that there is nowhere to write the final exam.

Which Online University Should you Choose?

Obviously you are going to want to find an online university that will provide you with the education that you need. The question is, just how to do you go about doing this? There are lots of online schools out there, some are good and some are really bad, how do you tell them apart.

The first thing that you are going to want to do when you are looking for an online university is to determine what it is that you want to study. This may or may not narrow down your options for you. If your goal is to get a business degree you are still going to have thousands of schools to sort through as almost all online universities offer these courses. If on the other hand your goal is to get a degree in physics you will find that there are far fewer options.

Once you know what you want to study the next step for most people is to start comparing the schools that offer the appropriate degree. The big thing here is to make sure that you choose a school that is regionally accredited. There are more than enough schools that have regional accreditation that there is no reason to consider one that is not.

The next step is to look at how the courses are offered. Some require you to stick to a rigid schedule while others will allow you to work at your own pace. Some courses require a great deal of interaction while others will leave you alone to do your work. You can find all of this information in the schools calendar. Take some time to think about how you like to learn so that you can choose the course that is right for you.

While it is not a requirement I would strongly recommend that you limit your choices to schools that offer both online and regular on campus degrees. The main reason for this is that these schools are generally more respected than online only universities. In addition if you got a degree from a school that offers both types of degrees there is no need to put on your resume that the degree was earned online.

The last major consideration when you are choosing an online university is the cost. This can vary by a surprisingly large amount. The best value when it comes to online degrees is almost always state universities, interestingly it doesn't have to be a school from your own state. Most state universities will offer in state tuition rates to all online students regardless of where they live. Private for profit universities are almost always the most expensive option and rarely worth the cost, they are best avoided.

How to Succeed with Online University Courses

The increased acceptance of online university degrees has seen a large number of people enrol in online degree programs. The problem is that the completion rate for online degrees is very low. There are a few reasons for this but the main one is that most people are simply not prepared to succeed.

Have Realistic Expectations

The main reason that people fail with online university courses is that they have completely unrealistic expectations as to how fast they can complete a degree. This is perfectly natural as most people who enrol in online courses are doing so for career advancement and want to get it done as soon as possible.

The problem however is that it is completely unrealistic to think that you can carry a full course load while also holding down a full time job. Even worse are the people who enrol in self paced courses with the idea of finishing a four year degree in two years. While it is possible and people have done it, you will need a lot of discipline if you are going to achieve this.

Set a Schedule

One of the biggest challenges that people have when taking online courses is finding the time to do them. One of the advantages of online courses is that they have no fixed schedule. The downside to this is that without a fixed schedule a lot of people find it difficult to get their courses done. Most people need to be told when to get work on their courses. Obviously this is not going to happen with most online courses. That being the case you are going to need to set your own schedule and stick to it.

Choose Courses that are Appropriate

When you are choosing the courses that you are going to take as part of your online degree you need to make sure that you choose ones that are at the right level for you. Most people choose their courses based on what is required for the degree and not what they are actually ready to take. If you haven't taken a math class in twenty years it might not be a great idea to jump right into that course on partial differential equations right away. It may be necessary to take some courses that you have already taken in the past just to make sure that you are prepared for the more advanced work.

Are Online University Programs the Same as Regular University Programs?

These days the vast majority of universities offer some kind of online degree. Most tend to be limited in the number of online degrees that they offer but the almost all offer at least a few. This does the raise the question of whether or not these degrees are the same as the ones that are offered on campus and more importantly if they are as well respected.

In general if you attend a school that offers both online and and on campus degrees they will be largely the same. There may be some small differences for practical reasons, for example it is difficult to do laboratory work with online courses so some universities don't require them for online students. In reality few universities offer online science courses at all for this reason. Other than that however the degree that you get taking online courses will be the same as the one regular students get. In fact it is becoming increasingly common to combine the two and do some courses online and some on campus.

Where things start to get a bit complicated is when it comes to online universities that only offer online courses. Obviously the degree is not going to the be the same as it is for regular on campus students since there are no on campus students. The question then becomes are these degrees at least as good as the ones earned at regular universities?

Unfortunately, the answer in most cases is no. To be sure there are some very good online only universities but you really have to pick through a lot of garbage to find the good ones. Most online universities are for profit businesses and are therefore more interested in making money than they are in providing a good education. It obviously costs them money if students flunk out so the result is that the courses tend to be too easy to ensure that they keep their paying customers enrolled.

If you are considering an online university our advice is to stick to the ones that offer both online and on campus courses. It is also generally a good idea to stick with public institutions rather than private for profit ones. This will help to ensure that your degree is taken seriously when you start looking for a job.

How are Distance Learning and Online Learning Different?

Over the last few years online learning has become very popular. Of course distance learning has been around for a long time. This does raise the question of just how are distance learning and online different and why has online learning become so much more popular?

Online learning is of course a type of distance learning, when we refer to distance learning therefore we can also be talking about online courses. There is however a pretty big difference in the way that online courses are presented as compared to traditional distance learning and this largely has to do with interaction.

Traditional distance learning usually required you to learn pretty much on your own. You were sent the course material and largely left to your own devices to work through it. In some cases there might have been a phone number that you could call to contact a tutor but many schools didn't even offer this.

Online learning allows for much more communication between you and your teacher and in some cases even your classmates than was ever possible with traditional distance learning. In addition to watching lectures on video you will likely be expected to take part in chats or video conferences as part of your course work. The result is that online courses are much more like regular college classes than traditional distance learning.

Most people would assume that online learning is a better option because it allows you to take classes that are similar to the ones that regular college students take and for many students this is in fact the case. There are however some students who do better learning on their own and prefer the traditional paper based courses. You should therefore not jump to the conclusion that you would be better with online courses.

Before you make a decision on which type of course you should enrol in you are going to want to think about what kind of learner you are. If you are the type of student who likes to take part in class discussions online classes are ideal. However for students who would rather just be left alone and allowed to do their work you will probably find that traditional distance learning classes are the best option.