When Kali Winn moved to Denver from Utah, she saw opportunities and possibilities all around her. She had wanted to live in a place with a city vibe, but loved the expansive parks, closeness to the mountains, and focus on the outdoors. “I saw Denver as an opportunity to grow and define who I am as a person,” Winn said.
Part of that was returning to college for a master’s degree to expand her horizons and her career opportunities. She found a program that fit her lifestyle with CU Denver’s Master of Arts in Research and Evaluation Methods degree.
This 100% online and fully remote program is offered through the university’s School of Education & Human Development. “A big benefit of completing this degree at CU Denver, for me, was the fact that it is an established online program,” Winn said. “It’s not an in-person [program] that was sort of transferred online at the last moment. It was created intentionally to be an online program and the experience of the instructors, I think, really reflected that.”
Winn also wanted to be able to work full time—she works remotely for an agency in the education field—and earn her degree. By learning online, she wouldn’t add commute time to her already busy schedule, which gave her more time for getting outside, doing chores, keeping up with life, and taking her dog, Dante, for a walk. “He demands my full attention 100% of the time,” she jokingly said. Sometimes, he’d pop into her computer’s camera view during class—as did a lot of her classmates’ pets. “We saw many cat tails,” she said.
Without the flexibility of online learning at CU Denver, Winn said it would have been more difficult to achieve her goals. “I don’t think I would have been able to earn my master’s degree were it not for the online opportunity, which allowed me to maintain my job and my lifestyle while also pursuing something that was very important to me,” she said.
Her professors also allowed her to personalize her academic work. “The professors really encouraged self-learning,” Winn said. “So, I was able to select my own topics—topics that interested me—that might not be of interest to other people, and really sort of expand on the things that matter to me, while still having the direction of a professor. And while still having sort of an environment of a classroom through discussion boards or even group projects.”
And like in an in-person setting, she connected with her fellow students. “It was surprising how much I did feel a sense of community, and how much I did feel connected to both the course material, my classmates, and my professor,” Winn said. “I expected it to be a very one-dimensional, sort of, procedure, but it was very community oriented.”
Winn graduated in 2025, joining CU Denver’s alumni community that includes more than 120,000 graduates (and growing!). “It was absolutely worth it,” said Winn of working full time while earning her degree. “It was worth it because I was able to not only earn my degree on paper, but also expand my perspective as a person.”