Online classes have been increasingly popular nowadays. More and more universities offering online classes for their students. The rapid development of technologies gives a massive contribution to the trends, by providing easy-to-use and affordable tools for the educational institution and their pupils.

In 2020, the Coronavirus, also called Covid-19, paralyzes the globe. People were confined to their homes. Many people, unfortunately, lost their jobs, and the ones who were still lucky enough to keep their jobs must do it online from their home.

Classes also stopped and the teaching activities were transferred, from the classroom to online classes. Therefore, for many students, attending online classes may no longer be an option since many, if not all of their classes, already being transferred to online learning anyway.

But for mature students, even long before the pandemic happened, opting for online classes than the traditional classroom setting has been quite popular. Mature students usually consist of older ones with careers and families, this option has given them more control over their lives and education.

So if you are an adult busy pursuing your career, a mom or a dad with a hectic life, a student who’s been taking gap years, and been thinking about going back to college to continue your education, attending online classes will be a good option for you. Everybody is doing it anyway because of the pandemic, so why don’t you?

For the young ones, the whole online class experience might take away the experience they would normally have during their school years. But as an adult and a mom or dad, you already have those experiences.

If anything, if there’s anyone who will benefit the most from the online learning experience, it will be you, mature students.

Below are the benefits you could gain when you decide to go back to college as student-moms/dads and mature students and opt to attend online classes. 

Without further ado, let’s dig in!

1. More Flexibility

Taking the traditional classroom setting means you must take full-time courses in person. There will be fixed schedules of classes you need to attend. This setting limits what you can do outside your school activities.

For example, if you want to work, you can only work in the evenings and on weekends. Or if you took weekend classes, you would have to sacrifice your days off from work. This could mean no break for you at all until you have a school break or taking days off or leave of absence from the office.

If you have a family with young kids, you will have less time to dedicate to them, since you have to attend school and work in the evenings and weekends, or vice versa, work on weekdays and attend school in the evenings and weekends (some universities offer nights or weekends classes to accommodate older students with families or careers).

And if you have young kids, you will have to pay for a babysitter to take care of them, or pay for them to go to daycare so that you can attend school. That will be an extra cost for you. 

By attending online classes, you can attend your classes from the comfort of your home. If you need to attend your classes live, you can arrange for someone to watch the children for you, at least you will also be at home with them.

If they are older, you can give them some activities to do nearby, so that you can attend your classes and keep an eye on your little ones.

Often, studying online allowed you to login, on your own time to watch the replay, or to answer forum questions. You can login during your children’s nap time or your lunch break at work. Therefore, you can have both done without sacrificing either one.

2. Better Work and Life Balance

Since you don’t have to attend classes in the evenings or weekends, or have to work in the evenings and weekends since you have to attend classes on weekdays, you will have more time to spend with your families, have less stress, and be happier.

You could work at your own pace, by login to your online classes during your lunch break, or during your children’s nap time, or at any time convenient to you.

You could decide when is the best time for you to start working on your papers and assignments without interfering with your responsibilities at work and/or at home.

If you a fast and dedicated learner, you could fly through the materials and don’t have to spend much time studying, therefore, you will have more time to spend at work or with your family.

3. Time Saver

If you attend a normal classroom setting, you might need to rush out back and forth from home and/or your office to the university, or need to get out of the office early to be able to make it to your classes on time.

Sometimes the schedule will be a bit overlapped and you can’t help being late and missed out on some first part of the lecturer.

On normal working days, you leaving the office early to attend your classes might be acceptable since your employer already aware anyway about you going back to school.

But on certain days when you have an important meeting, for example, leaving them early might have some effect on your career, at the very least, someone might have to cover for you and they may not be going to be happy about it.

These circumstances could be avoided by attending online classes. Furthermore, you can skip wasting time commuting back and forth every day for the duration of your studies.

4. Sometimes It Will be Cheaper

While this might not always be the case, some universities or courses offered cheaper tuition fees for their online courses. Even if the online classes will cost you the same amount as the traditional classroom option, some expenses can be reduced.

