Guide to Online Education > Online Education In-Depth > Meet Real Online Students > Steve, Associate's Degree in General Studies
"I want to set a good example for my children," he says of the value of formal education.
Name: Steve Slawin
Age: 44
Marital Status: Married
Children: Two daughters; age 13 and 14
Current Location: Florida
Advice to Online Students: "Try and find out about an instructor before you enroll in a class."
School: St. Petersburg College
Target: A.A. General Studies, Early 2007
"Balancing work, family and school" has been his biggest challenge, he states. Everyone pitches in at home. "My wife maintains the house, my daughters care for the pets, I do all the grocery shopping."
He has found it simpler to keep the three areas of his life—work, family, and school--separate. Attempts to combine school and work, or school and family were unsuccessful.
"I'm responsible for hands-on system management of hardware. I have a staff of eight. We do have a monthly organized meeting, but I try to meet and keep up with status on everyone's work on an ongoing basis." That level of accessibility makes it difficult to focus on anything other than the job at hand.
"I took a test on-line once," he recalls. "Once or twice I've done work at the office. But I get interrupted too often." Now he is limited to occasionally catching up on reading assignments over the lunch hour.
He typically confines his studying to home. "Everyone in the house has their own laptop," he reports. Still he chooses to work after the rest of the family has retired for the evening, or on weekends when everyone else is engaged in other activities. He is careful not to let his schoolwork intrude too much on family life.
The flexibility of online learning ranks high on his list of the pros of online learning. "Being able to access my classes anywhere, any time is the easiest thing about it."
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