I just found this site a few weeks ago and I am very excited about exploring the contents it contains.
I am a 44 year old online student at Colorado Technical University Online studying Business Administration with a concentration in project management. I am scheduled to complete my undergraduate degree in February of 2010.
I owned an electrical contracting business in the United States from 1997 until April of 2008 when I sold my business and moved with my wife and family to Ansbach, Germany. My wife is a contracting officer with the US Dept. of Defense and we have talked about living abroad for years. With the economy sinking quickly in the US the timing was perfect for us to make the move and I was fortunate enough to find a buyer for my business at a price that would allow us to live on a single income for several years while I pursued two of my lifes goals...earning a degree and writing a novel. I do not know at this time if I plan on going back into business when we return to the States or if I plan on doing free lance project management work. The latter is more attractive because it would allow us to live abroad and to be honest we are quite enamored with living outside of the United States. We will see how this plays out.
My wife is working on a MBA degree from the University Of Phoenix and is scheduled to complete it in August of 2010. The Dept. of Defense is paying for her graduate degree which is an incredible opportunity. For the naysayers out their who think the online schools are diploma mills let me just say that the number of military people who have degrees from online universities would stagger your imagination. These degrees are, for the most part, paid for by the military and the recipients are then hired by the military. Say what you will about the military but one thing that is a fact is that it is very well managed from a human resources point of view. If the degrees they were paying for were not producing the results they were seeking they would no longer pay for them. There is no stigma attached to an online degree at all in the Military and in fact the perecption is that a person who has earned such a degree is self motivated, able to work without direct supervision, and capable of thinking thorugh and solving problems on their own, These are qualities that are highly valued by most employers and any employer who is more concerned with where a degree comes from instead of what the holder is capable of is not going to be a strong employer in todays world anyway.
Anyway I look forward to reading and posting to these forums and finding out about other peoples thoughts and experiences with online education. This is the future of education and we are the pioneers of the evolution.