Clicking Your Way to an MBA - online classes in continuing education

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, March, 1999 by Marc L. Schulhof

Online learning lets you log on to top-notch degree programs across the country.

As Vince Sutera contemplates squeezing a part-time MBA program into his busy life, he's focusing on programs at top universities near his Chicago home. Yet when he recently decided he needed some specific training for a project at work, he enrolled in a course taught 800 miles away--at Wharton, the business school at the University of Pennsylvania.

"It was just very timely," explains Sutera, 34, a new-business developer for Bellcore, a telecommunications consulting and software-development firm. And he didn't have to go to Philadelphia to get it. The six-week course came to him via Wharton Direct--as in, direct to students way off campus. The three-hour evening classes were held at a private video-conferencing center in one of Chicago's suburbs.

Sutera's classroom--and a dozen like it around the country--was equipped with big-screen TVs for watching the weekly lecture, and personal computers sunk into each desktop for viewing information that would have been presented as slides if the professor and students had been together in a traditional lecture hall. A video camera mounted above the TVs, and microphones suspended from the ceiling, allowed the professor (who was in Philadelphia) to see and hear the students. Sutera used his computer to take notes, electronically raise his hand and send e-mail questions to teaching assistants, who answered in real time.

"I didn't have any hesitation about taking this sort of course," says Sutera. "I understand this technology. For me, it was very comfortable." The cost, $2,500, was picked up by his employer.

WHAT'S OUT THERE. The Wharton Direct class is one of hundreds (many leading to certificates or degrees) offered through "distance learning" providers. The schools--from top-tier universities to community colleges to strictly online institutions--are capitalizing on videoconferencing, the Internet and real-time video to attract students who don't live anywhere near the campus (and even some who do). Distance-education consultant Vicky Phillips, president of Lifelong Learning, says one million students are taking some sort of "virtual" course. More than half of all U.S. colleges offer them.

"A lot of the newer programs have been built around the whole concept of interaction, of re-creating the social environment of the classroom," says Phillips. "In the earlier systems, you weren't directly connected either to the faculty or to the students. You had a book and a videotaped lecture mailed to you, and the interaction was between you and the materials."

Many distance-learning programs are business-related because employers are willing to foot the bill for continuing education. But individual course offerings run the gamut of professional training and personal curiosity, from the Creative Nonfiction Workshop at the University of California (Berkeley) Extension Online to Introduction to Psychology through New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

One advantage of going the distance for a class is that you have far more options to choose from than those offered at the schools within, say, a 30-mile radius of your house. That's especially valuable for residents of rural areas--but it's just as vital for people who don't want to waste time commuting in rush-hour traffic, or for those who would rather work online while they're at home with their kids than spend those hours in a classroom. "One of the things that stops people from getting further training is the fact that they'll have to interrupt their lives to do it," notes Laura Berman Fortgang, a career coach and author of Take Yourself to the Top (Warner Books).

Dr. Kenneth Steiner, a practicing physician and director of a large, multispecialty medical group in New Jersey, enrolled in the University of Tennessee's Physician Executive MBA program because it offered him unique training. The one-year program focuses on the health care industry and admits only doctors. It's exclusively online, except for four one-week residency sessions on the Knoxville campus.

"There was an adjustment period for the first four or six weeks of getting used to the online classroom," Steiner says. "Now that I've adapted to the environment, I think it has advantages over being in an actual classroom. You have virtually all of your assignments, spreadsheets and books available immediately to review during any class discussion."

Steiner puts in 30 hours or more of study time each week in preparation for the online classes held each Saturday morning. From his office computer he can send questions to his professor and have private "conversations" with other students.

CAVEAT LEARNER. Dr. Steiner conducted exhaustive research before settling on his MBA program. That's good advice for anyone considering distance learning. Choosing a distance program requires the same diligence as choosing a traditional school, plus special attention to the methods of instruction.