University of Phoenix promised to "to provide you with as many distance learning and online education opportunities as possible," and the school filled its commitment. That was another positive aspect about the distance learning -- some of the coursework was independent, but a lot of it was with team members. There were three of us who were together the entire two years. We have become good friends, online and off. Also, with every course there were other people who joined us. There was a good diversity of students, most of them working and older like myself.

Similarly, the faculty members, or facilitators, were a big plus, because they were all involved in occupations outside of the school. I learned a great deal about the types of jobs available and work being done all over the country in information technology. It was a good way to keep up-to-date on what was new in the field. One of my favorite general courses was general studies. This was the first class I took, and the facilitator was phenomenal. Her combination of knowledge, motivation and enthusiasm set the stage for my two years to come. The other general studies course I liked was English composition. Having more skills in the area mathematics and science, this was a good learning tool for me. As for the IT courses, I valued the Visual Basic I and Visual Basic II courses the most, since they were very helpful with my daily work.

If there was anything I could change about the distance learning, it would be to move more of the core courses back into the beginning year. For example, the networking course was placed in the last two-thirds of the curricula. I would put it in the initial one-third of classes, because it is important to have these skills as a foundation for later on.

I have been very please with my courses through the University of Phoenix and all the benefits that came with it. For good or bad, I will miss...

I decided on this degree to build up my information technology abilities and received a lot more than that. The courses also taught written and oral communications, information retrieval and research.
I have not yet decided whether or not I will go on for my master's degree. I am going to take off a year and spend some time on my other interests such as working in the garden, hunting and softball. I also enjoy mentoring a now 11th-grade student at the local high school once a week. Over the three years that we have been meeting, I have seen him change much for the better. This is not an academic mentoring, rather being there to support him with any of his personal concerns.

When my daughter graduated high school, she received a "bright futures" scholarship from the state of Florida to help pay her way through college. I'm glad that I can repay some of this support with my mentoring. It has also given me much personal satisfaction and pride to know that I have positively impacted this boy's life. I have been fortunate in my life and am pleased to help others where I can.

Of course, now that I am done with class, I hope to spend as much time as possible with my new grandson, Cole. I also look forward to continuing getting together with the other two team members who went through the years of schooling with me. Just because the actual coursework is over, does not mean by any means that everything, like these friendships, must come to an end. I plan on continuing to take courses/workshops in my field. With IT, if you do not keep up, you quickly are out of the loop. My experience with the distance learning degree at University of Phoenix may have only been two years long -- which either was grueling or flew by depending on the specific week's assignment -- but it will stay with me for many years to come.