[missn]

The University of Waterloo is a good example of getting an official degree all while doing courses online. Their transcripts do not differentiate between online courses and regular courses so if you get a BA in English or Philosophy for example (degrees fully offered online - http://cel.uwaterloo.ca/undergraduate.html), nobody will know you took it entirely online.

Love that flexibility when I was there. The cost per credit was the same whether I took the course online or on campus.

Did three semesters online before switching to the regular campus (my program wasn't fully online). The education was top-notch too with responsive profs and (for the most part) a good pace even though you're doing a lot of self-studying. My final exams were either held at colleges near my area or proctored at public libraries (the latter though I had to arrange on my own and the school just mailed the exams directly to the library).

[sdenton4]

Waterloo is also quite notable for their extensive 'co-op' program, which places students in internships at a really high rate.

[missn]

Definitely. I think that's one of the reasons they have such flexible online course offerings (gives their co-op students a lot of flexibility).

At the end of my second year, I transferred to McGill and I was a bit disappointed at the state of their online course offerings (barely had any, apart from some electives, that could count for my degree). Also felt the school had a misguided bias against online courses (if you take one externally, there's a limit of 2 courses that you can apply to your degree - http://www.mcgill.ca/oasis/away/online-courses). When I was trying to get transfer credits, any mention of the course being taken online got my advisor telling me that my course would probably be denied. It was a good thing Waterloo didn't differentiate in my transcript between the two or else a lot of my credits might have not transferred over.

This was such a stark contrast to Waterloo where I really felt they considered their online courses to be just as comparable to their on-campus ones. I suppose though it's the whole culture of the instition. It helps too that Waterloo has a whole department dedicated to just the creation, design, development and testing of online-based courses - where they have designers/devs/subject/qa spcialists working closely with professors to design the courses (both for credit courses and professional development/continuing education courses). I don't believe my school has such a department to rely on.