Hey guys, it’s Vizan Jave, and welcome back to another video. If you’re a new viewer, then hi again. I make videos on tech productivity and sometimes education. So today we’re going to talk about 10 things you need to know about online degrees. Exactly a year ago, I made a video about five things you need to know about online degrees, but I left out quite a lot. But in this video, I will cover everything I left out and add more details that I only mentioned there. You can go ahead and check out that video, too, or stick with this one. Well, to give you a little background, I am pursuing a CS degree online through the University of London on Coursera.
And I’m currently in the last Semester of my degree. So in this video, I will talk about online degrees in general. and also talk about the degree I’m currently doing. All the topics in the video are timestamped below, so you can jump around at any point or focus on whatever you want to know. So, without wasting any more time, let’s get into it. Well, starting with the first thing: what are online degrees? Now, it’s in the name— it’s a degree that is online, and you do it on a certain platform, maybe Coursera, maybe EdX, maybe the platform of the university itself, but something that the university tries to offer as a part of the distance learning education system. So, you will find a whole lot of online degrees these days on many platforms.
So, some universities are like the University of London, the University of Boston, and the University of Texas. You can go to EdX and find a whole lot of universities offering good master’s and bachelor’s degrees. You can go ahead on Coursera; you can find a lot of bachelor’s and master’s degrees. As well, you’re basically getting the same degree for less and saving you the hassle of going to the country to study, which is often quite expensive. Well, why would you choose this online degree over a physical university degree? The simplest answer is that this is flexible. Now, many types of people are pursuing this degree.
People are doing a job, and others want to transition to another career. They don’t want to go to a physical university and pay a whole lot of money to get a degree. So they often try to find a better, more effective way to come up with things better. It’s cost-effective, effective, and flexible. So yes, there are many reasons, uh, why people take these online degrees. I am a full-time student. Now, for me, the number one reason was that the education around me in my country wasn’t as good as it should be. Now, the degree that I am doing is way better than what was offered here at a local university.
That is one of the reasons why I considered joining an online degree program in the first place. So the next part. Where do you find these online degrees? Now there are many different platforms. I currently know about two. If you know of any other platforms, please write them in the comments below. Suggested to people: if you think they are good, well, the first platform is Coursera. Now I use Coursera all the time because of my degree. My degree is on Coursera, so my virtual learning environment will be Coursera. And it again differs from all the other universities; whatever the platform they’re using, the VLE, the virtual learning environment, will be that specific platform.
So it’s Coursera, and Coursera offers many different degrees from the University of London and American universities as well. They also offer master’s degrees. As well, the catalog, you know, these degrees are slowly getting bigger and bigger. You might have used Corsair for many different certificates, Google certificates, if you have done that, and some IBM certificates, if you have tried that on Coursera. But you can also find degrees there. Another platform is EdX. Now, EdX is well known for CS10, Harvard’s free courses that you can take to get a tastetasteof computer science. I started it and never gave it to you. But in addition to those courses, paid courses, and certificates, they also offer degrees from mostly American universities.
Universities so that you can find a whole lot of master’s and bachelor’s degrees in many different fields of study, and again, if that degree is on EDX, then the platform they’re gonna use to teach you will probably be EDX as well. Now, in addition to these two main platforms, universities also offer online degrees outside of them. They will have their own virtual learning environment. So they won’t be using anything like Coursera or EDX. They might. I don’t. I am not sure. Because whenever the degree is on a platform, it is only then that they will have that specific virtual learning environment, such as EDX, of course, or anything else. Otherwise, you can find degrees online by just going to Google and typing in ‘online degrees UK’ or ‘online degrees USA’.
But you can find online degrees by doing a Google search, visiting the university’s website, checking it out, emailing them, and asking how much it costs for the degree and for all the information about it. So, other than these two—edX and Coursera—you can find a whole lot of degrees outside of those two platforms. Now, the next thing. Enrolling in an online degree now. Don’t go ahead and ask me what documents they require in the comment section. They have different criteria for every other student, because the university is online. People from all over the world will apply, bringing diverse educational systems and experiences. Some will be working full-time and want to transition into a different field.
So there will always be different criteria for all of those people. Therefore, the easiest thing you can do is email those on the website. They can find their email addresses on the page where they list their degrees, and there you can email them. They will probably have an email address; if you contact them by email, they will email you back. They need to m. They have inquiries, and they might have a system for inquiries about how the degree works. They will guide you on how to apply and how long it takes to complete the entire registration process, including the fees. And how one region might have different fees.
