If you had told Angela, that she would be having a career as a Network Administrator just five years ago, she probably would have laughed in your face and use a few choice words as well.

A single mom of two kids and living in expensive Los Angeles, Angela didn’t have a college degree and it was all she could do to make ends meet. Her meagre check always got finished before she even cashed it, her bank account was always overdrawn and she sometimes had to get food stamps just to survive.

Her career as a home health caregiver would have been okay if she was by herself but it wasn’t so and she now had two extra mouths to feed as well as bills to pay. Angela knew she had to do something. She just didn’t know what.

Then one day, the daughter of the elderly person she was taking care of said to her, “You know I don’t want to lose you ’cause you are a good worker, but I know as a single mom you must be struggling to keep up.”

Caught off-guard and not knowing what to say, Angela just nodded and muttered that it was okay, she was getting by.

Then the lady told her that she should consider taking a few online classes. “You know you can study during your own free time or at night while watching over your kids at home. I study online, myself,” she said. “It works out great.”

And that was when the idea was sparked. Curious, Angela started using the nearby public library on her days off to search for information about online education and the best schools to attend as well as the pros and the cons.

Finding almost no cons and an overwhelming amount of pros, Angela sat down one day and wrote an email to one of the schools. It was her first email ever and it took her over 2 hours just to write it and then to figure out how to send it.

Exactly two months after that conversation with her patient’s daughter, Angela enrolled in an online class.

She had found a school that was willing to work with her on tuition costs and her very tight schedule. She had also gotten career counseling from the school that enabled her to make her choice of being a network administrator.

Fast forward 5 years later to today. Angela is now employed by a Fortune 500 company, her kids go to private school and her career is on the upward rise with an annual salary north of US $70,000.

“I don’t know what my life would have been like if it wasn’t for my online education,” she says. “I probably would still be getting food stamps and stressing about rent.”

Online learning is a growing trend and many employers have begun recognizing it. Employers nowadays do not consider anybody who attends school online as having less of an education than somebody who went to a brick and mortar classroom.

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