What is online college like?

To help you understand clearly and answer the above question correctly, I will provide some useful information for you:

I know all of us have spoken to the upsides of online college, and warned of the downfalls of unaccredited schools (which is an unfortunately common predatory practice). One easy way to work with that is to take online classes from a school which also has a physical presence. 

While there are a lot of models of online college, ranging from MOOCs to going nuts on Kahn Academy, there is also a steady movement toward accredited brick and mortar institutions offering online options.

From an online teacher's perspective here are some thoughts:

While recorded lecture is very common, most successful online teachers at my institution have other kinds of interactive activities ranging from forum participation to chat-room sessions and online resource exploration (things like virtual blackboards for showing equations and answering questions). While there is a lot of independent work, there is often some kind of effort made to take advantage of the knowledge of the group as a whole. 

It's important to note that while many online classes are largely self-paced, they also take place within the framework of the academic quarter/semester. This means that there are often due dates, and there is practical time limit related to the end of the grading session. I have seen far too many students fail because they waited until the last week (of eleven) to access the course, figuring that they could just power through.

Speaking of, students need to be aware that time management is a much bigger concern in an accredited online college course. Perhaps the biggest benefit to face to face classes is that most students tend to pace themselves with the rest of the class and issues themselves workload corrections based on what they see others doing. If they aren't seeing what others are doing, most of that social pressure is going to disappear. It's not a guarantee, but it's something to be aware of. A student should ask themselves if they do their homework because it needs to be done, or because their friends are doing it.

It's also important to reach out to your instructor, especially because it doesn't happen as automatically in an online course as it does in a face to face course.