PSU unveils online business degree

With its Management and Leadership degree program, Portland State will offer the first online business degree in Oregon. Launching this fall, the program is designed as a part-time, three-year program during which students take two courses per term. Though there is one on-campus orientation event, the program will consist of video conferencing with classmates and faculty, streaming lectures from campus and engaging with community partners to enhance students’ local networks.

The launch of PSU’s online business undergraduate degree is part of an effort to expand the university’s online offerings and to be more responsive to students’ needs.

The School of Business Administration is also planning to launch an online master’s degree in supply chain management and to convert a partially online MBA program into a fully online one.

The focus on catering to the needs of students is reflected by statistics regarding the number of business students balancing work and school. According to the dean of the business school, about half of the undergrads in the SBA program work full-time. Providing online programs will help accommodate these students as they try to support themselves while getting an education.

I currently have three jobs and attend PSU full-time, so I can acknowledge the benefits of being able to “attend class” on your own time and at your location of choice.

In addition to having less time to complete schoolwork, having to travel from school to work and vice versa is a stressful obligation. For me, it results in late nights, mornings getting up at dawn, cursing traffic as I rush to and fro between work and class, and a moment shared between relief and grief when getting into bed and realizing that I’m finally done for the day—mere hours from beginning the next.

Though I still prefer traditional courses, the ability to go to work, come home, decompress and then begin “class” in the comfort of my own home would be fantastic. We must be able to self-motivate, though I imagine business students aren’t lacking in that department.

While the online degree will benefit students who work 40 hours a week at a local coffee shop, it will be especially beneficial for those already involved in and busy with managing a business. The owner of the restaurant I work for opened his business before he completed his business degree. He currently attends PSU’s SBA program while running the three restaurant locations he owns.

The online program is perfect for people like him. His current schedule keeps him out of the house from 8 a.m. to late evening most days of the week. By the time he comes home from one of his restaurants to begin his homework, he has already worn himself out from a full day. With the online program, the time he’d spend on campus could be allocated elsewhere.

It would cut down on his commuting as well. Rather than having to leave work to run to campus, attend class and then drive back to work, he could remain at the restaurant and use the slow hours of the day to do his schoolwork, or deal with it during his lunch break.

Like others who are employed and enrolled in the SBA, he has a wife and a kid, and the prospect of being able to spend more time at home is an appealing one. He’d still get to refine his business management skills, and he could live a life that more closely resembles one of his age rather than the 20-something slaves to campus.

While I may stretch myself thin with three jobs and school, it’s no biggie because any free time would be spent recklessly anyway. To my boss and other students with businesses to run and families to spend time with, however, the extra free time would be invaluable.