I was looking for a program that would enable me to continue to work (although during this recession that sometimes seems to be a non-starter) and provide me with access to my professors and fellow classmates.
The Babson Fast Track program is a hybrid. After the first kick-off week - in which I felt that the program should be called Heart Attack, not Fast Track--we do our studies online during the week and then meet in person every six weeks on campus in Wellesely, MA. There is also a Portland program for people on the West Coast.
During the week, professors download lectures, readings and assignments. We read, discuss the ideas virtually via discussion boards, Sharepoint, Wiki's, conference calls and emails. We sometimes have live lectures online via product called Elluminate. While the subject matter maybe challenging, the lectures are in clear, concise Americanized English. To me this is an improvement over the calc lectures that were taught by non-English speaking professors who could not understand your questions and you could not understand their answers.
If you are like me, I sometimes phase out during course lectures, particularly at night. Since everything is online all the time, all you have to do is back-up a section of the lecture you might have missed to hear it again.
Unlike in the offline world, you don't have to hunt down professors to get questions answered. They answer them via email and pretty quickly most days. Classmates are also great at answering questions as well.
Our study group generally meets every Sunday night via conference call to discuss the next weeks assignments, some of which we need to respond to collaboratively. We can be anywhere. This week one my study group was calling in from India, while another called in from Italy at the beginning of January.
Overall, I would say that we have at least as good sense of community as any does in the offline world.
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