Being fairly new to the electronics world, and recently enrolling in an online course program, I was interested in what others thought about the overall quality of the education that can be had from a solely web-based program as opposed to learning in the classroom. To put it another way, how do employers see(or perhaps, don't) the difference in type of education when hiring new people. The reason I post this question is that I have a few family members that don't take a whole lot of stock in correspondence classes, and see them as some kind of rip off. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Drew

 

As with most things, the answer is that it depends on a whole lot of things -- you can't just categorize all of either type into one pot.

It would really help people try to give you advise if you gave some idea of where in the world you are located. Also, it matters whether you are talking about a vocational/technician program, an associates program, and undergraduate engineering program, or whatever. I'm going to assume that you are in the United States (just going with the odds) and that you are talking about an undergraduate engineering program, but if that is a bad assumption, then the situation may be completely different.

Having said that, classroom-based schools generally have some pretty strong advantages over web-based ones, particularly in technical fields. Perhaps the strongest such advantage are hands-on labs that are difficult to replicate using web-based instruction. Most other potential advantages can be largely mitigated through good instructional design -- which is not to say that all, or even most, web-based programs are so designed.

In either case, you want to be sure that your program is ABET accredited. If not, don't waste your time -- most employers won't waste theirs on considering your resume unless they are really getting desperate.

You will probably find that many employers are going to be a lot more skeptical of an online degree than a traditional degree -- that's probably changed some in the last decade or so and will probably continue to change, but don't look for it to go away any time soon. But you can mitigate against that by building up a solid list of projects that you can include (the best two or three of) on your resume and then be prepared to talk about them in meaningful detail. Employers LOVE to see evidence that the applicant has sufficient passion for the field that they are willing to invest their own time/money/effort to do things on the side.

If you are interested in a particular type of electronics or working for particular employers, call them and ask them their feelings on that. Also, ask them for recommendations of specific schools that they find produce good graduates that they like to hire.

 

As with most things, the answer is that it depends on a whole lot of things -- you can't just categorize all of either type into one pot.

It would really help people try to give you advise if you gave some idea of where in the world you are located. Also, it matters whether you are talking about a vocational/technician program, an associates program, and undergraduate engineering program, or whatever. I'm going to assume that you are in the United States (just going with the odds) and that you are talking about an undergraduate engineering program, but if that is a bad assumption, then the situation may be completely different.

Having said that, classroom-based schools generally have some pretty strong advantages over web-based ones, particularly in technical fields. Perhaps the strongest such advantage are hands-on labs that are difficult to replicate using web-based instruction. Most other potential advantages can be largely mitigated through good instructional design -- which is not to say that all, or even most, web-based programs are so designed.

In either case, you want to be sure that your program is ABET accredited. If not, don't waste your time -- most employers won't waste theirs on considering your resume unless they are really getting desperate.

You will probably find that many employers are going to be a lot more skeptical of an online degree than a traditional degree -- that's probably changed some in the last decade or so and will probably continue to change, but don't look for it to go away any time soon. But you can mitigate against that by building up a solid list of projects that you can include (the best two or three of) on your resume and then be prepared to talk about them in meaningful detail. Employers LOVE to see evidence that the applicant has sufficient passion for the field that they are willing to invest their own time/money/effort to do things on the side.

If you are interested in a particular type of electronics or working for particular employers, call them and ask them their feelings on that. Also, ask them for recommendations of specific schools that they find produce good graduates that they like to hire.

Actually, you're about spot on on your assumptions. I do live in the U.S.(Ohio, to be more specific) and I am involved in an associates program. I did realize that maybe I should have given a little more information in my original post almost immediately after putting it up. The truth is that I actually started taking this course(Electronics Technology with Labs through The Cleveland Institute of Electronics) more for the knowledge than for potential employment. I've always been interested in electronics, and in particular sound manipulation. It is a dream of mine to build guitar amplifiers and effects pedals as a hobby in the garage. With that being said, I started thinking, "wouldn't it be great if I could do this kind of thing for a job!"

The feedback you gave me was very helpful. It wasn't too far away from what I expected to hear. I honestly don't know if CIE is ABET accredited, which may have been a huge oversight on my part. In fact, I'm not even sure that I know what ABET is. Which sounds like something that I should know and I'd rather get as many questions like that answered before I get too far into something and find out the hard way that maybe I don't know as much as I think I do, or that I don't know as much as I need to know. Always in the pursuit of knowledge.

Thanks again!

 

ABET is the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. I would venture that very few new college students have ever heard of ABET or the notion of accreditation in general (even if they've been told about it at some point). It's something that would normally not appear on their radar screen until about their junior year as they actually start thinking about life after college. Of course, non-ABET-accredited schools will usually never mention the 800-lb gorilla that is named ABET.

