I had never taken an online class, not once in high school, and none my freshman year of college. I always thought being in a classroom was a better form of learning since the teacher would be right there and you could see how they explained any issues. As for my minor, I knew that a majority of my classes were on another campus or offered online, and with that, I had to make a decision. To suck it up and go to the other campus, or be brave and finally brace the online class.
From the headline, you can guess that I took the online class. I will say I was definitely nervous about taking my Introduction to Travel and Tourism class online only because I would have to manage my time a lot better than I have in the past to make sure not to forget to submit any homework deadlines. It is very easy to forget to do a discussion board post up until the very last minute trying to scramble and turn it in on time. With an online class, you do not have a professor constantly reminding the class about a homework assignment that is due next class. My online class has a weekly modules section that we have to keep up ourselves and check it weekly in case there is something other than reading the chapters and posting a discussion board post.
What I really appreciate about my class is that my professor has our deadlines set for Thursday evening. At first it was weird having to turn assignments in on a weekday instead of the last possible second on Sunday night, but after the first couple of weeks, I began to like the fact that my assignments were due on Thursday because that meant I did not have to worry about that class over the weekend and could focus on other class work that may have needed more attention. Also, the amount of work that we had during the semester so far has not been that much. My professor gave us just the right amount to allow us to learn about the material and not be overloaded with work.
Overall, my experience with online classes has been positive. I have become more aware of my deadlines and have gotten better at planning out my schedule when it comes to having big assignments. This class has also taught me to be more responsible because of the fact that I had to remind myself to turn in my assignments or to check on Blackboard to make sure that I did not miss any of the assignments that were given to us for that week. For my next semester, I will be taking two more online classes -- another tourism class and a films study class -- and will use the tactics I learned from my first online course experience and put them toward future classes online and inside the classroom.
