OPINION: There should be a wider range of online classes at Boise State

Photo courtesy of Chris Montgomery

Taking classes online provides students with the flexibility to curate a personalized learning experience that suits their needs. Many students, like myself, learn better at their own pace and have busy schedules. 

Online classes make earning a degree more accessible for students that live far from campus. I live in southern Meridian, and although Boise State isn’t too far of a drive, the gas adds up when I have to be on campus four days a week. 

In past semesters, I could clump my classes together so that I’d only have them a couple of days a week. However, all the classes I needed to take this semester only had one time available, causing me to have to make the commute more often.

Some students also understand information better in an online format. Though these classes still have set due dates, there is more flexibility with how the student wants to schedule their time to work on assignments.

Others have multiple other reasons for needing to stay home often — one being that with the pandemic, many students have family members at home who they need to be careful around, and coming to campus often can be stressful.

With certain majors, earning a degree entirely online is completely plausible and realistic. Boise State University offers close to 100 online degree pathways for students who need the balance and freedom of online learning.

Though there is a lot offered, the types of majors students can work towards are still limited. For bachelor’s degrees in particular, there are only 11 degree programs available. For those who wish to complete a specific major other than these, the online degree isn’t a viable  option. 

With these completely online pathway majors, there are also individual online classes that students can take. For this spring semester, there are about 348 individual online classes offered to students. However, only 72 of these classes are upper-division courses. 

[Photo of a remote Zoom call.]
Photo courtesy of Chris Montgomery

There are also very few online classes available for arts majors. Out of the 348, only about six are arts courses for majors like film and television and theatre arts.

There are 800+ online classes provided at Boise State University, but many of these classes are not available to take unless you are on an online degree pathway. This means that depending on the major and the requirements, students aren’t able to take a mix of in person and online classes but rather have to take one or the other.

There have been times that I’ve attempted to register for a class but was rejected because I’m not an online pathway student. There should be priority in these online classes for those students. However, many of these classes have open spaces, and I think there should be flexibility in allowing non-online students to take these courses that have openings. 

There are also hybrid classes offered, which means that the class is partly online and partly in person. Usually this means that the class meets twice a week, one time in person and the other online. These types of classes are very beneficial to students who need more open schedules, though there aren’t many offered. 

However, the classification of hybrid seems to be blurred as some “hybrid” classes aren’t really hybrid at all. Some classes classified as hybrid still have both classes in person but have the homework online, which isn’t very different from a regular class.

With all this being said, perhaps an online pathway major is better suited for some students, but they aren’t made aware that they have this option. The classes that are available to take online for students are listed on the Boise State website.

Some students work well online but also like the social aspect that comes with learning in person. With some classes and curriculum, it’s very important to have these students in the classroom, but that isn’t the case for all of them.

There should be focus on allowing for that flexibility by allowing non-online pathway students to take certain online classes if there’s open availability and expanding on what online courses are being provided to ensure that Boise State students are having the options they need to be successful.

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