BYU-Pathway Worldwide may be different than you expect. It is like a shopping center — but completely online. It does not have a physical campus or grant its own degrees. Instead, it gives access to online certificates and degrees from other schools and provides services and resources built specifically to support online students.
Benefits of BYU-Pathway
Students who are pursuing a degree online have different needs than students earning a degree on a university campus. As an online student, you may need more flexibility. You might have a full-time job, kids to raise, and many other competing priorities that make earning a degree a little more challenging.
BYU-Pathway has been designed to meet the specific needs of online students. The online degrees and certificates we offer come from BYU-Idaho and Ensign College, while BYU-Pathway provides the support and resources tailored to help online students succeed.
How it works
As a student, you will primarily interact with BYU-Pathway Worldwide throughout your degree program. This unique model gives online students the support they need through each step of their certificates, associate degree, and bachelor’s degree.
Here is a breakdown of the role of BYU-Pathway Worldwide compared with the role of BYU-Idaho and Ensign College.
BYU-Pathway:
- Access to mentors
- Advising tailored to online students
- Extra support through weekly gatherings during a student’s first year
- Online help center
BYU-Idaho and Ensign College:
- Build courses that teach marketable skills in the areas of business, communication, health, and technology
- Award certificates and accredited degrees
- Hire and support instructors who are experts in online course delivery
BYU-PATHWAY HELPS STUDENTS INCREASE:
- Confidence
- Spirituality
- Skills
One of the benefits students say they receive the most is increased confidence. BYU-Pathway helps students build confidence by teaching core academic and life skills in a supportive environment. They also promote friendship and camaraderie through interactions with other students.
It was almost 30 years since I had been in a classroom, and I was terrified. ...I thought I wasn’t smart enough, I had forgotten too much, and it was going to be too hard. [BYU-Pathway] gave me the confidence that I can do this.
More than anything, BYU-Pathway helps students cultivate individual spiritual growth. Students build testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and are encouraged to live by its principles.
[BYU-Pathway is] not the degree; it’s what it’s taught me. It’s taught me to be a more complete disciple of Jesus Christ. I know how … to love differently and to serve differently and to learn differently. It has increased my capacity to be a disciple of the Savior. I know this program is heaven-sent.
BYU-Pathway offers a unique way to build a degree that teaches marketable skills early-on and positions students to get a job long before graduation. Students do this by earning three skills-based certificates that stack into a bachelor’s degree.
Before I joined BYU-Pathway, I’d never even dreamt to be holding such positions at big companies. If I have climbed so much in my first year, how much more will I climb when I’ve finished my degree?