Effective online study involves dedication to the process of the course over the scheduled time.  Many courses will list times or dates by which a chapter or online session must be completed. Keep a written calendar of those dates like a syllabus or set your online calendar to send you notices when those dates are due.  Even though lectures are there on the screen for you to read, print them out and highlight the parts that are most important, just like you would a textbook. The point isn’t just to check off the boxes and get through the class, the point is to learn from it.

No one gets a college degree in a vacuum and you will be expected to participate in online groups, chat sessions and emails sharing project objectives and completions.  Make sure to always follow the rules of group etiquette and behavior. The safety of being behind a computer keyboard can lead some to act in ways they generally wouldn’t. Avoid procrastination, especially in sections where group work is involved. Accountability is an important trait to learn when getting your degree.

Follow up and follow through and you will discover the flexibility of online study can be an effective and efficient way to get your degree and land on your own two feet.

The Harvard Business School has developed a style for case studies that is generally accepted as an appropriate formula for writing a case study.  A case study involves the subject in the first paragraph then through a series of steps, depending how short the case study is meant to be, focus on the situation, the problem, proposed solutions, and conclusion.  Each step should be clearly delineated with subtitles that keep a reader’s interest and lead logically to the next step in the process. If a college degree does anything for you, it should make more logical and process oriented.

The other key to balancing a case study is to ensure you have a good solution to the original problem or case in question.  It’s easy to get focused on describing the situation and problem in order the fill the word requirement because you have a week solution.  However a case study isn’t a biography and people wanting writing that is college level are looking for answers. Balance out the development of your study so each part of the text has the same level of development and merit.

A case study is a fantastic short form document for situational analysis which reveals your thought process and ability to lead in settings requiring solution-based thought. In this case, like so many other things, the shorter the better.

A case study is a concise analysis of a situation usually presented for review or action. Before a new business or enterprise gets started the initiator must first present a case study of the area and need or problem that business can solve.  The best way to begin a case study is to know the case fully and be able to look at it from all angles. One of the bonuses you get while pursuing a college degree is how to write with a certainly amount of objectivity. A case study is business, never personal.  After learning all there is to know about the case, divide the elements into categories to be placed in a package. The categories are a description of the case utilizing your research, the problem or need the analysis reveals, possible solutions to the problem, and you recommendations for the future.

You’ll notice people don’t like to carry around big, bulky, awkward packages. They want to carry small, balanced ones.  The same is true for your case study.  Although it should contain a lot of information, the overall design needs to be compact. Each sentence must carry an important message and led to the next one so it flows together as one process. Most case studies are around 500 words long unless assigned a particularly complex case.  Be clear and to the point with your case study so your readers can get the most out of the package you give them.         

When you’re in college getting your degree, most of the things you learn will not be taught in the classroom as a subject. They will be taught be developing the habits to make your assignments succeed. Packaging is one of those lessons and the world of business awaits those graduates who can do it well.

Speed reading for your degree course will be one of the most helpful things you can do.  It’s not a hard skill to pick up. It’s just a matter of training your eyes.  First, you must read by sight alone. If you have the habit of saying words softly as you read, you’ll have to learn not to do that. Speech takes more time than sight.  Your eyes should be able to recognize words as pictures and pick up their meaning very quickly.  The next technique is sight portion.  Don’t just look at each word and go to the next. Scan one sentence at a time and recognize the important words. You don’t need to pick up all the “ands, ifs or haves” just pick up the major words and thoughts in the sentence.

 The final technique involves eye sweep. When going across the page, your eyes will come to the end of the reading line. If you “sweep” your eyes back across the page to the next line, they will pick up stray words from all over the page and the message will become confused.  When reading for your college degree course, you will want to get thoughts, not jumbled messages you can’t remember.  Better is to learn that when you finish with one sentence your eyes will automatically start and at the beginning of the next line. This will keep the message clear and the process flowing.

Trained eyes know how to pick up word meanings automatically. As you learn to skip the surroundings and pick out important words then reduce your eye sweep so they become clear thoughts your reading speed will increase. There will be a time for lazy summer days looking at every word of a book for pleasure. You can read like that after you get your college degree.

College classes with high volumes of textual reading (from text books) can best be served by speed reading.  Speed reading is the art of controlling your eyes in such a way they pick up more of the content without spending time on the nuances of writing such as the articles or adverbs.  Speed reading trains you eyes to skim over material picking out important words and leaving the rest behind.  For history book chapters or long essays on philosophy, speed reading is best.

Critical reading is much slower. It takes every word, setting and phrase into account to make more meaning about the text being read.  Critical reading will be used in most of your upper division courses you take getting your degree. Classes involving poetry, case studies, statistics or analysis of any kind will likely require critical readings.

Comprehensive reading means you take in the whole text and use it to understand the whole of what you’re reading.  A comprehensive ready doesn’t get just the facts like a speed reader and doesn’t have to know all the why’s like a critical reader. A comprehensive reader just takes in all the material at face value and creates an understanding from it.  Classes where you read novels, theories or instructional documents are a good place for comprehensive reading.

In the in course of obtaining a full college degree, you will do many types of reading for different classes and when its all done and your diploma is framed on your wall, then you can go back to your life as you knew where reading was for pleasure and only something you wanted to do.

