Popular Distance Education Programs
With all of the advances and the growing popularity of distance education and online degrees, students are finding it is easier than ever to earn their degree and advance their careers. The flexibility of work-at-your-pace classes and programs allows students to fit earning a degree into their already busy lives. So what do distance education students want to study? Here are the most popular distance education programs:
- Business Administration
- Criminal Justice
- Psychology
- Nursing
Business Administration
This degree is probably one of the most popular because of its wide spectrum of career opportunities after graduation. Someone with a bachelor’s of business administration is qualified to work in a number of different careers including: Human Resource Manager, School Administrator, Accountant, Banker, Consultant, Department Store Manager, Public Relations Specialist, Chief Executive Officer and many others. Coursework for a business degree will most likely include classes on accounting, management, economics, marketing, and finance. People with a bachelor’s of Business Administration earn an average of $54,485 a year.
Psychology
Psychology degrees are actually one of the most popular degrees at universities and colleges throughout the world, so it is no surprise that they’d make the list when it comes to online degrees. Careers held by those with bachelor’s degrees are administration, sales, social work, management, marketing, and real estate. The bachelor’s of psychology is often used as a stepping stone to other occupations with as many as 40% of students that earn their bachelor’s of psychology go on to business school, law school, or another type of advanced degree. Coursework for a psychology will likely include classes on child development, loss and trauma, behavioral analysis, elementary psychology, and psychopharmacology.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Occupational Outlook Handbook, “Opportunities directly related to psychology will be limited for bachelor’s degree holders. Some may find jobs as assistants in rehabilitation centers or in other jobs involving data collection and analysis. Those who meet State certification requirements may become high school psychology teachers.”
Nursing
The health care field is growing and changing just as fast as the education field and universities and colleges are making it easy to keep up by offering a wide range of degrees and certifications available in the healthcare field. Nurses are always highly in demand and because of that, so are nursing degrees. Most online programs for nurses expect that a student already have the equivalent of an associate’s degree when they begin their course. With the wide variety of online nursing classes out there one can advance from an LPN all the way up to doctor of nurse practice. Nursing coursework will likely included classes on foundations of nursing, maternal/ child nursing, medical-surgical nursing, mental health nursing, pediatric nursing, geriatric nursing, pharmacology, biology, anatomy and physiology. The median annual wages earned by nurses is $62,450 yearly.
No matter what career you’re interested in, there is sure to be an online program that can either get you that degree, or one that will help you to become more prepared to work in that profession. If you’re not sure what you’re interested in yet, try seeking out some free online classes and see how you respond to them. Find something that holds your attention because it will be much easier for you to study and to learn that subject. You can also try downloading lectures or podcasts from ITunes U and see how you like them. Enrollment assistants at colleges can also help you to decide what courses might suite you best.
