Virtual or real
I had the occasion to visit the impressive university campus of the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico City. It is just one of the thirty that this private university has, in which more than 100,000 people study. Since the TM also operates one of the most important virtual universities in the world, the conflict between the real and the virtual must be present when budgeting.
I can imagine the discussions. On the one hand, the traditionalists, those who advocate for more classrooms, who surely still constitute the majority of the teaching staff. On the other side, the virtual ones, who are probably fighting for faster servers and bigger advertising allowances with which to ensure they can stay on the list of surviving virtual universities. In the latter they are right, since it will be in the coming years... or months, that the virtual leaders of the coming decades will be defined.
To date, traditionalists have surely based their claims on the assumption that a university with a physical presence is the only university capable of producing the expected results... and most of us would tend to agree. But, the rumors are already beginning to be heard in the corridors that the analyzes of the first batches of virtual students are surprisingly showing a very real academic superiority. I am not aware of the above, but since to obtain an academic degree by studying online, surely it must require a lot of motivation, suddenly it ends up being true.
What would happen if in a few years virtual graduates are considered the best? To begin with, we must remember that what matters to the labor market is the professional quality of the graduate and not at all the fact that he has had a good time during his university years. Therefore, if companies begin to request virtual graduates, then everyone should study virtual... even from the classroom.
And the teachers should perhaps not panic. The virtual study requires individual assistance, so not only will they continue to be necessary, but they may even be able to teach their classes from the beach. Considering that some physical contact between students seems important, it will also be possible to use the many current classrooms, turning them into hotel rooms that can receive virtual students for a few weeks of physical contact.
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