Online courses do require a substantial time commitment although you will typically only be taking one course in a 4-week schedule at a time in SSD. While it is true that the major portion of each online course is asynchronous, which enables participants to complete the coursework at any time of the day during a given week, there is only so much time in a day. We encourage applicants to realistically review their daily schedules and commitments and check it against the estimated time expected per week for SSD participants.