Realistic Goals and Expectations

All of the resources that we have mentioned so far will go a long way in helping you to succeed as a Penn Stater, but perhaps the most important tool at your disposal is a set of realistic goals and expectations.

Time

It's important that you consider the challenge of attending college and the demands that it will place on your time. You should plan to spend 9 to 12 hours per week of study and class work for each 3-credit course. This means that if you intend to register for two courses, you should prepare to spend 18 to 24 hours per week on these courses—it really is quite an investment! Of course, some of your classes won't require as much of your time, but others may require more. This is obviously an important consideration when looking at your schedule, so we're going to look more closely at this topic in an upcoming lesson.

Instructors

Instruction for online courses has some obvious differences when compared with instruction in a resident classroom. Since the courses are asynchronous, you will often be online at times when your instructor is not. This means that often when you ask a question, you're going to have to wait a bit for your answer—for World Campus students, there’s no staying around after class to ask questions! This doesn't mean that you should expect long intervals between communications with your instructor, but feedback will likely not be instantaneous either. Remember that just because the due date for an assignment is 11:59 p.m. (ET) it doesn't mean that your instructor will be online for questions that late.

So what should you expect from your instructors? The first thing is that they let you know what types of communication they prefer. This may be done through a post in Canvas, an email, or a notation on the syllabus, so be sure that you're looking over all of your communications before and as the course gets started.

You can also expect that instructors will make their courses accessible to all students. This means that if you have a documented disability, your instructor will have support available for you. Please visit Students with Disabilities Links to an external site. for more information.

You can also reasonably expect that your instructor is aware of the realities faced by many World Campus students. Whether you're taking classes as an active-duty service member or fitting them into the hectic schedule of a single parent, please know that you aren't the first student to experience these challenges. If you're taking courses under special circumstances, make sure to reach out to your instructor early so that they're aware of what is going on and can work with you from the start.

Peers

One thing that you will quickly discover is that your fellow World Campus students don't fit into the mold of the "typical college student." You will, of course, share your virtual classrooms with traditionally aged students, but the average age of your fellow World Campus classmates is 32. Many of your classmates hold down the full-time responsibilities of family life and career in addition to their academic pursuits, lending a wonderful diversity of opinion to the discussions that you're about to engage in.

Adding to this diversity is the fact that 18% of World Campus students are either active-duty personnel or military veterans. Students joining you may be from any of the 50 states or from more than 70 countries around the world. Your campus really is a "world" campus.

Because of this, you can expect that some of your classmates will be located in an area of the world different from your own. Working in groups and participating in discussion forum posts across time zones may seem odd, but these are situations that will occur in your upcoming courses. But along with this, you'll gain insights into cultures and communities that you might never have otherwise.

Goals

Similarly, you should make sure that your goals align with the realities of the work ahead of you. For instance, it may be feasible for some students to take a full course load (12 credits or more), but if you're also working a full-time job, a half-time course load might be more realistic for you. You should take this into account when you're setting goals for your educational journey. You may have heard of S.M.A.R.T. goals before, but if you haven't, Figure 3.5 shows what the acronym stands for.

Figure 3.5. S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals for your education means that if you have 36 credits left to complete, you shouldn't set a goal to graduate in two semesters. Nothing is quite so discouraging as not meeting a goal that you have your heart set on, so be sure that your goals are realistic before you start working toward them. If you have questions about proper academic goal setting, your adviser is a great resource to help you keep your education, work, and life in balance.