No matter what field of study you wish to pursue, there are always advantages and disadvantages to studying online. However, when one outweighs the other, you know what course to follow. In the case of health informatics, the number of advantages usually outweigh many obstacles you’d find with other disciplines. Why study for your health informatics degree online? The following advantages may help you decide.
Give Credit Where Credit Is Due
The field of health informatics is a relatively new discipline. Schools like the University of Cincinnati have set the pace within the industry by being forerunners in educating tomorrow’s top talent. If you are going in any area of Information Technology, IT, studying online gives you opportunities hard to match in a traditional classroom setting. Keep in mind that an online MSHI program requires you to be at your computer which is also where you will be sitting when working in the field.
It’s all about technology and that’s where credit is due. You can study your lessons on one screen while flipping over to another application to put what you are learning to use. It’s an amazing way to master your lessons without flipping back and forth from textbook to computer.
Convenience When Working a Full Time Job
When striving towards a masters in health informatics, you are probably already working in the field of IT, if not in health informatics. Most of us work a 35 to 40-hour week which leaves us little time to do much but eat and sleep if you take travel time into account. Consider going to school in the evenings with even more driving to do and you will find that the convenience of studying from home is an amazing benefit.
Study at Your Own Pace
How many times have you sat in a lecture hall thinking that you can’t follow a word the prof is saying? You’d like more time to work on a specific lesson or would like to speed up a bit because of the monotony of it all. You’re working a job and the lecture is so boring that you find yourself nodding off.
That’s a real benefit for those who choose to study for an online MSHI degree. If you feel comfortable with the chapter you are working on, you can breeze through it. On the other hand, if the concept is foreign to you, you can browse around the Internet to find the study information you need to better understand what you are reading.
When in Doubt, Ask Google
While you can study virtually any subject at any level online, it makes sense to study any computer-related course online. Sitting at that computer gives you an advantage you wouldn’t have in class and any code or programming you’d like to run could be done on the very same computer you are studying on. The only real disadvantage you might have is in finding someone to answer any questions you have, and which Google can’t answer for you. Even so, there’s always email, so you won’t be in the dark for long.