As near as I can tell quickly (looking at the Home, About Us, and FAQ pages), CIE isn't accredited at all by anyone (other than the Better Business Bureau. Not a good sign.

 

To put it another way, how do employers see(or perhaps, don't) the difference in type of education when hiring new people.

When I was screening resumes, I only selected ones with high GPA's from reputable schools with the appropriate qualifications. There were no online schools that were credible enough for recruiters to bother with.

The reason I post this question is that I have a few family members that don't take a whole lot of stock in correspondence classes, and see them as some kind of rip off. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I'm of the same opinion as these family members.

 

Another thing I was going to add (but my battery was dying) is that there are two broad categories of institution-level accreditation (in the U.S.): Regional and national. In general, you want to go to a school that is regionally accredited, even though "national" accreditation sounds better to the ear. Regional accreditation is by far the more rigorous and prestigious of the two. It dates back roughly 150 years and evolved in "regions" primarily because of the importance of site visits by accreditors and the limits of the transportation available back then. But they are all tightly coordinated (though not completely in lock-step since they are, after all, separate entities, they are all members of an overarching council that provides common guidance to all of them) and most schools that are regionally accredited will accept transfer credit from any other regionally-accredited school. Most regionally accredited schools are public institutions or non-profit private institutions. They are more academically-oriented.

National accreditation is a much more recent phenomenon and is largely the purview of for-profit colleges and trade schools and religious institutions. The standards, particularly for faculty quality and things like library resources, are not nearly as stringent. Many people assert that national accreditation agencies arose largely because of a growing number of trade schools that couldn't get regional accreditation but felt that they needed to be able to tout the word "accredited" somehow in order to attract students -- the numerous scandals and widespread fraud involving many nationally-accredited for-profit colleges would tend to bear this out. Very few regionally-accredited schools will accept any transfer credit from a nationally-accredited institution and many of the ones that do are really accepting credit from specific institutions that they have determined are reputable despite their national accreditation, not because of it. So this is not to say that there aren't many fine schools out there that are nationally accredited; trade schools and other career-oriented schools that may have excellent programs just simply may not fit well with the academic focus required for regional accreditation, so they seek accreditation where they can. Also, regional accreditation is a time-consuming and expensive process and many small schools, particularly for-profit trade schools, simply can't afford it.

Another thing to consider is that, unlike regional accrediting agencies (of which there are seven -- or six, depending on how you count one of them -- well-defined agencies), there are numerous national accrediting agencies, although only a dozen or so that are recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. There are literally dozens of national accrediting agencies that do little more than sell accreditation credentials to diploma mills and fake online schools and the names of many of them are intentionally made to sound almost identical to reputable accreditation agencies, often by putting the word "global" or "international" in front.

Regional and national accreditation is institution level. So the entire college or university is evaluated against certain standards and accredited as a whole. Individual programs at a given institution may be additionally accredited at the program level by agencies such as ABET. In more technical areas, the program-level accreditation is usually the more important of the two as far as employers and graduate schools are concerned.

 

There's a couple of factors that I think maybe I should bring up that may shed some light on why I made the decision to enter a correspondence program rather than go back to a traditional school with a classroom setting. Probably the most important of these is that I am a 45 year old, stay at home dad with three children under the age of five. That limits the amount of time that I could actually spend on campus while my wife is at work. Not to mention cutting into the time needed to study. With the program that I signed up for, I don't have specific due dates and times for homework and tests which allows me to study in what little free time that I have. However, I am expected to complete the program in two years or less.

Another factor is cost. This program is considerably less expensive than a traditional school. Yet, even though I do feel as if I am learning, the responses that I have gotten so far to this post have raised a serious question in my mind about the whole thing. In the end, am I going to get as much out of the program as I'm putting into it? I know that a lot of that depends on me. I believe that you could take a person and put them in the best school in the world, but if they don't want to learn, they're not going to.

One thing that I have going in my favor is that I am a pretty good independent learner. With that being said, I definitely think that I find all the math easier to learn in the classroom setting. I am, for the most part, a visual learner and watching a teacher go through an algebra or trig problem step by step is very helpful to me. Same could probably be said for lab experiments. In my situation, it's all left to trial and error(or success) but, I can get online help from their instructors.

When I signed up for the program that I am in, I was never under the delusion that my certificate from CIE was going to be the equivalent of a degree from MIT. And maybe the fact that they state on their website that they do not guarantee any job placement upon completion, or that any credits would be transferable, could have been seen as red flags. At the end of the day, what I want most out of it is the ability to do the projects that I've been thinking about for years; and acquire not only the how to, but the why as well. And, with any luck, walk away with enough knowledge to make a couple of bucks doing it.

