Online Masters Degree - What are your thoughts?

[GLC1968]

What is the field of study? And is your bachelor's from an online program?

In some ways, it really depends on the field of study. My husband has an online master's but it is in Network Security which is a highly technical field where 95% of the work happens online anyway. He did spend a week at the actual school near graduation to do some intense project work (everyone in the program did). He has had zero backlash in his career vs those with traditional degrees (actually, there aren't that many people who have his degree in his industry, so it's a bit of a novelty regardless of where it came from).

That said, I recruit engineers and I recently sent a recruit to a group of hiring managers at one of our facilities and before they'd even met him, they formed opinions about his skills due to his online degree. Some of their criticism was correct in that he clearly didn't have the hands-on lab skills they'd like, but some of it was unfounded it that they assumed he wouldn't work well on a team and that he did the degree online because he wanted to slack. In reality, this is completely opposite from what I've seen of students because online degrees require a tremendous amount of self-motivation and dedication. Anyway, you may face a bias depending on the field in which you are interested.

I know nothing about the perception of online degrees in the social sciences, so perhaps someone else can offer some observations in that area.

[Koronin]

My husband is currently taking classes to get an Associates degree on line. His is a techy type degree that has to do with networking and computer stuff and a lot of it is stuff he's been doing for years (both when he was in the Air Force and since he's gotten out). He discovered after he was laid off the last time that a lot of companies didn't care about his experience and only wanted to see a degree of some sort. So he started taking the classes. Good thing he is doing it on line since we had to move across state after he started due to where he was able to find a new job. But I really have no idea how HR dept look at online degrees vs classroom degrees. I know the masters I would consider getting I can't get on line anyway.