For colleges and universities offering online programs, addressing this challenge does not mean turning higher education into narrowly focused occupational training. Nor should it mean simply adding a few courses in professional development or teaching students how to use the latest workplace technologies. It will require approaching workplace readiness holistically and integrating it into the online educational experience with intentionality. Distance education leaders and designers can focus their thinking on three areas: curriculum, career services and engagement with employers.
One critical step is making career readiness more explicit in the design of the curriculum. Applied projects, collaborative assignments, presentations and opportunities for revising work after receiving feedback can give students practice with processes that occur in the workplace. With this kind of coursework, students are not just demonstrating that they intellectually know the material. They are also learning to communicate ideas, work closely with other people, receive and respond to criticism, and exercise judgment.
Educational experiences like these also give students an increasingly important edge in the job market: evidence of their capability. Rather than simply claiming proficiency in skills, graduates should be able to show how their academic work shows their ability to apply those skills. Experiential learning in distance learning programs also does not need to be confined to online environments. At the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, we have approached this challenge by expanding access to experiential opportunities that exist for on-campus students, such as a student-run, full-service marketing group called The Agency. We have production facilities that support podcasting, news writing and television production, and game day production for football games. Historically, these experiences have been primarily for on-campus students, but we have worked to make them available to our online students as well. This reflects an important reality. Roughly 80% of our online graduate students live in Florida, and many are able to participate in campus-based activities.
This is not unique to the University of Florida. A 2026 report from Risepoint states that 76 percent of online learners live or work in the same state as the institution they attend, and 60 percent live within 100 miles. For many institutions, opening existing on-campus opportunities to online students can therefore be a useful addition to online options. For those students who do live farther away, experiential learning can take another form. Our CJCxNYC programme allows students to spend anywhere from a week to an entire semester in New York City, participating in internships and other professional experiences. Students can also participate in international experiences connected to professional sporting events, gain exposure to interviewing and reporting, and work in professional sports environments.
The broader principle here is that distance education should expand students’ options for experiential learning and offer a combination of online learning, professional experiences and opportunities to engage with an industry directly. Career services pose another challenge. It is not enough for institutions to simply offer online students the same access to the career center as all other students. Schools need to make those services feel highly visible, relevant and accessible to students who may rarely visit campus. For example, the University of Florida recently held its first inperson gathering specifically for online students. Career services staff participated, meeting with students to review resumes and help them prepare for job interviews. But institutions cannot depend on online students physically traveling to campus. Offering online career programming can complement on-campus offerings, and both are needed.
For example, our Careers in Communication Week used to be exclusively an on-campus career event, but it has evolved into a week of employer conversations, interviews, job fairs, speakers and other career-focused activities, much of which is available online. Even minor design choices can make a difference. We asked our career services representative to record an introductory video for online student orientation, which allows students to become familiar with the person behind these services from the start. Later, when those students receive invitations to career events or advising opportunities, it comes from someone they already have a connection with. This illustrates another important point: Making a service available online is not the same thing as deeply integrating it into the online student’s college experience.
Career services should also work closely with academic programs. Faculty can help students recognise how skills developed in the class are transferable to the workplace, while career services professionals can teach them how to communicate those skills in their resumes, interviews and job applications. The third element is forming stronger connections with the people and organizations shaping the industries students will be entering after graduation. Employers and practitioners can contribute to online education and career preparation in several ways. They can help develop relevant projects, provide feedback on student work, offer mentoring and visit classes to share insights.
Virtual workplace tours, guest lectures, job talks and career events can expose students to professional environments without requiring them to travel. With the right partnerships, students can also engage in job shadowing, internships and other forms of professional experience. These can help students understand that professional work requires more than the technical execution of tasks. It also involves navigating deadlines, communicating, getting feedback and exercising professional judgment. Online collaboration itself can resemble modern workplaces because many organizations rely on distributed teams, digital communication platforms and collaborative project management tools. But don’t add more technology for its own sake; allow students to develop relevant work-related skills and engage in professional experiences.
Employer engagement should not be limited to virtual interactions, however. In-person internships, workplace visits and immersive experiences should also be considered to connect online students directly with employers and work environments. Distance education leaders should combine these approaches. Ultimately, the goal is not to turn online higher education programs into narrow occupational training programs. It is to help students connect what they learn to the challenges they will encounter beyond the classroom. Online students deserve the same opportunities to develop and demonstrate those skills and abilities as any other student, and while the methods may look different, the standards should be the same.
