Guide to Online Education > Online Education In-Depth > Meet Real Online Students > Andrea E., M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications
While you were in the program, how did you manage balancing work/school/personal life?
This was a little tricky at times. The online program allowed me the flexibility to work on my papers and projects in between work and family life. That is the main reason that I chose to go with an online degree.
Name: Andrea Ehmen
Age: 30
Marital Status: Married
Kids: One 2 year old girl
Big Transition: Taking time off to have her daughter
School: West Virginia University
Target: M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications, 2007
Having my daughter in the middle of the IMC grad program added a whole new realm of "insanity" to trying to finish my degree. I took the semester off when I had her, and went back the next fall. It took me four years to complete the program online.
How did you pay for your education?
I paid for school via personal funding and through my employers' reimbursement program.
Can you estimate what it cost you to get your degree?
My graduate degree cost between $15,000 and $16,000.
What was the best thing about distance learning?
Flexibility. Because of my hectic schedule with work and spending time with my family, I wanted a program that could be custom-tailored to my schedule. The online program at WVU offered the flexibility that I needed in order to manage a personal life with finishing grad school.
Worst thing about distance learning?
No face-to-face interaction was a different twist on the "college experience". I think the hardest thing (not necessarily the worst) about online classes is that it's hard to tell from reading a posting or comment from a classmate how they will react or respond if it were an in-class setting.
Having conversations face-to-face allows for the interpersonal communications to affect the outcome of the conversation. With an online program, you can't react to an expression as easily. The only time I went to WVU campus was to turn in a paper, which happened to correspond with a trip home to visit my family.
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