Loveless started the road to his MBA at a traditional university in Charlotte, N.C. But after getting a new job that made attending classes at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte impossible, he started looking into other programs that would.
He soon enrolled at Strayer University, where he graduated last spring. “I couldn’t go to class during the day when they offered some of those that I needed,” says Loveless, 31, of leaving UNC-Charlotte to finish his degree at Strayer.
“It would have taken a lot longer for me to finish.” Loveless says while many people downplay the education that can be attained at a for-profit institution, he found classes at Strayer more beneficial than his time at UNC-Charlotte.
“I learned more through the heavy online curriculum,” he says. “It offers a lot of real world experience. And they’re taught a little differently where you digest more from the lectures.”
But, as with all things, students say there are areas where online courses fall short. “If you have an issue that you really don’t understand, you have nobody to go to,” Bembrey says. “You could go to the instructor if you were on a campus, and they could help explain it to you. In the online setting, they have tutors, but you have to go to them when it’s convenient for them. And that’s usually between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. That doesn’t help me at all.
“They have campuses everywhere, but you can’t get there … because you work.”
Problem or no, Bembrey pushed through classes filled with group assignments and unreachable teachers. She expects to graduate this summer.
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