I have to say frankly that I was shocked
reading the first posts of this topic. I
cannot imagine a student standing up and
saying such things in front of a class
without taking her/his complaints to the
professor privately first -- and thus we see
another of the problems of online courses:
it's all too easy to forget the feelings of
the people on the other end of our keyboard.

This is the second online class I have
taken. For me they are a godsend: I am
disabled, live in a rural part of the
county, and do not have a car. It is
difficult for me to come to campus. I'm
thankful that Philosophy and Religion
classes survived the budget cuts of last
spring.

I've heard that professors now have another
constraint on them: they cannot be on campus
between the hours of 11pm and 7am. That
might sound fine for most people, but I know
of at least one professor who has a young
child, and late at night is often the only
time she can work in her office. Professor B
and others who teach internet classes MUST
do much of their work from school (rather
than in their home) because they must be
behind the computer firewall. This
ridiculous security rule puts further
constraints on their already grueling
schedule. Professors aren't in it for the
money; there's very little of that for all
the work involved. Good ones like Prof B do
it because they love helping people like us
learn. I'm grateful to the dedicated people
who spend several years, lots of money, and
tremendous effort to go grad school then do
a job that pays less (literally) than a
janitor job.

I haven't posted very much because I've been
afraid of sounding not very coherent. I've
wanted my posts to be perfectly reasoned out
and perfectly written. So I'm glad for the
reiteration that our posts don't have to be
perfect!

I've learned a lot from my fellow students,
and not all of it is about philosophy per
se.

Kimberly *
fruitbat@cookiemonster.com

"What is truth? I don't know and I'm
sorry I brought it up."

-- Edward Abbey