Online courses are becoming ever more popular. Whether you have just left school and you want a degree but also need to work, or you are thinking about changing careers later in life and need the qualifications to enable this to happen, an online course could be the ideal option for you.
They are flexible, affordable, and your qualification will be recognized by any employer. With that in mind, it’s crucial that, if you are going to study successfully for an online course, you work out exactly how to do it before you begin.
Here are some tip to help you.
Add Learning To Your Real Life
It’s one thing to sit down at your desk and watch your course videos or read the books required and write the essays you need to write to prove your learning, but it’s quite another to apply that learning to your real life. If you can, however, then the information will stick much more, and it will be useful too.
One of the great things about online learning is that it’s flexible. This means that you can take what you’ve learned and use it in a part-time employment setting or as a volunteer somewhere. If you want to be a nursing assistant and you’re taking nursing assistant courses to get you there, volunteering at a care home is a great way to put your learning to the test, for example.
Set Rules At The Start
One of the issues that some people find when they apply for online courses is that, because they are not sitting in front of a lecturer in a class of other people, they can procrastinate. The whole point of online learning is that you can do it around your other commitments, meaning you can work at your own pace. Unfortunately, for some, this can mean that it’s hard to get started as there is potentially less accountability.
This is why it’s vital to set some rules right from the start. Work out a timetable to show when you can study and stick to it – barring emergencies, of course – and create a set of rules that works for you regarding the study itself. Perhaps you won’t allow yourself to watch your favorite show until you’ve done an hour of study, for example. Find what works for you and implement it immediately.
Little And Often
It might be tempting to leave all your study until the weekend, telling yourself that you can do many hours at a time if you get up early on Saturday and Sunday and spend the entire day working. The problem is, by the time the weekend comes, you’ll want a break – and you should have a break, working seven days a week isn’t good for you – so you’ll probably get less done than you intended.
It’s actually better to do a little every day rather than save up all your work and try to do it all at once. Doing your studies in a ‘little and often’ manner makes it far less daunting and a lot more manageable. You’ll remember more, enjoy the course more, and your future prospects will be better too. Plus, you’ll get to have a break at the weekends and enjoy yourself, preventing you from resenting the course you’re taking.
