Tips for Online College Courses

Online college courses can be difficult to navigate with a unique set of expectations, approaches, and challenges. You may be asking, “How can I manage my work while still enjoying myself?”

Ultimately, online college courses require you to find a balance. While maintaining a schedule and discipline, you should also find ways to make completing the assignments easier and the concepts more enjoyable to learn.

From my experience, I have found that the following tips have helped me improve my grades while making sure that I don’t miss out on life (they actually enhance it!).

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Keep a schedule

As an expert procrastinator and naturally disorganized person, I won’t lie–this can be annoying sometimes. Even then, scheduling will help you in the long run and give you more time to do what you are passionate about. As Northeastern University has mentioned, scheduling helps ensure that you submit high-quality assignments.

This is often more difficult to do since your professor may communicate the due dates less often than on campus (along with being less likely to offer extensions). With the way online college courses are designed, they typically assign all of the homework at the beginning of the week rather than providing lectures. To avoid those surprise deadlines (we’ve all been there), you can look at assigned homework and their major due dates at the start of the week. Once you have done this, you can set up your game plan. Write your assignments down for the week and when you plan to do them or put them on a Google calendar for easy reference.

Use online resources

Because online college courses rarely have lectures, you may struggle with understanding the concepts. I have definitely had those frustrating moments (hours) of reading the same module over… and over… and over, all to understand a homework assignment that should have been pretty simple.

Although you are likely doing this to some extent, try looking up concepts that you are confused about on Google. This is typically more effective than trying to read the same article or book over and over again. Sometimes, something as simple as reading from a different perspective, learning from a video rather than reading, or looking at a data chart rather than reading a list can help. Once you understand the concepts, you can go back to the coursework content to cover anything that the online resources might have missed.

Do not be afraid to ask questions

Your professors are paid to teach you, which involves answering any questions you may have. If the Google technique does not work, you should ask questions about assignments or concepts. I definitely understand the nervousness behind contacting your instructor, but they can really provide great insight and help.

Professors want to help you out. However, they may misinterpret your question as a request for homework answers, which can cause miscommunication. To avoid this, word your request as “I am having a hard time understanding [a certain concept] because…” rather than “How do you solve this?” If you need help on a particular assignment, word your request as “This part of the instructions is not clear to me,” not “How do I make ____ follow the guidelines?” If you are still confused, you can always ask the professor to offer examples of their expectations.

When you ask questions to a professor, your goal is not to get the answers, but rather to understand the concepts. This will not only provide you with a positive, informational experience but also gain your professor’s respect as they realize that you are passionate about the subject they are teaching.

Always read the professor’s feedback

In online college courses, when a professor’s feedback is simply posted as a comment or annotation to an assignment, you can easily overlook it. However, especially since classes tend to build on themselves, you should always look at the feedback and ensure that you understand how to go about the correct solution. Although it may take an extra moment, this will ultimately save you time (and stress when you’re studying for that final) in the long run.

Find a passion or interest

When doing online college courses, you may struggle to keep in touch with your social life. Because of this, you may feel less motivated to continue your classes. Fortunately, even if you only have a few regular social contacts at the moment, you can have a high quality of life while still enhancing your academic abilities. To do this, you can learn new things that you are interested in, such as music, coding, or graphic design. As you continue learning, you will start to be passionate for a wide array of subjects, along with developing your weaker areas (which will help with academics). Later on, you will likely become strongly passionate about a certain area, which will give you the motivation to continue pursuing academics and strive for success.

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While you’re here, let’s cover some things you should not do.

Overthink

This is honestly worse than procrastination. When you overthink and become solely focused on your grades, you bring yourself to a state where you are constantly nervous rather than focusing on learning concepts and enjoying the online college course. This will result in lower-quality work and life.

If you are like me, you have this tendency. Fortunately, I have found ways to combat it:

- Healthy procrastination

Believe it or not, controlled procrastination can actually be a good thing. Even if you have several deadlines coming up, take a moment and back away when you feel yourself overthinking and unable to focus. Grinding away at a concept when you’re nervous will only waste your energy. College work is tough–take a break when you need it. When you come back, you will have the energy to produce high-quality work for your deadlines, and you can work ahead to avoid a situation like this in the future. As the University of Cincinnati has mentioned, you need to take breaks to function properly.

- Learning something new about your subjects

Learning concepts beyond the scope of the course you are taking can help you develop a passion for the subject. This helps redirect your focus to learning and improving rather than getting good grades.

- Reward yourself

No doubt, online college courses can be tough. However, following this advice will give you better grades while ensuring a quality lifestyle.