Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.
- Mohandas K. Gandhi
Learn as if you were to live forever.
- Mohandas K. Gandhi
Online schools are exploding in popularity, and the types of degrees available are similar to those offered at traditional colleges or universities. The most popular bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2006-07, as ranked by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, were business, social science/history, education, and health sciences. Those findings are similar to the facts produced by eLearners, which not too long ago tracked the popularity of degree programs and inquiries from prospective students. They determined the most popular majors to be business, psychology, nursing, engineering, liberal arts, education, information systems/technology, criminal justice, early childhood education, and health administration. The lists are slightly different, but there’s enough of an overlap to show that business, education, and health services are very popular. Additionally, a survey by GetEducated.com found business, information technology, health, and education to be the top majors.
So what do the most popular online degrees entail? Here’s a brief rundown:
A business degree provides a solid grounding in finance, marketing, accounting, and other areas related to the successful running of a company, and that versatility is one of the reasons it’s so popular. Students with business majors, especially those who pursue postgraduate degrees in specialized fields, can go on to find lucrative work in the areas of consulting, financial planning and analysis, and in a variety of management positions. Education degrees prepare you to work as a teacher, with separate tracks devoted to early childhood education or older children. Many education majors choose to get postgraduate degrees, as well, since the higher your education, the higher level at which you can be a certified instructor.
Health sciences majors include everything from nursing to pre-med studies, or ancillary fields like medical coding and medical assisting that are seeing employment growth and promise to be some of the fastest-growing industries over the next few years. A psychology degree is usually used to pursue a career as a psychologist, whether it’s a research psychologist studying patterns of human behavior or as a health care worker devoted to mental health. If you major in information technology, you’ll be prepared to maintain the computer systems and related functions for a company.
These are just a small sampling of the career paths available, and though these are the most popular degrees at online schools, there’s almost no limit to what you can study online.
