Internet College Course

As many of you know I am currently taking college courses on-line to “enhance” my already brilliant mind, and  to do something productive while I pursue “retirement” employment.  The process of Internet classes intrigued me.  After all, I took hundreds of similar courses in the military, and how often do you get to take a course in your underwear in your basement. But now the whole process has left me perplexed and a bit dismayed. 

For those who may have never taken a course on-line the process is quite easy.   You go to a college and sign up for the course just like any other.  Then you log onto a web site where your homework assignments  are posted and submitted, discussions are held, etc.  Pretty cool right?  However, I have found one thing missing… instruction.

We do have a “professor” named Laverne, she seems like a great person, but the only interaction we have with her are small messages like “good job on your last assignment”, and the only “instruction” is two or three short “notes” on each chapter of the textbook.  The website doesn’t have video or audio or any other way for the instructor to pass on information, so I don’t blame the instructor, it just seems like there should be more.

My big question here is, what am I and the Tax Payer paying for (since I am using the GI Bill)?  This is an even more relevant question when you consider I had to pay more for this course than I would have if I went to the school house.  I mean I could have gone on Amazon.com and bought the “obsolete” version of the textbook for $6.00, done the exercises at my own pace and still have accomplished what I have so far.   It all seems like a ton of money for a piece of paper to state I took the class.  I have friends who are teachers and professors, maybe they can explain it to me…

I am supposed to start another “condensed” class here in a couple of weeks, but I am thinking of dropping it.  My son has Spring Break in the middle of the class and I just can’t seem to justify spending time on a computer, self teaching myself, when I could spend a bit more time with him.  I guess I’ll decide next week. 

I could go on with more complaining, I did not even talk about how the college will only transfer one semester of credits (about 18 hours) out of my nearly 300 “unused” credits, but I’ll stop here.