For example, even though textbooks are still required for online learning, the ways of delivering the lessons will be slightly different since they have to cater to the different learning methods.

When taking an online program, you will use more online programs and platforms. Many textbooks are available in an e-book version. Most likely the digital version will be cheaper since they don’t need to cover the printing and distribution cost.

You will also be saving money from the shipping cost. Moreover, by attending classes online, you don’t need to spend extra money for expenses such as gas or bus/train tickets for commuting, or pay a babysitter or daycare if you have young children.

5. Inevitably Becomes Tech Savvy

Online learning will make you inevitably tech-savvy, because it requires you to set up your computers and internet connections. Then you have to log in to a certain platform used by your university or a course provider to deliver the lessons, for you to be able to access the lessons and materials, to submit your papers and assignments, participate in the forums, et cetera.

Those required certain technological skills, each platform might have different ways to upload and access materials, each will have different capacities and capabilities when it comes to their services.

Some might be more user-friendly than others, some have more features, and so on. You might be already familiar with a certain platform, but if your online course using a different platform, you might need to learn how to operate it to be able to use it properly.

Problems could also rise, especially when your classes are live. Things could happen during live streaming and you need to have a decent knowledge of the technologies required to handle and fixed the problem, and more importantly, to be able to maximize your online learning experiences.

6. More Committed and Driven

When you could work at your own pace, on your own time, it is easy to slack off. No one is watching, you don’t really know how’s your classmates doing, they might be doing better than you or not.

Therefore, you need more willpower to pull yourself up. Many people don’t opt for online classes for these very reasons.

So if you deliberately choose to do your classes online, you know very well you need to put in extra effort to discipline yourself to attend classes on your own time instead of keeping postponing it.

You know you will be going to be tired after work, or after taking care of your children all day. You don’t want to study or doing your paper afterwards.

But you know you can’t quit, and you preserve. By committing to your study, you push through those hard times and finish what’s needs to be done.

It will all be worth it someday and you know it. it was the driving force that keeps you moving on. After all, you know someday you can look back at these hard moments and be proud of yourself for keep pushing forward and not giving up.

7. Advanced Time Management Skills

Juggling work, families, and studies is not a joke. It is an exhausting task, and nobody could tackle those challenges better than mature students, a full-grown adult with responsibilities at work and home, a mom, and a dad.

Throughout your studies, you will become an expert in managing your time. Not a second waste since you know you can’t afford it anyway. You calculate and allocate everything, even your own “me time”.

You planned them carefully and stick with it. You have a clear goal for when you want to complete your program, and schedule your courses and time to study to allow yourself to graduate by that time.

After you have conquered this experience of going back to school by attending online classes, there will be no more chaos, and being disorganized. Managing your time will be easy and comes naturally for you.

Over To You

Those are some of the reasons why attending online classes will be beneficial for you, especially when you are mature students, with careers and families.

 The rapid development of technologies and the global pandemic have contributed to the rising popularity of online classes and courses, make things easier than ever.

If you have been thinking about going back to school or attending online classes, this will be the right time for you to finally take that leap and go for it.

It will be a rewarding experience, and, in the end, you will gain more than you have to sacrifice. If you need more information on online colleges/universities, check here.

So, what are you waiting for? Start researching the right online program for you and enroll! Got any questions? Have some feedback? any question? Feel free to comment down below and share your thoughts, comments, and questions!

Talking about sharing, do you have a friend or family who’s thinking about taking online classes? Or do think someone will find this post useful? I will be super happy if you take the time to share it on social media and pin it 😊!

Till next time!

Related articles:

• 10 Things You Need to Check, Before Choosing an Online College (Part 1)
• 10 Things You Need to Check, Before Choosing an Online College (Part 2)
• 7 Amazing Advantages of Attending Online School as Student-Moms and Mature Students
• 5 Fascinating Reasons Why A Mom Should Go Back To School

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