populate telerik dropdown list using jquery

[sam]

I am having issues with populating a telerik dropdown list using jquery. I get the following Error:

'get(...).options' is null or not an object

On line:

$("#courseID").get(0).options.length = 0;

Here is my telerik dropdown list:

                <%= Html.Telerik().DropDownList()
                .Name("courseID")
                .HtmlAttributes(new{ @id="courseID"})
                %>

Here is how I am trying to populate it using jquery:

I call the populateDDL function on "StudentID" focusout event, here is the function.

function populateDDL() {

var link = '/Student/EnrollerCourse';
$.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    url: link,
    data: { id: $('#StudentId').val() },
    dataType: 'json',
    success: function (result) {
         $("#courseID").get(0).options.length = 0;
        $("#courseID").get(0).options[0] = new Option("Select", "Select");
        $.each(result.courseID, function (item, value) {
            var courseID = value;
            $("#courseID").get(0).options[$("#courseID").get(0).options.length] = new Option(courseID);
        });          
    },
    error: function (result) {
        alert("Failed")
    }
});
}