School in general is a nightmare to navigate on your own without tips or guidance - and online school would only make things more difficult. Luckily, I already went through all of the motions of starting online school, so I can offer that guidance you may need!
First things first, if you lack self-motivation, online school is probably not the best bet for you - but, I definitely would not discourage you from transferring to online school just because you lack self-motivation.
Online school is difficult for many reasons but the top reason is that you have to stay motivated in order to pass and it will consume a lot more time than regular classes. Every time I went to speak with an advisor, the first thing that they would warn me about was how time consuming and difficult online school would be.
I can't say that I agree with them about the difficulty of online, opposed to in-person, but it is definitely much more time consuming. To give you an example: I get around 20 assignments a week, having four classes. This is definitely pretty stressful, but depending on the difficulty of your classes, and how dedicated you are to getting your work done, you could probably knock it all out in 3-5 days!
Secondly, make sure you research your school's policies before transferring to online-only courses. I know that for some schools, like mine, once you transfer online, there is no going back! At first when I received this news, I was a bit reluctant to transfer since I would be stuck online forever... but, I think that online school was the best choice I could have made for my educational and professional life.
Third, go to the financial aid advisors to speak about your options. My school, Arizona State University, charges more tuition for online school than in-person classes, which was something I was extremely surprised about. So, you just need to make sure that you can financially commit to being an online student before you consider anything else.
Next, make sure you research which degrees are offered online to see if there are any that fit your needs. However, if you're already pursuing a degree and you want to continue online, you have to make sure that they offer the course online! When transferring from Computer Science to Business Communications, I was quite disappointed that CS wasn't offered online - and it still doesn't make sense to me, but that's besides the point!
Next, if your school is anything like mine, then the online schooling option is based on half semester intervals, called sessions - meaning, your classes will be half as long (approximately 7.5 weeks) and twice as fast. So, make sure you are prepared to learn at double the pace of your normal classes! However, to combat this, they probably won't let you take more than a certain amount of credits each session so that you won't be overloaded.
Finally, online school can be extremely useful in so many situations. Personally, I transferred online because I plan on moving out of Arizona very soon, which I could not do while attending in-person classes. Classes were also very restricting to my busy schedule as a model, aspiring YouTuber, blogger and business woman. Some people choose to do online school because they have a disability, they want to attend the college of their choice but they don't live in the state, or they simply don't like going to class.
I know that many people would say that college has a lot to do with networking and the lasting connections/relationships that you make, but personally, I wasn't making any of those connections in the first place. Since stepping away from the college campus, I've met so many amazing people in the fields that I actually want to have a career in and I've never networked more! In any situation, I would recommend that all students try taking at least one online course during their college career to see if it's better for them and to experience something different!
Until next time,
xoxo,
"O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name: deliver us, and purge away our sins, for your name's sake"
Psalm 79:9