Job Discussion Forums

[Angel46]

Anyone enrolled in degree work at this Canadian University? Online students from abroad must pay DOUBLE the course cost - are there any significant disadvantages if one registers as a student residing in Canada, rather than overseas, and then has a friend post any relevant materials? Advice greatly appreciated.

[China.Pete]

Residency, for academic purposes, is a little trickier than a PO Box. You might want to check your university's website for residence requirements, or the provincial regulations for same. Not being Canadian, I cannot give you an exact answer, but in my experience it involves meeting one or more of the following requirements: recent graduation from a high school in the same province, one year's residence in the province prior to application, a full-time job in the province, married to spouse who meets the previous requirements, etc. The lower tuition rate essentially represents the subsidy provided by the taxpayers of the province where the university is located; unless you can document you're a taxpayer - or a potential taxpayer - you aren't entitled to the public benefit.

[spiral78]

Athabasca's considered a bit of a joke here in Calgary. I wouldn't pay much for a degree with the Athabasca name on it in any case.

[saint57]

I agree that Atha doesn't have a very good rep. However, I am trying to get my friend to do it while he is teaching in China. He is a great teacher but has no degree. A degree from Atha could allow him to get into a B.Ed program when he returns. As for the costs, I have no idea.

[ls650]

The folks on http://www.degreeinfo.com/ seem to think Athabasca is a decent, accredited university - but the course costs are pretty high if you aren't a resident.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

Athabasca is an accredited university, but they are an open university, so if you can't get in anywhere else, then you CAN get into Athabasca.

Being accredited in Canada doesn't automatically rule out 'joke' status, for a lot of people Lakehead Unversity in Ontario is a bit of a joke, even though there's nothing unusual about it all, other than the fact that it's way out in the middle of nowhere (therefore the 'all I got into is Lakehead!' joke in high school- even though it actually has one of the best environmental studies programmes in the country). Also, it's not a huge school, but neither are a whole lot of other universities that somehow escape the 'joke' status.

Canadians often also tend to consider whatever is the closest to where they grew up to be a little less than average. If you grow up just west of Toronto, then going to UofT's Mississauga campus is seen as sort of a 'I settled for the local school'. If you're from east of Toronto, then the exact same thing is thought of about Scarborough campus of UofT. At the community college level, Durham is seen as a joke if you are from east of Toronto, but equal with all the other community colleges if you're from elsewhere in the province.

If you're Canadian, and looking for distance learning, then Athabasca is probably a good bet- especially if it isn't for your first degree. They are not turning out academics, and that's not their goal. Canadian university career centres will talk about the value of getting distance degrees, while universities themselves don't offer it, because they don't want to be the first to offer something that others may regard as substandard. It makes it very difficult to get credentials without being in the area and very likely being a full time student or part time for many years- years in which you are forced to live within travelling distance of the university.

Many Canadians who teach EFL want to get MAs in Applied Linguistcs or TEFL/TESOL/TESL. I have so far found only one Canadian school that offers an MA in TESL/TESOL/TEFL (I can't remember which one they said it was) by distance and it was a Christian university in BC. Religious post-secondary institutions are also considered a joke by many Canadians- especially programmes that teach you to be a foreign language teacher with a Christian bent- basically a religious nutbar who is hellbent on converting people, but doing it under the guise of teaching language. And so many Canadians are getting distance degrees through UK universities, American universities, Autralian Universities etc, and then if they try to get a job at a Canadian college or university doing what they have been trained to do and have experience doing, they may or may not have luck finding a job.

Many university professors in Canada have degrees from universities outside of Canada- but it's generally the ones who aren't Canadian (who make up an astonishingly high percentage of the professors throughout the country- again, close to home is not quite as good). If you are Canadian (basically, if your undergraduate degree etc were from Canadian universities) then they want your graduate degree to be Canadian. After the national level, they wan them to be from the same province. If your undergrad is from Ontario, then your grad should be too.

It's hard being Canadian and having an almost innate ability to decry the US education system (as if there were a national education system in the US instead of state ones) as being bad, while at the same time those education systems are set up so that people can actually get the type of thing they want to get done, done while in Canada, you can't.

[Angel46]

Thank you, everyone, for your invaluable feedback. Since I will be forced to pay higher premiums as an 'overseas student', perhaps it is time to research other countries for universities who offer 'quality' online degrees. Who says this must be limited to my home country of Canada. What do you think?

[ntropy]

Athabasca is a decent solid online university. Nothing wrong with it and only a joke if you're the Premier of Alberta (they let you plagiarize papers without penalty then).

Yes, why limit yourself to Canada. Check out everywhere.