Colleges emphasize participation in their grade structures, often up to 30 percent, in order to encourage well-rounded graduates who are ready to join the work force. Active participation in an online class might make the difference for scholarships, academic honors and graduate schools.
To remember information, the brain needs to actively engage itself with the material. Interacting with other students via an online message board, or setting up informal study sessions, provides active engagement. A maxim of teaching, according to William Glasser, is that students retain 70 percent of what they discuss, 80 percent of what they experience, 95 percent of what they teach and only 10 percent of what they read.
Education gives back proportionally to the effort that's applied. College can be an important life experience and an opportunity to meet like-minded people and make lasting friends, but only with the right attitude. This opportunity to meet people should not be missed simply because a class is presented online.