 

Cost is certainly a very valid consideration, particularly if your primary goals are more personal edification rather than starting a career. Just ask yourself whether it is still worth your time and money if it turns out that no employer will touch you with a degree from that school because of what you feel you are learning and how much you are enjoying it. If the answer is yes (and that might well be a perfectly valid answer in specific circumstances), then go for it.

And you are absolutely correct that how much you learn is more about the learner than the school. No school can make up for a bad student, but a good student can get a lot out of a bad school -- which is not to say that that same student wouldn't have been able to get a lot more out of a good school.

 

Probably the most important of these is that I am a 45 year old, stay at home dad with three children under the age of five. That limits the amount of time that I could actually spend on campus while my wife is at work. Not to mention cutting into the time needed to study.

This is one of the situations where I think an online school is acceptable. You're raising a family while your Wife works, so the time you can commit to furthering your education is limited.

The odds of more education making a difference financially is better if you're continuing education in the field you're already working in and your company offers tuition reimbursement. But I find no fault in you wanting to improve yourself to provide a more stable family situation. Most of the stay at home dads I've heard of were slackers. Instead of nurturing their children, they were more interested in having "me time" and playing video games while the Wife "brought home the bacon". Stereotypical to be sure, but those are the only cases I've heard about in my social circles.

Another factor is cost. This program is considerably less expensive than a traditional school. Yet, even though I do feel as if I am learning, the responses that I have gotten so far to this post have raised a serious question in my mind about the whole thing.

There's a reason why there's a saying "you get what you pay for".

I know that a lot of that depends on me. I believe that you could take a person and put them in the best school in the world, but if they don't want to learn, they're not going to.

There's a lot of truth to this. In an ideal world, if you put in a lot of effort, you'd be rewarded for it. But the world we live in is far from ideal or fair. Large companies are unlikely to give any consideration to your online degree unless you're already working for them.

The largest companies have a group that does college recruiting and they can afford to only consider the "best" (whatever that might mean to them).

When I signed up for the program that I am in, I was never under the delusion that my certificate from CIE was going to be the equivalent of a degree from MIT.

Having realistic expectations will lessen the likelihood of extreme dissatisfaction in your choices.

Good luck!

 

Thanks guys! You have definitely given me some things to think about. One thing that comes to mind is that, if I am going to continue on with CIE, maybe it would be in my best interest to switch programs from a very general electronics one to one that is focused more on sound engineering. After all, that is what I am most interested in and the main reason I want to expand my knowledge of electronics in the first place.

Even though I just joined this website yesterday, I've already found that the lessons in the education section expand on what I've been learning through CIE. And I can read those for free! I believe that I am willing to invest the time to learn as much as I can, but, I think what it's ultimately going to come down to, is answering the question of how much money do I want to invest in my search for knowledge. Especially considering the fact that the program may only increase my chances of starting a new career only very, very slightly.

 

And I can read those for free!

There's a lot of free stuff on the internet if you're trying to increase knowledge without pursuing a degree. I've taken several online programming classes from MIT and in the course of researching topics on the internet, have downloaded many presentations from various universities/colleges on topics of interest to me.

 

Don't forget CIE has been around a very long time (1934). You could find their advertising in electronics magazines of my youth, no, I'm not as old as CIE.

The only accreditation I see is DETC and Approved by the Ohio State Board of Career Colleges and Schools to offer postsecondary programs of electronics technology, computer technology and electronic engineering technology.

I know that's not much.

With respect to "discriminating" vis-a-via online or distance learning versus classroom learning, it would be the needs of the employer. Now if the employer has hired a distance learner previously and they did well, they would be more likely to take another chance. The same could be said between MIT and Yale ... whichever school produced the results the employer needed would be the one the employer favored.

 

With respect to "discriminating" vis-a-via online or distance learning versus classroom learning, it would be the needs of the employer. Now if the employer has hired a distance learner previously and they did well, they would be more likely to take another chance. The same could be said between MIT and Yale ... whichever school produced the results the employer needed would be the one the employer favored.

While very true, there is a reputation/association component that is very real. If you hire an MIT grad and it doesn't work out, your impression of MIT might be diminished somewhat, but you are far more likely to write it off to a poor choice of someone that happened to graduate from MIT rather than someone that was a poor choice because they graduated from MIT. But if you hire someone from Bob's Correspondence School and All-night Video Rental and it doesn't work out, you are much more likely to draw the reverse conclusion.

