Should I study online or not?

We have all been affected in different ways by COVID-19, some more than others, but my focus for this article are the students whose dreams have been temporarily postponed by this pandemic. Some of the countries have managed to control the spread, but it will be a while before the borders open for any international travel. For students who want to continue with their studies, an available option is to study online, however, some-to-many are hesitant about taking it up. So, the question doing the rounds is should you study online or not?

Online education has been in the world for a while, actually as early as the 80s, when the Indian government established Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) to cater to those people who might not be able to attend classes on campus. Today, the distance education campus is estimated to have over 4 million enrolled students.

Well, if you take the numbers as such, it would mean that distance or online education is popular, however, online education only became popular in the last 5-10 years with the emergence of Udacity. Anyway, this history is not going to convince a student to accept online education. Let’s look at some of the reasons for this reluctance that I found while snooping around forums and social media platforms:

a)     Quality of online learning – Is it the same as a face-to-face (F2F) lecture?

b)     What about the campus experience?

c)      What if my student visa gets refused after I started with my online studies?

d)     Some countries offer post-study work visas – Would it be same for online studies?

These are compelling reasons and I can empathize with the students considering education is an investment and like any investment, there is some form of quality and return expected.

13 years back when I was studying in Australia, online recordings were used as a supplement to the F2F classes, and these were just audio files. Fast-forward to present day and the world has advanced to an extent when classes are taught virtually; in terms of quality, universities have invested in technology that recreates the same experience that students would feel in a lecture room. Yes, it definitely is not the same as studying on campus, but it does provide an opportunity to continue one’s studies without interruption, and universities are allowing students to maintain reduced study loads. Additionally, the platforms used also allows students to interact among themselves and share ideas.

Some of the universities allow students to trial online learning for a few weeks and see if it works for them, if not, there is an option to withdraw. I would also suggest checking the refund policy for universities as some of the universities will provide a full refund even though you started your course online and then later received a visa refusal. In such a scenario, as a student, you do not have anything to lose, so grab the opportunity with both hands, and when the borders open, you can move to the campus.

The feedback from students/parents about enabling the post-study work visa to students who study online during the COVID-19 period has been heard by the immigration departments of different countries. Some countries have already added this to their policy such as Canada; others such as New Zealand have already set it up for their current students and working on the policy for the future students. At this point, we will need to be patient and see what the other governments do, but in my opinion, they will do what is beneficial for you, the students.

I, for one, believed that education was moving towards the hybrid model of online and F2F, however, it seems to have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Look at the bright side, studying online with a reduced load also gives you an opportunity to focus on other aspects to develop your overall profile; taking myself as an example, I am currently studying a blog/article-writing course which I am doing out of interest and in turn also developing my profile, but this a topic to discuss for another day. There are a number of online platforms providing free courses such as Udemy, Coursera, EdX and Futurelearn where you can test yourself and see if online studies is your cup of tea.