DL Classes - Amount of time spent each week - WSU

I have tried searching the forums and I have not found an answer yet. If I missed a good thread I apologize beforehand.

My question is this, based on your experience(because I have no DL experience, yet) how many hours per week, per class are required to excel. Is it the same as on ground classes? I just have no idea what to expect.

I understand this is a rather broad question that depends on the school and the program. Specifically, I am going to be attending Washington State University starting this coming fall participating in their Business Administration Entrepreneurship program.

Do you feel it is possible to take 3 classes each 8 week period and stay relatively sane? Anyone have any experience?

I appreciate any insight you might have.

 

It all depends on your schedule and what else you have going on.

I could not do three 8 week classes at one time. That would be too much time spent reading/writing and not enough time with the wife/kids. Combine that with a full time job and it would be a recipe for failure.

 

It has been a few years since I took courses through the DDP at WSU. When I attended the school, on campus and online, the semesters were more like 16 weeks. I found it easier to complete a full-time course load when the semester is longer.

I was able to complete two semesters of taking 3 courses and working full-time. One semester I took 2 courses in-person and 1 online, next semester I completed all 3 courses online.

That being said, if WSU has switched over to an 8 week semester I would not recommend taking more than 2 courses.

Great school on campus and online, good support from the DDP staff.

 

I recommend that you start with one course for your first semester and see how it fits in with your other activities. Later, if you can overlap courses by four weeks, take two courses.

What I've sometimes done is take one "tough" course (something I know very little about) and one "easy" course (something I know quite a bit about). That way I have managed to get lots of "A"s.

 

Thank you for the input. I do have a wife and kids, but I can also dedicate about 30 to 40 hours per week to studying.

Semesters at WSU are still 16 weeks, but for DDP they are split into two 8 week mini-semesters.

I probably going to start with 2 classes per mini-semester and then see how that goes. Since I cannot start until the fall at this point, I am looking for a place to grab some courses over the summer. Probably one of the Washington community colleges WSU has an agreement with. Any suggestions?

I still welcome any input from experience with the WSU DDP program.

 

As far as community colleges go, most in the state of WA have direct transfer options with WSU. As long as you are taking courses with the approx same name, i.e Geol 101, Eng 101, etc you will be OK. I earned my AA (Direct Transfer Degree) from Spokane Community College, they may have some courses online by now. WSU will accept CLEP/DANTES too, so that may be an option for you as well.

I spent about 20 hours per week total on my courses. My degree is in Social Sciences, w/minor in HR Management so the courses were not that difficult.

I even took a GEOL 101 course w/lab online. It was pretty funny, the school mailed me this box with all the lab stuff. I had to go out to the local area (I was in Portland, OR at the time) and collect rocks. Took a camera out and took pictures of streams, had to draw some maps, send in soil samples, it was interesting.

Good luck.