How to Earn a STEM Degree Online
By: Madison Hunter
Tags: Education, STEM, University, Student Life, Self Improvement

Tip 1. Ask questions.

Teaching yourself anything, let alone at the university level, can be frustrating at best. When you’re taking STEM subjects, you compound the matter tenfold.

The key to success is to ask questions. All of the questions. No matter how “dumb” you think they are, they need to be asked. Classes move along at such a fast pace that there isn’t time to waste beating your head against the wall trying to figure something out.

Furthermore, don’t stop at your instructor if they can’t give you an answer to your question. Keep pursuing the answer. If it means asking every other professor who teaches the same class, so be it.

It’s important to remember that your time is valuable. Don’t spend hours of it on a question that could be answered in two minutes.

Furthermore, STEM subjects specifically build on concepts learned over time. If you don’t understand something now, chances are it will reappear and will have been built upon. Don’t be shy, ask the question.

Tip 2. Try new learning methods.

My learning methods have changed quite a bit over the course of getting my degree. Naturally, yours might change now that courses are online for the foreseeable future.

Luckily, many study methods lend themselves well to learning STEM subject objectives. The more active and passive learning methods you can incorporate into your system, the better.

Passive learning methods:

reading the textbook/lecture notes/PowerPoint slides

taking notes or annotating

listening to lectures/seminars/instructional videos

Active learning methods:

teaching what you have learned to someone else (useful for all STEM majors — the trick is to find someone willing to sit and let you drone on for a few hours while remaining relatively interested)

experiments and lab work

active recall (useful for biology and geology majors when memorization is required)

peer discussion

building projects to implement and expand on what you have learned (especially useful for software engineering majors)

completing sets of study questions (useful for mathematics, physics, engineering, and chemistry majors)

Tip 3. Study smart.

During my time in an online university, my study methods have changed drastically. My first set of courses were a real wake-up call that my methods needed to change. This also isn’t to say that they won’t change in the future. However, this is what works for now.

I adopted this med school method of studying that suggests taking three passes at the information. This means that for a specific chapter or unit, you go over the material three times (hence the three passes). Each time, you go over the material in a different way to solidify the learning. I’ve altered this method to roughly accommodate ~6 passes:

Pass 1: I carefully read through the unit objectives.

Pass 2: I skim through the chapter looking at any headings, images, and graphs. This gives me a rough idea of what’s in the chapter.

Pass 3: If the chapter has study questions or a synopsis of the chapter at the back, I read these thoroughly. In a synopsis or study questions, the author will pick out the most important stuff in the chapter. This gives me insight on what to specifically pay attention to.

Pass 4: I skim through the chapter and make flashcards for all of the vocabulary words that pop up. I personally like to use Quizlet so I can have the cards handy on my phone whenever I get a minute to study. This also helps prepare me for the next pass of the material, because I will understand the keywords and how they generally apply to the context of the related passage.

Pass 5: I read the chapter. While this is a really passive way of learning, reading, or speed-reading the chapter gives a good solid starting point for understanding the meat of the unit.

Pass 6: I complete any study questions assigned to the chapter. If no study questions are assigned, I answer the objectives of the unit as if they were questions.

This is just an example of a method that works for me, but something completely different may work for you. It’s important to tune in to how you learn best and to use several different active and passive learning methods to solidify your understanding of concepts.

Tip 4. Work ahead.

Work ahead, but don’t become obsessed with work. This is a specifically tricky thing to try to balance if you’re anything like me.

Basically, since starting at an online university, I’ve become a workaholic. I’m hyperfocused when it comes to school, and that means working ahead whenever I can. I won’t lie, it’s not the healthiest of behaviors. However, that’s a story for another time.

The point is, being a STEM student means you have an insane workload to try to get through, not to mention pages and pages of outcomes to thoroughly know for each class for exam season.

My best tip for dealing with this is to work ahead when you can. Getting one or two extra things done the week before can make your load lighter the next week. This accumulation of free time will become useful around exam season or whenever a large project is due.

Tip 5. Treat every day like a workday.

Some of the best advice I’ve ever received is to treat school like your job. If you do that one simple thing, you’re likely to succeed.

While this is easy to do when you have the routine of attending class every day, it can sometimes get difficult to maintain when you now roll out of bed to your desk and begin the day.

Instead, treat it as an actual school day. Get up at 6 or 7 am, put on clothes that aren’t pajamas, make breakfast, have coffee, and start your work. Keep regular working hours, take a break for lunch, and work until the afternoon. Then, you’re done for the day.

But let’s be honest. The pandemic has changed everyone’s schedules. And that’s totally fine. If you now function between the hours of 3 pm and 3 am, make a schedule between then and go for it.

The key is to keep consistent hours that will allow you to be your most productive self during this time.

Tip 6. Challenge your instructors.

The school system has so ingrained in us a sense of subordination under teachers that the thought of challenging them is obscene. Ever since we were little, we had to ask to go to the bathroom. So now, to be placed in a situation where we may need to challenge our instructors is nigh on heresy.

Here’s an example: When I was going to college, I had a class with an instructor who had just started his own consulting company on the side. While he had been teaching for over 20 years, he had never run a business at the same time. He got so caught up in his business that he wasn’t marking assignments or giving feedback, such that we were entering exams not knowing what our grades were. This class is the reason why I had my first experience with anxiety. I and many of my classmates found this to be an unfair situation. However, none of them were willing to challenge the instructor. So, I pushed the instructor myself to give us feedback and marks. When that didn’t work, I started climbing the ranks and going over his head. I kept going until I reached the associate chair of the department (a wonderfully kind man to who I owe some of my success in that program). Because I challenged the system, I got myself and my classmates out of a bad situation where many of us would have failed not through our own doing, but from the incompetence of another.

The moral of the story: challenge your instructors if you feel you are being unfairly treated. There is no reason that because you are now taking classes online that you should be subjected to unfair tests, assignments, or marking. Rattle as many cages as you need to. You’re paying thousands of dollars to attend this institution. You deserve to receive a fair education.

Tip 7. Set up a distinct study area.

This far into the pandemic it can be difficult to see the line where your workspace stops and your home begins. While it’s tempting to work from bed or the couch, it won’t have a productive effect on your day.

Through repetition and routine, our brains are trained to associate activities with certain spaces. It’ll become a lot harder to sleep if your brain associates your bed with both sleep and work.

Therefore, it’s incredibly important to create a dedicated workspace. This way, when you sit down in that chair, your brain tunes in and makes it easier for you to get down to work and be productive.

Decorate, fill it with pretty stationery, make it comfortable, and make it inspiring. You’re going to be spending a lot of hours in this space so you might as well make it as perfect for you as possible.

Tip 8. Treat yourself gently.

You already challenged yourself by enrolling in a STEM degree so it’s no wonder you feel like you’re getting steamrolled with this extra pressure of having to take courses online.

It’s often said, but often unheard among STEM students.

Be kind to yourself.

Tip 9. Allow yourself to acknowledge that it may take longer than expected.

When I was attending a traditional college, I was completing 4–5 courses a semester. Suffice it to say I was horrified when I started online university and I was only able to complete 3–4 courses every 4–6 months.

The problem stems from the fact that it’s much quicker and easier to learn from a prepared lecture than to teach yourself from a completely unknown material.

While I understand that traditional universities that have transitioned to online learning temporarily haven’t changed much and the expectations for course load are the same, it’s important to know when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Your mental health is not worth trying to complete 5 STEM courses in 4 months because that’s what’s “expected of you”. Instead, focus on what you can reasonably manage.