A little research was all I needed to find out where these cheap student airline fares were coming from.  Some colleges have their own travel agencies or deals with existing agencies to provide help for students taking holidays or trips abroad.  These agencies can book seats with discounts for students that allow them to lower to cost of the trip.  If the trip can in anyway be shown to be a necessary part of a class or lesson sought in the pursuit of the college degree, many airlines have student travel discounts to aid with that.  Contact your individual airline and find out what discounts they have for first class student travel.

Students can also get cheap first class fares by booking later. When you’re busying doing your job and working on your college degree it is sometimes hard to plan ahead and trips get taken without much notice. Many websites online serve the “fast travel” population by offering greatly reduced first class fares to seats on planes that haven’t sold yet and able to be sold more cheaply in order to fill the seat. The drawback may be the flight to where you want to go is full, so don’t wait too late to book those tickets if you really have your heart set on a certain flight.

Those big cushy first class seats with their own bathroom and dedicated flight attendant aren’t just for fat cats and old ladies anymore. Use the resources available to you and find yourself flying in style.

First class student airfare is available from many airlines.  Use their website or contact and specialty travel agency and see what student or “blue passes” they have to offer that allow students a change to fly first class at a discounted airfare.  It’s a pretty good deal when realize a first class ticket can cost up to 5 times as much as a regular one. Some travel agencies that cater to college students also have tours and travel packages put together in advance that have first class student airfare as one of the benefits. Check your student activity center at your college to see which agencies offer that service.

Flexibility is not only the key to getting a college degree; it’s also a key in cheap first class student travel. Many airlines overbook their flights, particularly if the flight is a common one that has several flights throughout the day leaving from the same location.  If you listen to the announcements at the gate, they will ask for someone to give up their seat in return for a voucher for a first class upgraded seat on the next flight.   Most of the time it means waiting in the airport and hour or two longer, but sitting in the first class section may be worth the wait. It’s important to remember you can’t take this option if you have a connecting flight because it will set your whole time schedule off. But if you’re flexible, you can fly in the front with better food and more leg room.

Part of getting your college degree is memory making.  By finding some inexpensive first class student airfare you can make pleasant memories that last a lifetime.

The hard part about reading for a degree course is the fact that you aren’t reading what you choose; you are reading what they choose. There are some good survival skills you can use to get through the longer tomes of assigned reading faster. Skimming is one way to get through it. If you know the material somewhat you can always skim the chapter, which means to a surface reading picking out just a few important ideas or phrases. Some textbooks are written for skimmers and put the important ideas like vocabulary words or key thoughts in bold on the page or in a list at the end of the chapter called, “key concepts”. Remember, skimming won’t give you detailed information but will should give you enough of an overview to participate in your class discussion.

Another reading technique is headlining. Many textbooks for college courses write their information in short paragraphs with headlines about each section that describes the next few paragraphs. Read the headline and the first paragraph of each section where the topic sentence is usually located. If you feel you understand the concept and facts well enough, then go to the next section. Again, like skimming it might not tell you everything you need to know, but it will prepare you with enough background material to know what people are talking about when the discussion gets started.

Reading for pleasure is a fun and life-giving activity. Reading for grades is not, but it is a necessary part of your educational journey.

There are three types of references: Footnote, where the material is assigned a number by page which corresponds to an entry at the bottom of the page that tells the source, author, page number or URL. Endnote, where the material is assigned a number by chapter and the source information is compiled in a list on the back. Parenthetical, where the source author and page number is listed in parenthesis right after the source but the author is listed on the bibliography in the back. When you are earning your college degree these are the three major types you will use.

When doing your research make sure to scan the index or publishing copywriter information to make sure you have all that down, and be sure to write the page number of the source or exact title of the website page so it’s available when doing the writing. A good reference is one where the reader could find the exact quotation or idea but using your reference as a map. If they can’t come up with the source of your quotation, then the writing is not the appropriate level for a college degree.

Plagiarism is a serious academic crime and to be avoided at all costs. Even if you wish they were your words, make sure that the reader can tell if they’re not.

The first step in writing a persuasive essay is to know what you are trying to get people to think or do. You are going to make a change in their thinking in some way. That’s a good thing because going to college is all about changing the way you think. Once you know what change you are trying to make, come up with a list of reasons why your idea is better or reasonable. I like to find reasons that aren’t just important to me, but are helpful to anyone. For example, if I want to write a persuasive essay on recycling, I don’t just talk about how I think it’s important. One of the first things I learned in college was that no one cares what I think is important. They care about what they think is important. Instead I would write about why it’s important to them not to waste the planet’s resources. Persuasion is always focused on the person you want to persuade.

The next step is to have support or back-up material for your view. Getting a college degree means you are working with high level thinking skills. It’s not enough to say, “Because I think so”. So do some research and find evidence, data, statistics or an expert to show your idea is valid and meaningful. You don’t have to be a specialist, but it’s good to have one on your side.

Finally, write your persuasive essay clearly and directly. State your position, give the reasons and back-up evidence you researched, and end with a conclusion that helps people wrap up the thought in a clear way. Remember, you start persuading the minute you get ready to go to college for a degree. You’ll still be persuading when you graduate.