BellaOnline Forums Education Distance Learning 6 Week Online Classes

When I signed up for Northeastern's online degree, a big draw was that every quarter you took four 12-week classes concurrently. That is, the classes were nice and slow, you took the time, and you really got to network with the students and teachers. You built up relationships with them.

So that was in March 2010. I've now taken classes for the spring summer, and am in the middle of the fall term.

I just looked at the winter class schedule and the ONLY classes they have are short 6-week classes! I.e. they want you to take 2 short classes the first half of a quarter, and then 2 short classes the second half of the quarter. Instead of relaxing for 12 weeks learning about ethics, I will race to get through it in 6 weeks and barely get to know the students or teacher before I zip on to something else.

I don't like that at all. I am doing this to learn and absorb knowledge, not to zip and get things over with.

I'm feeling disappointed and frustrated, this is not what I had intended to sign up for ...

I understand. I take a class because I want to learn. Why take it otherwise?

Oh - I wouldn't like that either Lisa.

I wonder if the trend is going to be that online distance learning classes are going to generally change to shorter sessions. I personally do not feel that would be a good trend. I feel that you learn more from discussions in an online community than you do without them.

It is rather strange that everyone talks about learning by social networking because of the connection to others and yet the formal courses are being offered in a way which reduces that person to person connection.

Are educators promoting the trend to "accomplish as much as you can in as little time as possible and don't worry about the quality" which seems to be the motto of the corporations of the world? I would hope that they would instead do research to determine if that type of trend is beneficial or harmful in the long run rather than just jumping on the bandwagon.

For this current quarter that just began, spring, I tried signing up for 3 long classes and 1 short class. They cancelled 2 of my long classes on me - I think due to lack of interest. So I was left with 1 long class and 3 short classes.

During the first half, I have my one long class, Training, and a short class, managing in a diverse and changing world. The training class only has 4 people in it! The changing class has like 25. The people in the training class are extremely quiet. The people in the changing class are quite talkative.

So as much as I'm grumpy with Northeastern for not offering more long classes, it appears when they do offer them that hardly anyone takes them. So they're trying to make the best use of their resources. Which I understand.

So maybe I'm grumpy with the students who don't want to take long classes - who just want to take a super short class and "get it over with." That's not my attitude about this material we're learning!