Online education also can work for students in states such as North Dakota where there are long distances to cover. Minot State in Bottineau’s Urban Forestry Technology program is led by another arborist with considerable field experience, Robert Underwood. Once completed, its six courses comprise a one-year diploma, and its credits can transfer to a degree program. Bob’s students have ranged from a 61-yr old lady who mailed him over a hundred samples of herbaceous plants from Philadelphia to satisfy a lab requirement to a 16-year old who tackled the Soils course, based on the same comprehensive textbook authored by Philip Craul as university courses use, so he would not have to take that course on campus. Bob has received Forestry term papers from a student in India, and his students on his North Dakota campus were treated to an hourlong description of the desparate state of forestry in the Sahara desert, where a load of firewood can cost half a year’s pay. “The huge diversity makes online education fascinating”, Bob says.
