There is nothing more important than education in terms of investing in yourself. While general education and improving oneself should never stop and always be a constant in life, professional education and studying to be better at what we do does have its end mark. Without properly understanding the world and what makes it tick, we cannot hope to be well-informed and intelligent individuals. However, in order to be successful career-wise and one day have a well-paid job that gives us all the pleasures of life we care about, we must study and pick a field to explore in greater detail. Building one’s career starts at the earliest form of education, in primary school, and stretches for years, decades even, until each individual deems they have had enough.
Education Over the Years
Back in the day, education was not that important for the common folk. While the aristocracy and the royals explored a wide variety of sciences and skills, the regular people mostly focused on physical labor that gave them food and allowed them to keep running their household. As the time kept changing, so did the general public’s views on education. With more advances, revolutions, and rights coming their way, education became something everyone has a right to. Not only that, but general primary education has been made mandatory. In the modern world, we have access to all sorts of information through the internet and that only makes things easier. But what about actually using the web and the rest of 21st century tech for higher education? Is online education, particularly a master’s degree, of the same quality and value as traditional education where you attend a university? Read on to find out. Times are still changing and the digital world has already changed so much. But can it completely change the way we study for good? To learn more about this in the meantime, make sure to visit this site.
A Master’s Is a Master’s
In order for somebody to obtain a master’s degree in a field of study, they must first complete their bachelor’s degree education. This is a well-known fact and something that does not require much discussion. What this implies is that before a person can even start a master’s program, they already had to have completed and graduated from a three or a four-year program. There are many differences in how bachelor degrees and master’s programs work across the globe, but the general premise is largely the same. One cannot be a master’s degree holder without first being a bachelor.
We mention this because online education is often frowned upon as not being of the same value, as being easier, a shortcut to a seemingly valuable degree. But things are not really like that. Nobody can deny or dispute a person’s level of knowledge and familiarity with a field of study based on where they obtained it. Whether somebody has completed the program and got their master’s degree online or traditionally should no longer matter in the modern world. Online degrees have as much value as regular degrees as long as the candidate puts in the work and completes all of the tasks and challenges accordingly.
The School’s Legitimacy is Crucial
The reason why many traditional academics dispute the online format of higher education is the fact that it is more accessible and that basically anyone can join in. This is only true in theory however because there are still rigorous entry tests, terms, conditions, and requirements. The prices are also steep for certain programs with does not allow for easy enrolment and then abandonment. None of this however matters that much in the grand scheme of things. The most important thing to talk about when the topic of conversation is an online master’s degree’s value is the school a candidate obtains it from.
As long as the online degree is from a school that is a legitimate higher education establishment, the degree is as good as it can be. This implies that the school has to actually also be a brick and mortar university or college, a non-profit educational institution that is known, respectable, and with long history. Nowadays, most top-level universities and other institutions that deal with education have both the traditional format of education and the modern, online variety. This serves all sides, the university and its reputation and the students and candidates who for some reason cannot attend the program physically.
What matters most is that both the residential and the digital version of the degree are the same in the end. Both groups of students have sat through hours and hours of classes, completed numerous assignments, and passed all of their exams. In the end, they both had to defend their respective master’s theses in front of a committee from the very establishment. The challenges along the way may be different, but ultimately it makes no real difference that will be felt in the real world. Completing an online course and earning a master’s degree through the web is therefore completely legitimate.
One Thing to Remember
Mind that we said that only the online schools that are also brick and mortar schools are usually the ones with proper, accredited and legitimate master’s degree programs. The certificates and diplomas they issue upon the completion of a course hold real value, the same one as those issued to students who physically attended. However, schools that only exist online and have no brick and mortar establishments that are respected and well-recognized are anything but. These are the schools that give online courses a bad name and a poor reputation. Many think of them as for profit schools, degree mills that make money from students by exploiting them. Worthless diplomas are the only thing they give them in return for their education money. You should absolutely avoid these types of schools and only enroll in those that are known as higher education institutions. To answer the titular dilemma in short, yes, they are absolutely valuable, but only if they are coming from the right kind of school.
