News and Events

One of the major developments to come out of the pandemic was the societal shift to doing everything remotely. A lot of educational institutions were quick to shift to remote learning opportunities for their students, and coursework became an entirely online activity. 

As the lockdown restrictions eased across the nation, the appeal of remote learning remained steadfast and many organizations decided to continue offering online education as an option for many students. 

The benefits are numerous, of course. If somebody is already involved in a full-time career and/or robust family life, the notion of traveling to a different location several times a week can seem exhausting or simply unrealistic. Online education solves that by allowing programs to be completed from the comfort of one’s own home. 

Additionally, online education increases the reach of institutions by removing geographical location as a factor from a prospective student’s decision-making process. If somebody wants to attend a course that’s taking place in Oklahoma, but they live in Minnesota, the distance suddenly becomes irrelevant when remote learning is introduced. 

The ARM Institute created RoboticsCareer.org as a way to easily connect people who are interested in working with robotics in manufacturing to the educational resources that will get them there. Part of that mission’s success means allowing people to search for programs that are both online and in-person. 

Below, we’ll talk about how to go about using the search tool to find remote learning opportunities that will get you on the fast track to an exciting career in robotics. 

Searching and Applying Filters

Let’s begin our journey by navigating to the large search tool at the top of the RoboticsCareer.org homepage. Here we see 4 fields - Keywords, Search Type, State, and City. Since we’re searching for an online program, the State and City fields aren’t important right now, so we can leave those blank and focus on the first two. 

For the keyword, let’s try keeping it general. The robotics technician role is an entry-level robotics job on the robotics career path. So, with that in mind, let’s just enter “Robotics Technician” (with the quotation marks) into the search field. 

For Search Type, leave that on Program since we’re looking for programs and not organizations. 

Next, click on the Search button and let the tool work its magic. 

Great! Your results page should look something like this. At the time of this writing, there are a total of 37 program results for “Robotics Technician”. However, these results currently include a mixture of online and onsite programs, and we’re only interested in the online offerings. 

At the top of the screen, just left of the yellow Search button, there is a button called More Filters. Click on that, and you’ll be presented with a popup showing a list of possible filters to apply to your search. 

The bottom-most option is called Program Format, and we want to click on that and change it from All to Online. Then simply click on Apply Filters.

After the filter has been applied, we see there are now 7 programs listed on the left panel. Each of these programs is offered online. Clicking on any result on the left will display the program’s information on the right panel. At the bottom of the right panel is an option to learn more, and clicking this will take you to the organization’s website. 

There is also a Contact Program button that will allow you to contact the organization directly with questions. 

Is Online Education Effective?

When it comes to robotics, it’s true that hands-on experience will be a big help. It’s also true that taking online courses can make it difficult to receive that hands-on training. So, in a way, one could say that online learning is a less effective way to receive an education in robotics than an onsite program. The hands-on mechanical learning will have to be supplementary. 

However, if the roadblock that’s preventing you from pursuing a career in robotics is the idea of attending an onsite program and all the challenges that come with that, then online education is definitely an answer. When the choice is online or just not following your dreams, the right decision is obvious. 

Perhaps you are already good at working with machines. Maybe you work on cars as a hobby, or you’ve had some hands-on time with electrical systems or machinery. Those skills are a perfect foundation for the practical applications of working with robotics and go hand-in-hand with remote learning. 

If you don’t possess those skills, there’s no reason you can’t begin learning on your own. 

The world of robotics is wide open for anybody with the passion to follow through, and following through has to begin at the start of your journey. Get started today at RoboticsCareer.org.