Something is missed in online-only college learning

Can you get the full college experience from the comfort of your living room? (AP Photo/file)

Students can get a college education and even a degree these days from the comfort of their own living room. But are people taking courses exclusively online getting the full college experience?

Dave Ross has been exploring online course offerings from the free online eduction site Coursera, which offers free online classes from well established universities, including the University of Washington, Princeton, and Stanford.

“You know how cheap I am,” says Dave Ross. “When they announced they were giving these things out for free, I said ‘What the heck, what can I lose?'”

Dave signed up for an Introduction to Finance course taught by Gautam Kaul, a professor of finance at the Ross School of Business (RSB), University of Michigan.

So far, Dave is making excellent progress in the course material, having scored two perfect grades and one 80 percent on his first three exams.

“I’m about four weeks into it and I’m learning my formulas,” says Dave. “I’m learning how to make actual spreadsheets that can give you real results, so eventually after this 10-week course, I can tell Microsoft how to make more money.”

He says his professor is a very effective instructor with an engaging teaching style.

“He explains it. He’s got a sense of humor,” says Dave. “He’s not just force feeding you formulas, he’s teaching you what goes on behind them.”

Comparing his online Coursera learning to his university studies as a college student at Cornell, Dave says it’s definitely not the same. He says a big reason he can’t see himself getting quite as much out of it has to do with the fact that he can’t interact with the professor.

Coursera courses are offered to thousands of people at one time and professors don’t have direct contact with students. Dave says he can have chats with other “similarly uninformed people” in the online education site’s forums, but that’s not really as helpful as a one-on-one with an expert instructor.

Online courses offered directly from universities may have more interaction with professors, but in Dave’s online course, the professor issued a message early on that discouraged students from contacting him.

“While we love all of you, responding to questions will be virtually impossible,” says the message.

Luke Burbank brings up another point of contact that’s not as available in an online education setting. Looking back at his own college experience, he remembers the sense of community he found his first day on campus.

“When I went to the UW and I moved into McMahon Hall, I brought all my stuff over in my parent’s station wagon and I unloaded it into that tiny room and then was just walking around the dorms and the campus. It was just teeming with other people my age who were all living not at home for the first time,” says Luke.

While he says online courses make sense, especially if classes can be offered more cheaply to more students, he thinks attending school in an online-only setting doesn’t give students everything that a brick-and-mortar college experience can.

“That was honestly one of the happiest days of my entire life,” says Luke of his first day at UW. “I don’t think you quite get that same sense.”

Even as an online-only student, Dave joked he’d be split on who to root for this football season.

“I am, after all, now enrolled at the University of Michigan online,” says Ross, who shortly thereafter came up with yet another level that could be added to the online education experience – “online football games,” Dave suggests, “they’re fought in the cloud.”

Listen to full Ross and Burbank discussion on online learning:

By JAMIE GRISWOLD, MyNorthwest.com Editor