Points to ponder for those looking to attend college for the first time, or go back after being out for a long time. College is changing from what I remember it used to be. As with all things technology has brought an evolution to the college classroom. In the last just over five years in college, this go around, I have taken traditional in-person college classes (early AM, morning, afternoon, evening, and one Saturday class), hybrid classes, and online classes at three different colleges using three different learning platforms.

All of these classes have some basic things in common, a teacher, other students, a syllabus, and the end result of a letter grade. All of these classes were taken with the ultimate purpose of leading to a degree (piece of paper signifying some level of learning in a defined area of study). For the most part, more times than not, the classes would follow a specific formula for assignments and patterns of class structure. My current college, SNHU is the most formatted of all the college classes I have taken.

Has college, and education in general, become more “cookie cutter”? Or has it always been “cookie cutter” and the shapes of the cookies are just changing? In my college experience I have taken classes across a broad range of disciplines, one might say I am interdisciplinary in my approach to learning. I learned what to expect from each type of class and how to adapt to be successful at completing them.

Traditional, in-person, college classes have their benefits. Different people place different levels of importance on these benefits. But the most commonly mentioned benefits are the force structure, direct interaction with the professor, hands-on learning, live lectures, and a feeling of community. I found different communities of students on the same campus separated by the time of day the class was held. With online classes, there is an amalgamation of communities within each class.

Hybrid classes, at least the one I took, seem to be a confused mixture of traditional and online classes. There can be more online resources available to the student. The student still gets to fight traffic, pay for parking, and show up at a specific time each week, then gets to turn around and participate in online discussion boards and the like as well. For me, this was the least desirable of both worlds.

Online classes, classes designed to allow for flexibility in schedule, physical location, and a reduction in extraneous costs such as gas and parking. The web, YouTube, and personal computers have opened up a new era in education at every level, from elementary school to University. With this new era in education comes new standards and formats in education. Due to the delivery method utilized education has become more accessible to a greater number of people. It has also become more standardized.

During my time in college, there have been the classes I was forced to take, the classes I wanted to take to strengthen my skills, and the classes I wanted to take for the life-enriching experience. In every class, I have learned something. The definition of success in education is changing for me.