Physics by distance learning

[golu14]

Can someone tell me the universities offering bachelors degree by distance education, in physics or astrophysics or any other bachelors degree by distance learning with physics as one of the subjects? Doesnt matter which country the university belongs to.

Thanks :D

 

[twofish-quant]

Can someone tell me the universities offering bachelors degree by distance education, in physics or astrophysics or any other bachelors degree by distance learning with physics as one of the subjects? Doesnt matter which country the university belongs to.

Thanks :D

In the US...

Thomas Edison State College
Charter Oak University
Excelsior College

There is also the Open University in UK and UNISA.

Also go to www.degree.net and get the books from John Bear.

Note that other than Open University (which has an excellent reputation) I know nothing about the quality of the schools, and I don't know how well they will or won't prepare you for graduate studies, since I've never talked to a physics undergraduate from those schools. The only thing I can tell you is that they aren't outright scams and online universities is one area in which you do have to be careful.

 

[golu14]

Thomas edison state college degress are highly specialised proffesional degrees in physics related fields.
Charter oak university doesn't offer any undergrad programme in physics.

The open university of uk did have a perfect bsc physical science course, but when i tried to apply it said its not there for my country :( I am in India btw.

Ive heard UNISA offers a lot of good programmes but i searched thoroughly through their website, foumd a lot of info on open distance learning but couldn't find the list of undergrad degrees available, it will be great if someone can give me a direct link to it?

Exceior's website in under maintainence, hope it gets up soon.

Are there universities which offer bachelors in enggineering degrees? Is that possible by distance learning?

 

[ZapperZ]

By nature, both Physics and Engineering degrees require laboratory work and courses. I don't see any accredited universities offering purely, 100% distance learning for a full undergraduate Bachelors degree.

Furthermore, I haven't found any kind of statistics on how many of these "distance learner" who managed to enter physics/engineering graduate school, or what kind of successes in employment that they have had upon graduation.

If I'm an employer, or if I'm evaluating candidates for admission to a program with such a background, I would be very hesitant to consider someone with such untested educational knowledge.

Zz.

 

[golu14]

I found an accredited university in my own country offering bsc physics hons by distance learning. It includes practicles too. You goto their 'study centres' located at various places throughout the country(there are some in the usa too!) and give your practicle examinations there.
And one can even study both theory and practicles at the centres if he wants.
Ill be looking into this in more details and if didnt suit me, I am repeating my 12th grade for better marks next year (:

 

[EternityMech]

Why not just enroll in a class?

 

[twofish-quant]

Have you looked at University of Phoenix?

No physics degrees. They don't even teach calculus.

 

[twofish-quant]

By nature, both Physics and Engineering degrees require laboratory work and courses. I don't see any accredited universities offering purely, 100% distance learning for a full undergraduate Bachelors degree.

Open University has been able to deal with getting labs. There are a number of ways of doing this, and it's hardly an unsolvable problem.

Furthermore, I haven't found any kind of statistics on how many of these "distance learner" who managed to enter physics/engineering graduate school, or what kind of successes in employment that they have had upon graduation.

Neither have I, but I think that's because of small numbers. In any case, it's not clear how useful statistics are because the landscape is changing radically, so what is impossible in 2008 can become routine in 2012.

Something that I'd like to do is to make contact with someone that has *tried* to get an undergraduate physics degree through distance learning, to see what problems they have run into.

Part of the problem frankly is that there is a "perceived glut" in physicists, and so anything that makes it easier to train scientists and engineers so that there is more of them is considered a bad thing. The selling point of online education is that it makes things faster and easier, but suppose we double or triple the number of scientists and engineers. Then we have a problem because the economic system as it is is doing a lousy job of handling the number of people that are getting trained for those fields right now.

If I'm an employer, or if I'm evaluating candidates for admission to a program with such a background, I would be very hesitant to consider someone with such untested educational knowledge.

I am an employer, and someone that got the ability to be a guinea pig for this sort of thing is someone that we want to hire. Technical ability is pretty straightforward to test. Attitude is harder, but if you figure out how to get yourself an accredited physics degree, then in my company, that's the right attitude.

In any case, among the reasons that "it doesn't work" employer acceptance is not one of them. Corporations have been driving a lot of the interest in online education, because they want to be able to train workers cheaply and efficiently. If you get interviewed, there is a very good chance that the HR person has a degree from the University of Phoenix and their bosses boss is working on some online degree or certification, and a lot of the money that UoP gets is from corporate reimbursements.

There are a ton of continuing education and compliance training that I have to deal with, and that's all done online.