So it’s better to go ahead and email them and ask them directly, rather than watching a video like this one to know about ‘What? documents they need, and how to actually apply. Because, uh, the rules keep changing. And some information might not apply to everyone, so the best thing is to email them directly. It’s again a university that you’re applying to, so most of the rules and regulations and the criteria are quite similar to what the physical university asks you to provide. So it’s not that different, but keep this in mind: you might have an idea of what documents you’ll need to provide to that university. So this leads to the next part. Once you’re enrolled, how do you actually study?
If you found your degree on EdX, Coursera, or another platform with a bunch of courses and degrees, then your virtual learning environment will be that platform. In my case, my degree was on Coursera, as I said before. The virtual learning environment is again Coursera. Now that the version learning environment is similar for everything. So, even if you have done the smallest free course on that platform, the environment will be similar to what the university will have. So, on Coursera, courses are divided into weeks. So, from the day you start until the day you are expected to end. You have everything mapped up in weeks. So you start with week 1 to three and four, and so on.
You will have all of the videos divided into those weeks. So if you’re doing a degree from the University of London, they have their own online library so that you can check all the books. It might be in computer science, law, or any other field. So all of those books are at your disposal. It is quite nice to have that platform. But beyond just having the platform, they also offer webinars for my degree. It’s just like a webinar in three months and/ or four months. But this again depends on different degrees. Now, all degrees, even those offered by the University of London, have different teaching methods. Some might not even have webinars, and some might have webinars in three.
Four to three to four months, some might have webinars every week. So it depends on the degree you’re doing and where you’re doing it. Even if it’s from the University of London, they will have different rules, because different institutions offer those degrees. So the next platform is again EdX. As I said, the same thing applies to this as well. If you have taken any course on EdX, you’re gonna have the same learning environment for that degree as well. There might be some changes, but things are laid out quite similarly to whatever smaller course you have done on that same platform. However, if you’re doing a degree on theon the university’s own platform, they will have different systems that I’m not totally aware of because I’ve never used them.
But you will have to use their platform, and it will differ from university to university. It might be weekly-based. You might have everything provided to you. It is again different for all the universities. If you’re using a university platform or are considering enrolling in a degree before doing so, you can go ahead on either the EdX or Coursera platform. You can go ahead and try some free courses there and then get an idea of how the virtual learning environment works. Before moving forward, let’s talk about Coursera. So, Coursera is a really good platform to do any certification. They have courses from Google and IBM.
They have courses on many different topics and fields that you can use to kickstart your career in any of them, and add more to your knowledge base and skill set. I’m currently taking Google’s UX Design course, which is really good. I really liked it, and it’s really knowledgeable, adding to my skill set. I have some of my really favorite courses down in the description below. You can follow the link in the description to check them out and do them if you like them. You can expand your skill set and knowledge base by completing some Coursera certifications. So next, time and flexibility.
Now, it takes almost three years to complete a British degree and four years for an American degree, and the same time applies to both versions of the online degree. So if you’re doing a degree at a British institution, you will have a maximum of 6 years to complete it and a minimum of 3. So you can complete the degree in three years. And the same is the case. An American degree requires a minimum of 4 years, and it can be extended to the length specified by the university’s policy. Just talking about the University of London, since I know more about it: you have a lot of flexibility. Since you have like six years to complete the degree, you can literally take the minimum amount of subjects.
The maximum number of subjects you can take is four. Sometimes, the maximum number of subjects you can take is two. You can take one subject, or just two or four subjects, according to your convenience. Again, it’s you— pay as. you go and I’ll talk about fees in the next section but it’s quite flexible and you can drop in subjects if you want you can take in subject whenever you want and all of the degrees of offered by university of london have the same system but for american degrees i am not sure about how much flexibility they will offer but most probably they will have the same flexibility of dropping in subjects as you want and but the fee structure might be different but
Again, they might offer the same flexibility. You. You can email the universities to see how they work, what the rules are for each Semester, and what flexibility each university offers, and then make a decision now. Regarding the next section’s fees, online degrees offered by the same university will be cheaper than those at physical universities. Now, for American universities, you might pay $200,000 for a physical degree. Still, in an online version of that, maybe not the same degree, but an online version of the degree of the same field, but from a different university, might cost you around $46, 000 or $50,000.
