Union Members: Free Associate's Degree

[wow]

dharmastudios

Checking up on this again - me and my husband are union members, and he's looking to get a business degree. What is the class structure like?

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I'm hoping to start my first class Oct. 14 if my local OKs it, so I can let you know more then.

Definately please do, my husband is looking to start this, if it's as good as it says, in January. I was trying to get him to jump in to the October classes, but he's got a lot going on right now and doesn't think he's got the focus to do it. I'm wondering if it means you're taking 3 classes at a time, compacted into 8 week spans. If so, that's not so bad, that's what ECPI does, which is where I'm attending now. They do 2 at a time, in 5 week compacted courses. I haven't had an issue, and love the flexible arrangement. Let me know how intensive it is, I'll look back with you in a few weeks. Hope it goes well for you!

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Just started my first day of classes. I am taking Earth Science and Statistics (Math128), as well as the one-credit "succeeding in college" course that's required of all students. These are all 8-week courses; EGCC also offers 16-week courses that go at the regular semester pace. Most of the 8 week courses are 3-4 credits, so you are basically doing two weeks of work (from a normal semester) each week.

You can take several classes at once, or just one class at a time. You can also take semesters off if you need to under the Free College benefit. They really aren't picky.

My Earth Science class looks like it will consist of weekly readings from a free online textbook, lecture slides by the prof (without an audio lecture ... all the text is in the slides themselves), online discussions, online labs (which I'm happy about, especially after my advisor told me none of the science classes have labs), some writing assignments and some quizzes.
Statistics is just reading assignments from the free online OpenStax Statistics textbook (or you can buy a hardcopy for about $30) and then problem sets, as far as I can tell, with some discussions and tests down the line. So I imagine this one will be harder if the textbook isn't clear—sort of like taking math courses from Saylor.org. I may be leaning on videos from Khan Academy or Statistics courses on EdX (they have some that are very friendly toward folks who don't do a lot of math) to supplement.
In the orientation video for the online learning software, Psychology 101 is used as the example course. That course includes videos among the learning resources, so it looks like teaching methods vary a lot among classes.
The profs *are* available to answer questions by email. Some may also make themselves available by phone. No lecture or set office hours are scheduled during the week—you have to make sure to schedule your study time yourself.

So I would say these classes probably work best if the student is self-motivated and good at scheduling. Depending on the course, they aren't ideal for auditory learners. At least for my courses, most of the learning material is written.

I should add that EGCC has some good online tutoring resources, especially in math.