Online study is being hailed by many as the next big thing in the educational world. The reduced cost and greatly increased convenience of studying at home often sounds too good to be true, and you’d be right to be cautious. That’s because online study isn’t for everyone. It’s not the easiest thing to grasp and with a lack of direction, it can be both a waste of time and money.

But if the conditions are right, online study could be an incredibly lucrative career choice for you. 

The challenges of online study

There are many reasons why people warn you to be cautious about online study. For instance:

• Self-study requires you to have a lot of self-discipline.
• There’s no interaction with your lecturers or fellow students outside of online messages.
• You’re expected to be self-sufficient, and this can be difficult if you’re not accustomed to being independent.
• There’s not much input from your peers or teachers, so you’re usually on your own if you’re confused.
• You’ll likely need to balance online study with existing commitments.

As you can see, there are some challenges that you need to think about overcoming before you invest in online learning. However, it goes without saying that online learning has completely changed the educational landscape. This is shown in greater detail in the infographic we’ve included below that details the changing trends in legal education due to online study.

In short, if you can find a way to tackle each of those challenges, you’ll find online study to be an incredibly effective way to learn new skills. If you can’t, then it’s likely going to be a waste of money.

Infographic: University of Southern California

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