There are many things you can and should do online. Taking online classes is not one of these things.

After taking one online class, I would never take another unless I absolutely had too.

As a student at De Anza College with a job and a kid, the moment I heard about online classes I jumped at the chance to take one because the possibilities seemed endless.

I thought I would be able to participate in interactive chat groups with professors and other students, finish assignments when I could get a chance and read material when I felt like it.

It all came crashing down when I read the syllabus.

Assignments and readings all had weekly deadlines. If a question arose about the material you would have to email the professor and wait until you got a response. Almost every test and quiz is timed and you don’t seem to have classmates.

Most professors don’t email everyone a contact list of all of the people taking the class, so you never get a chance to exchange numbers with another classmate to talk about the material or set up a study session.

Textbooks are still recommended for online classes. E-textbooks are cheaper, but not by much. Even though many come with a $10 or $20 discount they can still cost more than $100 a piece and may require you to connect to the Internet to use the textbook.

There is a rule when it comes to taking college classes. For every unit, the students should be spending three times that number of hours doing work for that class. If a class is three units, then a students should spend nine hours outside of that class doing work for it.

Online classes are no exception to that rule. A student has to be as committed to an online class as if it was a normal class on campus.

The one positive about an online class would be the fact that you don’t have to waste gas and fight for parking on campus.That one positive would still not get me to try another online class.