PC Pro Schools – Making The Best of A Bad Economy

With the economy in shambles, college tuition rates shooting through the roof, it’s almost as if “the man” is trying to hold us all down. I was recently talking to a friend of mine who told me he had just received his cert from a place called PC Pro Schools. The odd part was how fast he did it and how relatively inexpensive it was.

His story intrigued me enough to look a bit more into these PC Pro School people. What I found seems to be a legitimate school that gives out real degrees that real companies are looking for and they do it in a timely manner. It appears the cost is around $20,000 per certification which if it can help you land a job at Microsoft or Google or some other high-powered tech company, not a bad deal at all.

Here is a little article about online education I dug up, I had originally had it written for another project but never used it so figured why not throw it on here.

Online Education

With the onset of the Internet, online education has been a fascination that has really popped up. For many reasons, people have decided that online education is an effective way to get a diploma. By 2006, 3.5 million students were enriching their education via online classes for college. By 2008, almost a quarter of all students had taken classes online. There are numerous benefits of taking classes online; however, there are also a few downsides to it that people should consider when they are doing online work.

The way it works is straight forward. The work is assigned each day and that work must be accomplished such as reading the necessary readings as well as answering work sheets. Therefore, the majority of the class is spent teaching yourself the course material rather than being lectured to like in a traditional classroom. However, despite this, there are numerous advantages to going to class online.

First and foremost, it tends to be cheaper. In comparison to a traditional class for a private college that might cost anywhere from $700 per credit and up, the online credits might only cost around $300 per credit. This means that a student can accomplish their course work without accruing as much student loan debt. With the cost of college so expensive, this can be an incredible relief for many students.

Another benefit is that accessing the classes is much easier since they are done from home. What this means is that an individual who might not have time to access the class because of work can do the course work at night. Therefore, a student is able to get a degree and work full time simultaneously. This is advantageous for individuals who are going back to school while they are working.

One of the primary disadvantages of online classes is that they are not as reputable as traditional classes. For example, graduating with a diploma from an online college and then trying to go to graduate school with it might not bring as much pull as a diploma from a traditional college. Another reason is that there is little way to network and get recommendations since the professor has never gotten to know the student on a personal level. This is disadvantageous because networking is such a pivotal part of college.

In the end, taking online classes is a personal choice. It has great benefits, but it does have some disadvantages as well. For the most part, online classes are good as course fillers or getting something accomplished over the summer when there isn’t a class otherwise available. It’s much cheaper and it can save a lot of time. However, it doesn’t provide much in regard to networking and recommendations.

Online education has exploded and continues to grow. In the future, it might be considered more reputable and as more students go that route, more schools will begin offering online courses. It’s an easy way to get some classes out of the way without wasting too much money on the classes.