I’ve been learning a lot about what it means to be an online student, not just through my work, but also my recent experience. In the analytics course I took for my digital marketing certificate, I noticed attendance dropped after the first session, and there was even one night where I was the only one in attendance for the discussion with the instructor.

That got me thinking about the challenges of balancing work and school and family, and it led to this article for Ashford University’s Forward Thinking blog. I talked with the school’s Readiness Advisor team about the first few weeks of class, which is considered a “high risk” period for online students.

Read the article to see why getting over the initial hump can be so difficult, and how the RA team keeps students focused and on track.