Thanks so much for sharing your point of view, Bernard (pun intended!
)
I couldn't agree more with the point you make about cost - most of the universities seem to view online courses as just another revenue stream. Why should someone pay $23k per year as a remote student, when they have limited access to the resources that physically present students have full access to?
My perspective is as a physically disabled 48-year-old ex-electronics guru (GURU = Good Understanding, Relatively Useless
) with limited physical access to even getting out in the hills around home to lug my manual EQ and point my 4.5" Newt at the stars, let alone spend significant amounts of cash for the kind of quality equipment needed to do proper astrophotography. So I'm a kind of corner case, if you like...
Everything I know about the cosmos I've taught myself, from first principles. I wanted to understand celestial mechanics, so I bought a book on that subject; then I found I needed calculus. So I bought myself a Year-12 calculus text, and found I didn't understand properly, so I bought an english translation of The Principia... Then I was having trouble understanding the geometrical allegories, so I bought Euclid's Geometry, and then... well, I just worked my way back up. Unfortunately, I found my mathematical limitations were just too severe to allow further learning without outside help.
Hence the search for an astronomy-based degree, rather than pure or applied physics - I'm just not wired for the heaviest kind of maths needed.
I don't want a job as an astronomer (that ship has well and truly sailed!), but I do want to understand at least as much as I know I'm capable of, and that means I may have to get a less-than-well-regarded degree.
THat way, I can enter into discussions and help other folks find out more about the wonderful reality we're in, and be taken (more or less) seriously.
If I can talk to the folks at Coonabarabran, or provide information to professional astronomers, then so much the better. But that's not my primary focus (again, pun intended!
)....
This is a really interesting discussion. I hope others decide to chip in.. although we may need to make a formal thread so we don't keep hijacking this one!