Perhaps the biggest advantage to taking online classes is it provides you an opportunity to maintain a full-time work schedule while you go to school. Since the information of an online class is generally available all the time, you can access it after you get home from work. Students are no longer held hostage to the university's class schedule. Before online classes, many students had to make a choice between working and school. Online classes eliminate that choice.
Once the learning materials have been posted on line, you will be able to access them from any computer that has Internet access. Before online classes, students had to go to the school itself in order to get the lectures and notes from a professor. Now, the classes can be taken from anywhere. If you are planning on taking a trip, you can still go to school and not miss anything. This accessibility has allowed students to focus on learning on their own schedules.
While online classes are great for people with jobs, students will lose the interaction with the class and the teacher. For some types of classes, this may not be a problem, but for others, the loss of student interaction can have serious consequences. Often students can work with each other in an in-class setting which allows them opportunities for group problem solving and tutoring. By being able to talk directly with a teacher, a student can get a better understanding of a subject. In an online environment, this interaction is minimal at best.
The transition from a traditional classroom setting to an online one is extremely hard for some students. To be successful in an online class, you must have the discipline and ability to work independently. A traditional classroom setting forces a student to plan to go to school, drive there, sit in class, and take notes. An online class has none of this. Students who do not have the self-discipline to log into class every day will most likely not do well in this kind of setting.