The Best Online Education Opportunities for Entrepreneurs

A Guest Post by Anna Miller

Gone are the days when you could succeed at building your business and making a success out of it without a formal education. Yes, it is still possible to learn through experience and sustain what your predecessors started, but if you’re looking to tap your entrepreneurial spirit and take calculated risks to spread your business, a degree is the best way to go. Online schools are a godsend for entrepreneurs because they allow you to continue working at your business even as you earn a degree. Besides, most schools offer specialized and accelerated programs for entrepreneurs, so if you’re looking for the best online education opportunities, here’s what you need to know:

• Your first priority should be the degree you want to earn – in general, most entrepreneurs go for an MBA or an EMBA (Executive MBA). The latter is more tailored to suit people in corporate environments while the former comprises a general education in all aspects of business management like marketing, finance, operations, human resources and sales. There are other specialized options too, like the bachelor’s and master’s degrees in entrepreneurship. Some people even choose to study an MBA in entrepreneurship.
• The next thing to do is choose a good school – your degree is worth only as much as the school you choose to earn it in. When it’s online education, you don’t have to worry about location as a deciding factor. All you need to do is check out the reputation of the school and the accreditation status of the course you want to study. If both are solid, then you’re almost good to go.
• Decide what you want out of the degree – take a look at the curriculum and see if your business stands to gain from the course. You don’t want to be taking a degree that specializes in human resources when you’re a small organization with a limited number of employees. Rather, examine the curriculum to see how best it will help you improve the day to day operations of your business and also help you expand operations within your limitations.
• Work at making it work – when you decide to go back to school, you’re deciding to take on more responsibility in your life. So you need to work extra hard at managing your time and balancing your work, studies and family without neglecting any of them. You must be willing to make sacrifices and stay the course no matter how difficult it becomes.

Entrepreneurs generally do well in online courses if they have a few years of work experience under their belts, so before you decide to go back to school, consider working for a while to boost your experience.

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This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degree . She welcomes your comments at: [email protected]