It's nice to learn about experiences others have had with Distance Learning in universities. When I chose AU I hadn't shopped around that much and their prices seemed to be reasonable. I'd been out of school for a long time and was more concerned that if I was to fail I wanted to do so in the privacy of my own home! As it turned out, I did well and even made the Dean's list one semester. Because I lived in Alberta I liked the idea of a school that was also in Alberta. On-campus activity consisted of science labs that were held in Edmonton where I lived as well as Athabasca and Calgary, where I commuted to and rented a motel room. My decision to go to Calgary was made in order to complete the course sooner than if I'd waited until the lab was held in Edmonton. The lab at Athabasca was attended by people as far away as Montreal.

AU's asynchronous schedule was an advantage for me. I liked to do one course at a time, finish it in about a month then write the mid-term and final within days of each other. Telephone tutoring was always available (tutor hours varied) but I felt that often it wasn't necessary. For some courses like chemistry I often did all the problems in the back of each chapter rather than just the ones that were assigned. Because of that, I felt that I got more out of AU than I would from a residential school. Residential school on the other hand still offers more choices than DE.

Just like anything else, if you are simply determined to do whatever it takes you will do fine. For me that meant lots of study time and lots of extra problems. Studying the material and following the study guides closely gave me the ability to do well on the exams. Teachers at AU are excellent and completely on par with those in residential schools. My AU professors had more time to spend with students one-on-one. I preferred "hard" courses like the sciences over the "soft" courses like English.

Overall, I found AU to be an excellent school that fit my needs at the time. I plan to take more computer science courses in the future via DE although I haven't yet decided on a school. In general though I liked AU and think it does an excellent job of teaching what it teaches. I feel it sets an excellent example of what distance education is about.

MurrayMD,

I just recently registered with Athabasca with intentions of completing my entire B.Comm degree online.

I'm curious if you read everything and did ALL exercises for every course. Basically, I registered in 5 courses and just received all of my course materials. Upon inspection of them, I realized there is WAY more to these courses than I originally thought. For instance, on top of the books that must be read, I also received all sorts of things to access all these sites on the Internet for additional reading and questions/exercises. Did you receive and/or use all this additional material?

For example, I took Commercial Law right away. I have my Student Manual, Study Guide, and Textbook. Great. But then I find all these additional enclosures telling me to go to these websites and register with the pin numbers provided to me. It is literally like a giant spider web of reading material they gave me, and this is for every course. I feel as though by the time I'm finished 1 course alone I will have read half the material available on the entire Internet. (okay I know I'm exaggerating here but you get the idea). Did you actually use all this information? Are they expecting you to read everything? I was joking with my wife that by the time I'm finished this one law course I would have the ability to practice law (which is the ultimate goal for me anyway) as it touches on everything.

I don't know. I guess I'm just flabbergasted at all the online reading material. Surely there isn't this much in a traditional university setting.

I was interested in that program as well but got into a science and engineering track when I realized it suited me more. I thought it was a very good degree program though.

I did for courses like chemistry (two inorganic, one organic) and geology (98% exam average) as well as accounting (introductory and intermediate). I was told by someone to follow the study guide closely so as not to get sidetracked. All AU courses are more reading intensive than their traditional counterparts. One benefit to AU courses I found was that I always had a pretty good idea what was expected of me in order to get a good grade. English was my worst subject; I took it first just to get it out of the way then stayed away from arts courses after that. The idea of paying someone to give mediocre grades in subjectively marked courses is more of a way to support people who could earn better livelihoods as prostitutes if they had greater ambition.

But back to school, I think I covered all the material including the extra, but I know that DE courses are more reading-intensive to begin with and Law is well-known to be probably the most reading-intensive of any academic subject. I was also a little cautious and did my courses one at a time: this had advantages: one, it allowed me to wake up with the previous day's study material fresh in mind and continue where I left off; and two, it allowed me to write the midterm and final within a couple of days of each other and keep the material fresh. I put myself on a pretty tight schedule of one month per course and rarely went over the limit. I found that I could focus much better on one course at a time but that might not be the same for others.


I understand that law courses are much more reading intensive; I've never taken any myself although I've thought about it. I don't know of a practical way to predict how difficult a course is going to be, sometimes you get hit with a real doozer and have to bite the bullet. Once you're committed though you just have to keep on. That can be more difficult in a traditional school where once you get behind it can be very difficult to catch up. AU's asynchronous mode allows you to spend more time on your weaker areas and maybe a little less on your stronger ones and there are always those 3-month extensions as well. Law in general requires more reading so I would think it's good practice for the real thing. People starting careers in law spend a lot of time at their jobs, probably double what a government employee would spend. A lot of that time is probably spent reading.

