Online Student Graduates With Honors
Jul 18th, 2006
A student graduates from Florida State University with honors. Where's the news in that, you may be asking. Certainly an accomplishment, but not exceedingly rare. Perhaps not in a traditional setting, but in this case, the student earned his degree completely online.
Aaron Shumaker, 24, is not only the first person in 15 years to graduate with honors from FSU's Panama Campus, he's the first ever to earn an honor's degree online. It took Shumaker three years to complete the computer science degree.
Shumaker decided to take his computer science classes online so he could accept a full-time position as a data analyst without interrupting his education. FSU currently offers three bachelor's degrees and 17 master's degrees entirely online.
While taking classes over the Internet is an option for students who are self-motivated, adding the demands of FSU's Honors Program makes Shumaker's record unique.
"An undergraduate honors thesis is equivalent to work at the graduate level," Cottle said.
"These students are driven to want to be world-class."
As if that weren't impressive enough, the hard-working student has already been offered–and has accepted–a job as a lead programmer in the College of Engineering.
It's wonderful to see students able to earn 'honor' degrees online now; maybe this will brighten the shadows left by all those degree mills.
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