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'Astronomy' degrees
I'm a late comer to this discussion but would like to add my two pennies worth.
I looked into these online astromomy degree courses when they first started (ten years or so ago?), and again recently, and came to the same conclusion ... can't see the point in them, not worth the money and their main purpose appears to be just an income source for the provider. Apart from the dubious 'satisfacton' of holding an astronomy degree I've yet to find any useful value in the award. If someone wants to be a real professional astronomer the only way to have any chance of being offered employment, which is pretty slim even with all the right degrees, is to do the hard slog and earn a real PhD in physics (not 'astronomy') from a well regarded institution ... generalist degrees don't appear to carry any weight or be of any value in the hard to enter professional astronomy world ... where a deep knowledge of maths and physics are the essential tools of the trade.
If a person's interest is just self-improvement and/or an amateur interest in astromomy then I think the large amount of money that needs to be spent to obtain an online astronomy degree is more productively invested in the best quality range of astro gear and books. If a person lacks the self discipline to teach themselves what they need to know then they probably lack the one crucial quality needed to carry out research.
From my own experience ... collaborating with professional astronomers by providing them with photometric and spectroscopic data over the last fifteen years ... there is plenty of work to be done by amateur astronomers, especially in the southern hemisphere, if they have the interest and equipment (not necessarily very expensive). While I do have a dark site observatory I am currently doing valuable spectroscopy for the pros from a portable telescope system near the centre of Melbourne.
So, I'm clearly biased against these online astronomy degrees and strongly in favour of spending the money saved on equipment and books.
Cheers,
Spectrasouth
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