Description of the video:
My name is Justin Westfall and I am an IU Online student. I'm from the small town of Greenville, Ohio, and my major is a Bachelor's of Science in Business Administration with a minor in Entrepreneurship.
I actually started at Wright State University and I went there for three years and I got heavily involved on campus, and it was really hard for me to balance everything on my plate at the time and that is what led me to online classes.
The biggest thing for me is it is at my convenience, at my pace. If I want to spend more time on a chapter, I'm not pressured by my peers because everybody else is getting a concept and I'm not. So I can spend more time on that and I can fly through the concepts that I get really quickly. And my grades have drastically improved because of that.
I am a DJ on the weekends. It's pretty much an entire full-time gig every weekend. By the time that I started online classes, I was able to pick up a full-time job, and I was also able to really focus on my DJ business as well and grow that. Without IU, and without the online flexibility, I would have never have gotten that opportunity.
I also work part time at the place called Brethren Retirement Community. I love taking care of the patients, I love giving them the care that they need, but at the same time, I love the business aspect of health care. So, that's what really got me interested into a business degree. My long-term career goal is to be a health care administrator. I've really gotten a well-rounded knowledge of nursing homes and health care and just kind of how they run and operate. So, master's in health care administration is really what I want to focus on in the future.
IU has helped me prepare tremendously because of the professors. They have been right at my fingertips with everything I need. My biggest concern with online classes was, "What happens if I don't understand a concept? Or, what happens if I need to contact my professor and they don't get back with me and then I can't submit my assignment because I don't know what I'm doing?" But that has been the complete opposite of my experience. My professors email me back within sometimes hours; it is incredible. They are always willing to help and give me multiple resources.
This program was perfect for me because I was able to get the college experience that I needed as well at IU and also still work in the field to gain field experience and also pay off all my school debt. And I'm really excited to actually accomplish this and hang that diploma on my wall and just look at that and think, "Wow, look at all that hard work that came into that and where's the next place that this can get me?"