Taking American Online Classes in Haiti

When I came down to Haiti last fall I was nine credits (three classes) away from finishing my Masters of Science in Internet Information Systems. After I took my final last night I am now only one class away. The courses in this program are eight weeks long, and I just finished my second to last class. I could have taken two classes this semester but the class I declined to take would have involved about an hour a night of online research, and would have required me to connect to a server back in Pittsburgh about twice a week. This would have really worn down the limited internet we already have at the mission, and would have been a total pain for me, so I decided to wait to take the course until the summer.

Taking online courses in Haiti was really interesting. I’ve taken a few online classes previously, and the ability to learn something in an online class totally depends on your willingness to engage in the material and the professor’s ability to format that class in a way that it is teachable. I’ve taken some courses online that are a mess and don’t really teach as much as force the students to memorize facts, and I’ve taken some that are fascinating and been very informative. This most recent course focused on network security and I was really able to learn a lot about network security and how to prevent hackers from accessing your network system. I was even able to apply some of the knowledge I learned in the course here at the mission. The professor for this class did a really good job managing the class and was available to help us when we needed help. He put ample resources up online and structured the assignments well. I don’t know if I would qualify myself as an expert on network security, but after this class I would feel confident working in a position that required knowledge of network security.

Previously when I’ve taken online classes my performance has been directly related to how well I can structure my time. Last summer I took two online classes and struggled with both of them because I didn’t structure my time appropriately. The past two classes I took online however, I did quite well because I forced myself to focus. Focusing on network security or object oriented programming (the two courses I took in Haiti) as one of the most difficult things I’ve done in Haiti. To begin with, there are plenty of distractions here. I don’t have the most vibrant social life here, but at any hour of the day or night I can go up to the roof and look out on to the mountains or up at the sky and be amazed by what I see. I have a bunch of books here and a few DVDs as well as a full music library. In addition to all of these distractions, the biggest time commitment here is my responsibility for the mission. I don’t have a strict nine to five job, but I have a daily list of activities I have to work on. Much of the work I have to do for the mission is done on my own. I enjoy what I am studying, but pushing through a practice exam or a homework assignment seems much less important than anything I do for the mission, and after a while is much less interesting than reading any of the books I have here.

Another issue I faced was the flakey internet and the electrical situation. Last fall the power would go out pretty frequently, so I had to take advantage of the power when I had it and be able to quickly focus on my work when the power would come back after being out for a while. This spring the power situation was fixed, but for the first half of my course the internet usage was not functioning properly, so studying anything online would go pretty slowly and uploading anything was a bit of a gamble. Fortunately the internet has been fixed, so I was ok the last few weeks of the course. The internet here is not like in the US. There is a limited amount of data we can use, and there is an even more limited amount of bandwidth. The limited data meant that there was a limited amount of internet activity that could be done everyday, and the limited bandwidth meant that the internet was pretty slow. In the moment these challenges were a pain, but I am glad that I had to experience them. They made me a better student, they made me more patient, and they made me much more grateful for the internet capabilities I have at home. 

I tried to create incentives for myself, rewarding myself every time I completed a section of one assignment, I tried to use specific study habits that would make it my work seem to go by faster or would help me absorb the information faster, but at the end of the day there were two things that worked: good music and determination. Self-made rewards systems, giving yourself candy or something nice after you finish your work, have never worked for me. Why would I wait to eat the piece of candy? Its sitting right in front of me. I tried to use certain study tricks but those always ended up confusing me, any mnemonic device I created made me forget what the lesson was actually teaching. What worked the best for me was putting on a good album, and just working through all the work I had to do. It wasn’t fun, but it worked. These online classes were hard, but I am so glad I did them. I had a full academic experience, I learned about a subject that I was previously unfamiliar with, and I learned to be more focused, and an overall better worker. This was one of those situations where I didn’t enjoy it while I was doing it, but the second it ended I was so glad that I did it.

Many of the Haitians I have met here are quite determined, especially when it comes to their education. Despite their very limited materials, they are incredibly committed to their studies. I can’t help but think about the potential online education might have in Haiti. It would need to be structured properly, and would have to be in Creole, but with enough grit and determination, and enough luck, I could see online education giving Haitians opportunities they could have never before dreamed of having.