Numbers Show Workers Like Learning on ‘Net
These days it seems anyone interested in a promotion needs a master’s degree. The problem is, few people have the time to earn one.
Or so they might think.
Working adults in San Diego have the option of never stepping into a classroom , or the country for that matter , to achieve a graduate degree.
“I’ve got 20 people right now in an econ class that are spread, literally, all over the world and the instructor is in New Delhi,” said Larry Rubly, director of distance learning at Keller Graduate School of Management.
In September 1998, Keller instituted the online learning program at all 37 campuses, including the Mission Valley center. Through it, students need never step inside a classroom to obtain a degree. Everything is done online.
Keller, which is based in Chicago, is just one local for-profit graduate school that offers Internet classes for working professionals. Webster, National, Chapman and Phoenix universities all offer some online classes, and some (National and Phoenix) offer all classes required for a couple of graduate degrees. Currently, Keller has 60 classes to choose from and all courses for six graduate degrees.
That attracts many students to Keller, because even if a local center doesn’t have the classes a student needs in-house, it’s a good bet it will be on the Internet, said Dora Donovan, director of the San Diego Keller Graduate School of Management.
Currently, 12 of the local center’s 90 students take all their classes online and many more split their class load between traditional and virtual classrooms, Donovan said.
– Graduate Classes
Offered After Work
Keller offers a half-dozen graduate degree programs and accreditation courses built into an after-work, 10-week session “semester.”
Using a mix of E-mails, threaded conversation boards and chat rooms, students are graded on their contributions to group projects, participation in the conversation boards and individual performance on assignments, projects, papers and case studies.
Through that framework, students download class assignments from Web sites and instructors monitor the times per week students log on.
“It’s convenient,” MBA student Christine Murphy said. “You can log on anytime, even two in the morning.”
Of Murphy’s 16 MBA classes, she took 10 online.
A little apprehensive at first, Murphy found juggling Internet classes around her work schedule at T-Bird Restaurant Group in La Jolla easier than taking traditional classes. She took all three of her classes last session through the distance learning program, and a financial planning class this session.
– Basic Computer
Equipment Needed
The Internet classes are available, basically, to anyone. All that’s needed is a basic model computer, 4xCD-ROM drive, sound card and speakers, an Internet service provider, and an E-mail account.
The program availability has attracted many San Diegans to Keller in the last year.
“We increased (overall) enrollment 20 percent in the last six months,” Donovan said.
The move to Internet classes is attracting more professionals to the virtual podium as well.
Rubly believes 100 more current instructors will take the required orientation course to lead the Internet classes by the time the school expands the online curriculum by 40 classes in early 2001. Already, 100 of Keller’s 800 instructors teach the school’s 60 distant learning sessions.
“There’s very, very high interest,” said Rubly, who himself possesses an MBA and two non-business master’s degrees. “We’re working on a way now to respond to this demand from the faculty that they want to teach online by getting them more courses.”
– Instructors Praise
Distance Learning
Here in San Diego, Donovan reports regularly fielding calls of praise for the distance learning program from instructors. Her favorite one, she says, is the instructor who insists he can grade his students from a beach in Hawaii.
Donovan began working for Keller four months after the program’s first session was launched. She too, possesses three master’s degrees she earned in the traditional classroom environment and is uneasy in recommending the program to first-session students who are not familiar with graduate school expectations.
“I think we get away from the fact that an MBA program was founded on the premise that the emphasis is on team-building skills,” she said.
The center director noted, though, that younger Keller students today usually don’t wait several years before seeking a graduate degree and therefore adapt better. She has taken a page from their book and plans to become a distance learning instructor soon, because, Donovan said, “I think it’s awesome.”