However, if you pursue a similar degree at a physical university, you might be paying much more. Everybody knows how expensive American degrees usually are; they might cost you around $200,000, considering you don’t get a scholarship. Obviously, you can get a scholarship. You might get a 100% scholarship for your physical degree. That’s even better. Go ahead to America and get that degree. But if you’re someone who cannot afford to go there and can afford an online degree, then that’s probably a more viable and cheaper option than a traditional degree. But for a British degree, it is much more than an online American degree. You might pay as much as 12 to 17,000 pounds, or even more.
It might be expensive for some people in local currency. Still, it is relatively cheaper than attending a physical university and paying for the same modules year after year as an international student. In comparison, the grades are quite different. But now we’re talking about the University of London. They charge per Semester. The fees usually depend on how many modules you selected or registered for. So, let’s say you registered for four subjects; you will pay for four. If you want to take a break for a semester, you don’t just register for a subject; after That Semester, you can go ahead and register. This rule is quite similar across all the degrees offered by the University of London, and it is a really good way to pay: rather than just paying for a whole year, you pay as you go, per Semester, according to the number of modules you have registered.
Well, this leads to the next section, recognizing prior learning. Many people wonder whether universities accept prior learning. And do they reduce some of your modules and give you credit hours for those modules since you have already studied them? Well, it differs from university to university. For the University of London, it depends on what degree you’re doing. This rule does not apply to all the degrees offered by the University of London. For mine, at least, they have a list of certificates that you can do to reduce some of the modules. You can remove almost two to three modules by completing the course certifications they mentioned on their list. But in most cases, don’t really have high oops.
Some degrees will really accept all of the modules that you have done in a similar degree, but in a physical version of it. However, there might be universities that accept that. So it depends on you adding the university to an application you have completed, and providing proof that you have completed those subjects. Still, again, it depends on the university, all right, so the next section: Examinations. Now, I will talk about the University of London. And I don’t know about American universities, but at the University of London, all exams have been online since COVID. Before COVID, they conducted physical examinations. Therefore, you would have to go to an exam center in a different city if the university is offering that degree in your country.
Then they will have a center, but it might not be nearest to you. You might have to go to another city to take those exams. But again, that was an old rule when examinations were not online. But now that the examinations are online, you don’t have to pay for them, and you are automatically enrolled. And the rules for online examinations are also changing. Some might have a 4-hour time limit to complete the examination; some might have less, and again, it depends on the degree. They all now have a proctoring system. My degree didn’t have one till now. Still, now they have a proctoring system, and most of the time, even if it’s an American degree, they use an online testing system, and that proctoring system may differ across degrees.
They might be using Inspira, which might monitor your webcam, audio, and screen. And Sampai jumpa. There is a difference between the universities and the degrees: mostly at the University of London, all examinations are online. And proctored now, this last part of the degree is usually about your reviews. Whenever you are considering a physical degree, you usually check out the school’s rankings, see if it’s actually worth it, check the alum reviews, and look at a subreddit about that degree in general. The same thing is here, except you might not be able to find all the reviews for that specific degree because the idea of an online degree is still new.
It might be five to ten years old, but again, it’s still new. You may not be able to find all the reviews for all the degrees, but for my degree, students have a subreddit dedicated to that degree and a Discord server. Prospective and current students can talk about the degree and ask questions to students already studying in that system. TheThe basic way I suggest is to go to Google, type in the name of the university and the degree they’re offering online, and then type in ‘reddit’ at the end. Whatever that ‘whatever’ the degree is, just type in ‘reddit’ in the end.
You’ll find a thread about that degree. If they’re talking about the degree, you can check that there’s always a thread down there. People might give their review of how their experience was, and you could also find a subreddit for that if you’re lucky. But mostly, the most popular degrees have a subreddit because they have quite a lot of students. Students make it easier for people who are about to pursue the degree, and they might have a Discord server. As I said for my degree, there is a Discord server. ‘Hand in the pie’ students. Well, the second way is to find a Facebook group. You can find a Facebook group for many different universities.
Facebook is not dead, yeah, you’ll have to find something on Facebook as well. I found some reviews for different degrees on Facebook because I couldn’t find any subreddits or threads discussing those degrees. Still, Facebook groups are another option to find reviews or feedback about that degree. Well, that’s it for today’s video. I know it was a long one, and I hope it is helpful and has cleared a whole lot of things. If you’re a a regular viewer, I haven’t posted a whole lot about the University of London and online degrees in general these days. If you have any other questions, please write them in the comments below. I will reply to them.
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