What are the drawbacks of taking an online course?
Online courses require participants to take a much more active role in the learning process. The distance nature of the courses means that students must be prepared to take on greater responsibility than those engaged in traditional learning. You will need to discipline yourself to stay actively involved with the course, and may find that you spend an even greater amount of time reading and preparing for this course than you do in a traditional course. Also, since you may not see the instructor face-to-face, you will need to communicate with him or her regularly through e-mail. Although you can work on most assignments any time of the day, distance education courses actually require more planning than traditional courses. Furthermore, research has shown that although students who complete a distance education course learn as much as (sometimes more than) students in traditional classes, the drop-out rate for distance learners tends to be higher, perhaps because some students need face-
