7 Ways Distance Learning Can Prepare You for the Job Market

Education Online Articles : 7 Ways Distance Learning Can Prepare You for the Job Market by Cathy Cravits

Translating the quality and legitimacy of your online degree to the job market can be a difficult task for many up-and-coming professionals. Within the business world, distance learning is still working to establish its reputation as an accepted form of higher education. After all, the online education explosion is a relatively new phenomenon. Therefore, online graduates may have to go the extra mile in order to prove the quality of their degrees.

Your prospective employer may not be aware of the numerous skills online education and the work environment have in common. To get a better picture of what you can take away from your eLearning experience, check out the benefits below.

1. Managing One's Time: Use your time wisely. It is not just a phrase anymore; it is a skill. Online instruction gives students an incredible amount of academic freedom when it comes to schedule and pace. Graduates of distance learning programs can easily transfer their ability to effectively manage assignments and class session into the corporate world of deadlines and board meetings.

2. Confidence in One's Technical Abilities: In business, you cannot hide from technology, as it permeates every aspect of the corporate environment. For online learners, this job requirement would not even cause them to break a sweat. Online degree graduates have the benefit of familiarity and hands-on experience with numerous types of technology. Virtual experience teaches one the proper protocol expected when using each medium of technology. With all this insider knowledge, how can you not stand out from the rest?

3. Self-Will and Personal Drive: Finding the right program, keeping pace with the accelerated format, scheduling time to study and meeting course deadlines are all part of the virtual academic experience, and all of which can prove to be quite a challenge. Make sure your potential employer knows of the personal dedication you have to accuracy, efficiency and success.

4. First-rate Communication Skills: Between the different people and technologies encountered in the online classroom, students are exposed to all types of ways to communicate, and each requires its own form of etiquette. Explain how your experiences online have built an excellent foundation of communication skills.

5. Leadership Skills: In order to compensate for face-to-face interaction, online courses utilize group projects. Group projects allow students to set and assume different functions in the overall learning process. Team leaders are able to highlight their leadership skills by coordinating schedules, setting goals, evaluating work and guiding a product to completion. Be sure to emphasize your ability to effectively lead a team and produce a successful project to possible employers.

6. High-level Functioning within a Team Environment: Part of the distance learning experience is interacting with and learning from a variety of people. eLearners encounter opinions, skill levels and work efficiency levels that often vary from their own. Therefore, the ability to adapt and highlight individual strengths is a major asset students can take away from online education.

7. Current Awareness of Industry's Tends: Distance education has the unique advantage of offering not only the latest technology, but the most up-to-date information within a field. Being so connected to the Web, students always have a plethora of useful and reputable resources at their fingertips

They say "it takes a village to raise a child" but actually, it takes a good teacher to saw the seed, to inspire and to model knowledge, passion, will to grow and will to become. Every one of us reading this article can think of one or more teachers that made a substantial difference in our lives. It is your turn now to make your life count and be one of those teachers that are part of someone's good memories.

About the Author
elearnportal is an information resource center for finding high quality, online college courses and degrees.

Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=622862