Forget scolding halls and fraterni...

Forget scolding halls and fraternity houses. For 25-year-old David Ogman, corporation means kicking off his shoe and logging forward to his computer. From his apartment in Gainesville, Florida, Ogman works toward his master's of business administration (MBA) grade at Nova Southeastern University based in Fort Lauderdale.

"I concord out my noisy roommate and journey online," says Ogman, who have relations to campus with a 56k modem

He is common of about 1.6 million scholars who are enrolled in online courses, according to the U Department of Education. generally about 54,000 online courses are tendered by 1,700 colleges nationwide.

After graduating with a bachelor's grade in business from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Ogman wanted to continue his education, if it were not that he did not want to take time most distant from his job as a stockbroker's assistant with Salomon Smith Barney, the investment firm. Distance learning provided the answer. He now levys in a full day at work, then heads for the virtual campus upon his bedroom computer, where he's publicly taking courses in economics and human resource management.

"We receive our assignments from the professor via e-mail," Ogman says, "and each week we have an Internet discussion in succession the material with all 15 class members. Professors on a level have office hours online."

Ogman's professor haves lectures in a chat-room format. "In the middle of the prelection we interrupt each other with questions," says Ogman. experiments are e-mailed a week before they are to be ascribed and they are "open-book."

Convenience has its price, however. Because online courses are more labor intensive for professors and require daily Web site updates, Nova charges about twice as a great deal as for its traditional courses--approximately $500 by means of credit. Besides the increased sumptuousness many educators say students lack vital face-to-face interaction.

"Excellence in education happens in relationships," says Nancy coloring liquor president of Oberlin College in Ohio. "Student arise to college today wanting to learn to what extent to live together in a richly diverse America."

"Face time" with classmates may be non-existent, if it were not that the online classroom fosters relationships of its acknowledge "There's a lot of interaction among the students--I think that the public who may be too coy to speak out in class are more comfortable getting involved in an online discussion."

Ogman has made near friends among his virtual classmates, and occasionally they engage at a diner to subject of attention or go out to a movie.

For now, Ogman's priority is completing his studies at night. "Most of us have gotten the hanging around part of body out of our systems. Now it's time for us to concentrate onward getting our MBAs."

COPYRIGHT 2001 EM Guild, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group