Ok so a little background. I’m a very non-traditional student. I’m 31 years old and a police officer for the last 10 years. I began taking classes at my local community college about four years ago as I have realized I do not want to make a 30+ year career out of law enforcement. My passion is history (specifically medieval and warfare), always has been, and I’m finally deciding to make that the focus of my professional life (or at least one day down the line). I sadly have realized I missed my window (which sucks) going to the Ivy League or studying abroad in England, however would love to at least teach at a community college one day. Problem is money isn’t free and my schedule as an officer makes attending school, especially day school, virtually impossible. I have already dropped numerous classes throughout my community college career due to my job and had to retake them, as a result my transcript has tons of lovely W’s, but also A’s and B’s.
I want to know what would be a good school to attend? My local university is San Diego State, and a little further off is CSU San Marcos. I have heavily researched online universities and while I understand they are not respected what other choice do I have? The ones I have put the most looking into are Oregon State University Online, Troy University, and Southern New Hampshire University. All appear to have undergraduate history degree programs that are online and appear to accept my 70 or so semester hours of general ed I have completed. The goal after that would be to use my BA degree to get into a more local graduate program, possibly at SDSU or UCSD, or is that not realistic with an online degree?
So what does everyone think? Find a way to take maybe a class or two a semester at SDSU for the next 5 years (10 years for a bachelor’s degree), or give in and go for the “best” online degree I can get? Thanks in advance for the insight. . .