6 Advantages of Online Nursing School
Education is constantly changing to meet the demands of new ideas, knowledge, and technology, and to stay on top of how the lifestyles of Americans change. New tactics in recruiting and teaching students means that schools must understand and help meet the challenges that face us on a daily basis. One of those challenges is trying to fit school into the daily schedules of busy and active adults.
As the internet becomes embedded into the daily activities of society, it only stands to reason that schools should take advantage of the opportunity, and offer education online. While many students have already taken advantage of the programs available online, many more have been hesitant and have questions about whether an online education is "real", and if it is the same education they could get if they attended a campus based college program.
Here are some advantages to getting a nursing education online:
- Convenience - What better way to get an education than right in your own home? Simply log in to your “virtual classroom”, get your assignments, and then turn them in right from your home computer. Students will interact with instructors and other students from their online classroom, just as if they were sitting together in a real classroom.
- Save time - Imagine how much time would be saved if a student could add up the time they spend getting ready for class each day, and then driving through rush hour traffic to get to school. When going to nursing school online, students can sit at their computer any time they like. This can take hours off of each week, when compared to driving to a campus based school.
- Keep your job - Many students face a tough challenge when considering whether or not to go back to school. If they choose to go to school, they may have to leave their job, because of conflicts between work and class hours. This is a major deterrent for most working adults, and one that has turned many prospective college students away in the past. Online nursing classes allow students to maintain their current job, all while getting an education: Sometimes even at an accelerated rate.
- Set your own schedule - Online nursing programs allow students to set their own schedule. Does your family want you to spend the day at the zoo with them? No problem at all. Students attending school online can do their coursework on the schedule that is most convenient for them. This is a tremendous relief for active adults with social and employment obligations. Students can spend their day working, come home and spend evenings with family, and then fit in coursework whenever the time is best for them.
Take a look at just a few of the schools offering online nursing programs. Request your FREE information today!
- Clinicals in a familiar setting - One major advantage that students in online nursing classes are learning is that when it comes time to do clinicals, they get to do them in a familiar place. Many nursing students of campus based programs have to drive a long distance to school. This also means that many of their clinicals will be the same distance away. When taking online nursing classes, students are often happy to find that schools will make every effort to set up clinical rotations at institutions near the student’s residence. This not only helps save the student time and money of driving, it also means that there is a very good chance the student is quite familiar with the facility. Often times, students are even employed in the same facility, and doing clinical rotations means they can do them with the peers they have come to know and trust.
- Save money - Tuition at many schools are substantially lower for online nursing programs, when compared to traditional on-campus classes. The reason is that schools can actually take in many more students via their online programs. Also, traditional class sizes are limited by the number of students compared to the number of instructors. This causes an increased expense to colleges trying to employ enough instructors to cover the student count. This is also the reason many schools have to limit the number of students they can accept into campus classes, but has a substantially lower effect when it comes to online nursing programs. Students not only save money on tuition, but can also save a great deal of money in other areas. Since courses are done online, the costs for materials are much less. There is less paper needed and many schools even offer online versions of text books. Students also save a lot of money in gasoline, auto maintenance costs, and even things such as foods. When all of this is added up, it translates into savings that stay right in the student’s pocket.
Schools are seeing huge numbers in the amount of students taking nursing classes online. The advantages of online nursing programs is not only attracting young adults, but also working class adults that have long thought going back to school was not even an option. Not only are students seeing the advantages, employers are also enjoying them. Hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, research facilities, and any place else that employs nurses will benefit by not losing experienced workers while they go to school. They get to keep all of that on the job training, plus new education and knowledge, right in their own institution.