 

Thanks guys! You have definitely given me some things to think about. One thing that comes to mind is that, if I am going to continue on with CIE, maybe it would be in my best interest to switch programs from a very general electronics one to one that is focused more on sound engineering. After all, that is what I am most interested in and the main reason I want to expand my knowledge of electronics in the first place.

I get the impression that you will be far more satisfied with an electronics program than a sound engineering program. I also got interested in electronics through my love of audio, which started decades ago with a guitar and a Tascam cassette 4-track recorder. In my early 20s, I completed a sound engineering program at a local community college. I learned some useful stuff, but what I really learned was that I was curious about the underlying electronics of all that wonderful gear. Though a sound engineering program will give you a sense of basic electronics, it's not nearly enough to understand (much less design) audio circuits. I bought a few books -- mostly of the electronics-for-guitarists theme -- but quickly realized that any deeper understanding required more mathematical sophistication than I possessed (at the time I didn't know how to add fractions).

Then life happened -- got married, had a kid, got a job -- and my dream of understanding and designing audio circuits fell by the wayside. By my late 30s I still didn't know how to add fractions, but I had been working alongside electrical engineers who patiently tried to answer my naive questions about electronics. They helped demystify some of the scarier aspects, making it all seem within reach, and so -- at 40 years old -- I decided to take advantage of my job's tuition assistance program and go back to school. I enrolled in a 4-year electronics engineering program designed with working students in mind (so mostly night classes). Even though I was the old guy in the classroom, in the beginning I had to work twice as hard to make up for my 4th-grade math level. I learned basic algebra in my calculus classes, took it to the next level in differential equations, and was tutoring my classmates by the time I reached linear algebra. But where I really shined was in the electronics labs. My years of playing with and building audio gear gave me a comfort level and overall perspective that my classmates simply didn't have. I quickly became each lab's troubleshooting whiz, the guy who could help fix the worst rat's nest of a breadboard and walk you through the solution.

I graduated this past May, top of my class, six years after I started (work allowed me to take no more than 3 classes a semester). As difficult as it was, working full time and raising a family, taking the plunge and enrolling in engineering school was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Not because of any career implications, or even because I can actually design audio circuits now, but because it changed the way I look at the world. Learning to think like an engineer is the best thing I've ever learned. If you can swing it financially and time-wise, a 4-year on-campus program is the surest path. A bachelor's program, as opposed to an associate's, will give you significantly more depth and breadth. I have a pretty good perspective on this because my school's curriculum was laid out so that the first two years were equivalent to an associate's degree in electronics, and the bulk of my engineering skills came in the last two years. The senior design project alone was an invaluable education unto itself. As for the on-campus aspect, I don't think it's necessary -- particularly if you are a capable self-learner -- but collaboration is a big part of the full experience. My natural tendency is to work alone, but being forced to collaborate with my classmates was a surprising source of joy (and sometimes an expected source of pain). A few of my classmates and professors have become some of my best friends; these are smart, talented people that I will always have in my life, that I wouldn't have gotten to know otherwise.

Whatever path you take, I wish you well! Perserverance is the key, and don't be surprised if your love of audio electronics blossoms into something you didn't expect.

 

Learning to think like an engineer is the best thing I've ever learned.

Go, bogosort!

 

The thing about traditional is that it's more recognised and certified. Whereas for online, there is the perception of being less rigorous regardless of whether true or not. Even though the learning may be same or better. And what matters in the end depends on what you really want. If it's learning, online will be fine. But if its for recognisation, then traditional is the go to

 

I also am taking online electronic tech course. University of Houston downtown is a tier 1 college ibelieve however! the program is from a Canadian college George Brown College. I want to repair cell phones and took this certification course to better understand the theory before embarking on cell phone criteria. any thoughts on my direction? I appreciate your time.

 

Whereas for online, there is the perception of being less rigorous regardless of whether true or not.

My wife took some online courses from the same community college she attended. This was a number of years ago and maybe some Instructional Design Standards have been implemented since then.

What I observed was she was doing considerably more time and work in the online course than she was in the classroom course. Now this maybe normal, but it seemed a little out of hand to me.

Is there a "normal" classroom/lab/homework time "estimation" for the various course credit hours? In my wife's case, the hours spent completing the online course far exceeded the time she spent on instructor lead courses with higher CEUs. Not all that "additional time" can be attributed to her study habits.

Like I said, this occurred when web based instruction was in it's infancy with respect to universities and colleges participation.

 

Personally, I think that it is better to study through online courses because this way you choose what you need and that will be useful in life, thus not wasting your time learning useless information.Thus, rationally managing your time, you can immediately apply this knowledge in practice and gain experience, thereby becoming a valuable employee.