There might be for law. But in general, I found DE courses at AU to be significantly more reading-intensive than at the traditional schools I've attended. I went traditional to get a degree I thought would be more recognized by potential employers and I'd decided to go full-time anyway. I can appreciated how you must feel when seeing all that material for the first time though! I hope it all goes well for you. School can be very tough but very rewarding too.

Dave

Having completed both my undergrad and MBA in Canada, I can think of three factors to keep in mind when considering this and the subsequent post that a "$26,000" for a Bachelors degree is a normal cost:

1. Until very recently, Canadian "universities" were public institutions, funded by our taxes. That said, $2,500 a year for Canadians and several times that amount for foreign students was during my time a "normal" cost for a Bachelors.

2. Even though there has been movement in allowing private universities,
none of them are either well known or have much reputation here.

3. When I began my MBA, at McMaster University, an AACSB-accredited MBA school, $5,000 was a normal amount for non-foreign fees. By the time I finished, big-name (but equally AACSB-accredited) MBA schools like University of Toronto, charged about double that. Also, a very large proportion of my MBA colleagues by then were foreign students who paid more than double what I did.

www.RobinCheung.Info

Robin -

(1) You're talking grad school fees. The postings were about undergrad. It's 'way different. I was quoting McMaster University's fee at the time for a 3-unit undergrad course - and I got it by walking out to Westdale and asking! (Yeah, I could have phoned -it's a local call- but I needed the exercise!)

(2) And I think Online_degrees had a factual and salient point when he said online courses were available in Canada for much lower fees than Athabasca's, from Manitoba, other provinces and at another university in Alberta. Indeed, he had the figures to prove it! By the numbers, Athabasca does indeed charge a higher rate for on-line study (undergrad) than many other Canadian Universities. Athabasca is generally (but not universally) regarded as a very good school and many perceive its fee structure as justified, by good value. Others may differ...

(3) We're also fully aware of the foreign and domestic fee differential. Yeah, it's huge - usually 'way more than double, but that's for foreign students resident in Canada! Wasn't relevant to the discussion -at all!

Try to stay on topic!

Johann

I have been with AU in the last few years taking B.A courses on&off (along with courses with other DE providers such as Open University, Exeter, Oxford, Cardiff...so I'm in a position to tell the difference ); I also pay differential fees as a foreigner.
My experience with AU this far has been good.

my only remark is that I tried to deal with Manitoba. The choice is great, but I found a problem with them that is very common with brick&mortar schools running DE courses on the side:
* long waiting before getting replies
* none to answer the phone; counselors more clueless than I was
* inflexibility
* more demands placed on me
* poorer infrastructure

AU does not place a limit (so they said) on the number of letters of permission one might get, so I can shop around different DE providers and -most times- get credit with AU, too.
In the long run one might easily end up with 2 degrees instead of one.
They are stingy when it comes to prior learning and credits, though.

Hi Ham -

Glad you've had good experience (as a whole) with Athabasca. Sorry to hear about the "stinginess" with prior experience and credits, etc.

I think it's a mixed bag.

Yes, I've known people with 15-20 years of progressive, responsible business/managerial/tech experience to come away with 15-20 credits for their experiential portfolio. Agreed, that's not a whole lot -- but it's just about what most I've heard from had learned to expect, on the way to creating the portfolio.

On the other side, I don't know ANY accredited/properly chartered school in ANY country that will award NEARLY as much credit for a Canadian Community College diploma as Athabasca. In this country, a two (or sometimes three) year program at a Community College (exception: British Columbia) gets you a diploma - not an associate degree.

Here in Ontario at least, the gnomes of each University "hum and haw," look at you sideways and then make up their individual, evil minds as to what credits will be awarded for a college diploma. I've seen the same student offered 6 units/credit hours at one school (two COURSES) and two YEARS at another! And yes, we're talking the same college diploma and the same university program!

Athabasca is 'WAY better than other Canadian Schools in this regard. If you have a two-year College diploma with decent marks, they'll generally give you "time served" (2 years) or close, towards a degree.

I wish more Canadian (and other) Universities would follow Athabasca's example in this regard!

Great school!

Johann