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With the passage of time, the number of students who prefer to study online has increased. More students are studying online now than ever before, and that is partially because of the convenience of online degrees. An online degree, compared to traditional brick-and-mortar on-site degrees, gives students the chance to multitask and also saves them a lot of money.
Business schools are amongst the schools that have started to offer their curriculum online, and why wouldn’t they? The latest statistics show that, on average, 33% of all college students are taking at least one course online. Is this just a coincidence, or do these numbers indicate a trend? Statistics also show that nowadays, education is more blended than ever.
Nowadays, 80% of the content delivered to students online is entirely online and does not present a need for a student to visit the campus. Online education nowadays has become a necessity for the longevity of a state-of-the-art educational institution. Because so many students want to study online, an institution that does not provide students with the opportunity to study online will be left behind in the race of quality education.
The same need for a digital presence can be seen in business graduates who want to obtain a Master’s degree. A graduate degree is becoming more and more essential in today’s corporate world. Gone are the days when a bachelor’s degree would suffice, nowadays there’s a master’s degree for nearly every career path one can think of, and the Masters of Business Administration has undoubtedly shined in the business world.
What Is an Online MBA?
An online MBA is a master’s degree in the career path of business. The degree earned significant popularity in the late 1990s, after which many colleges and universities started offering MBA degrees. During this explosion of demand for MBA degrees, many people decided that they wanted an extra credential but couldn’t afford to take a few years off from work to pursue it.
Sure it was possible to enroll in a weekend program, but even studying in a weekend program while working a full-time job can get hectic for students. Soon enough, the internet evolved, and colleges and universities started offering online degrees and students began enjoying the benefits of online education.
Nowadays, traditional degree rewarding institutions are catching up with online-only institutions and have started to offer MBA programs online. Amongst these institutions, some offer their students a hybrid experience of learning, in which students have to attend a certain percentage of classes in a traditional on-site setting.
But going online does not mean that top-quality institutions sacrifice on quality. Naturally, when an institution starts offering courses online, they hire top-quality professors who meet their standards. The instructors have several added advantages in this job since they don’t have to commute to campus every day. Since they’re teaching their students online, they can carry on their activities in the business world, or they can even teach students in other institutions.
What Do Employers Think?
For students who want an online MBA, it is about flexibility, the opportunity to work, study and travel all at the same time. Most students think that they couldn’t have pursued an online MBA if it didn’t offer the same flexibility. Even though all degrees received from an institution state that their institution issued the degree, you should be prepared to discuss your decision to study online with an employer.
Most employers think that unless the degree was of high quality itself, it’s mode of delivery does not matter. Apart from having a degree that is of high quality, it is also essential that your degree has the correct accreditation. There are multiple types of accreditations that you can acquire, but the most respected is a regional accreditation. When you’re searching for an online MBA program, make sure you check the accreditation that the institution has.
For most employers, as long as the online MBA is from a reputable institution, has a physical campus, and has suitable accreditation, the degree isn’t a problem. In reality, employers are more concerned with the work a particular candidate does for their company, rather than the candidate’s ability to complete coursework for their degree.
Since more and more reputable institutions have started to offer online MBA degrees, any hesitation that an employer can have concerning online degrees will be short-lived. Not only is it essential to consider that more and more institutions are now offering online degrees, but it is also true that completing online coursework requires a student to be tech-savvy.
Online degrees show that a student is motivated and disciplined enough to attend lectures without a strict attendance policy. Online degrees, on average, also have more course work and rely more on case studies and assignments since conducting frequent quizzes is not possible. In most cases, an employer can be sure that the candidate they’re hiring is more responsible than one who studied the traditional way.
While some people portray online education as a cold and distant way to get education, it doesn’t always have to be the case. In fact, it’s possible to receive more knowledge from an online class, compared to a traditional class. An online class has fewer distractions, and it can seem like the instructor is only talking to the student who is watching.
The Final Verdict
The world of online MBA programs is growing, and the acceptability of an online degree is more now than it ever used to be. While an online degree does have several lucrative advantages, it is also vital that you consider all essential factors before you choose to get an online MBA from an institution.
If you notice that your career has come to a standstill, start researching opportunities for graduate school. When you study online, you choose the pace of your degree, you can choose to prolong it for 5 or 6 years, or you can even cut it down to 18 months. When you study online, the opportunities are limitless.
