Wow, I completely forgot I had started this thread!
Anyhoo…I ended up enrolling in the U of P, and leaving the school within four months. I wasn’t getting really anything out of the classes, the finacial aid folks were some of the most incompetent buffoons I have ever had the pleasure of working with, and the structure of the class meant that there was always one or two people who didn’t pull their wieght, and ended up with passing grades anyway. I ended up taking my seven or so credits, and enrolling in a community college here in the Denver Area, between that and Several CLEP tests I’m almost finished.
My recomendation…Stay way from for profit schools like UoP. they are more interested in the bottom line than education.
Always interesting to see something like this come full circle.
I can say with full certainty that my company would not hire someone with an online B.S. The hiring folks at my company are pretty old school. When I was looking at MBA programs they pretty much told me if I did it online it would be worthless here.
I went to UoP to finish my degree in Finance. At the time I enrolled, I was working a job that required me to be oncall 24/7, making it very difficult to coordinate classes. With UoP, I was able to be working on an assignment, take a break to resolve a work issue, then get right back to my assignment. I feel like I got a lot out of it, but then I actually read the assignments and studied. It took me a tad bit longer to finish than I was originally projected, but I was getting burned out at the end and needed to take a few breaks to keep my sanity.
I applied for the job I’m in now before I finished, and my new boss was impressed that I was pulling off my job and full time classes. Any employer who chucks a resume solely because they see “University of Phoenix” under the Education section is being overly hasty, IMO.
Without commenting one way or another on its quality, I’ll just nitpick to point out that U.Phoenix has physical locations as well as online classes. “For-profit” does not necessarily mean “online.”
And, many traditional colleges and universities, public and private, offer online or hybrid classes in addition to traditional classes. Online courses aren’t necessarily vastly inferior to the kind that take place in a traditional classroom setting; it depends on how they’re implemented. (And, they work better for some subjects and for some students than they do for others.)
Personally, when I was department chair and needed to hire adjunct faculty, I tossed any resumes I received that listed degrees from for-profit institutions. The few people I’ve interacted with on a professional basis with those degrees, and the acquaintances I have who have or are pursuing those degrees - they are nice people, but they are not, shall we say, shining stars of intellect. And I would not have wanted them in front of a classroom of students.
Take classes to learn, but not to include on your resume.
When I was a sales recruiter at a large computer firm in Silcon Valley and then Seattle, the name of the institution was everything. To hire a graduate with an average grade point average from Stanford was one thing. An A student from a trade school like Apollo or U of Pheonix was another. The C student would win hands down, no contest.
And that doesn’t mean that the Stanford Grad is smarter or better trained. It’s that a student had to be impressive just to get in. The intelligece or dedication was already proven. Students still have to hoof it to get an average grade and graduate from a college or university that is so competitive that it turns down most applicants whether they have a 4.0 gpa in science from a distinguished institution or not. An average student at a great university is impressive. A great student at a so-so college … maybe.
I have learned topics long distance, and colleges now use large screens in their classrooms for Professors in another city or on another continent to give the course live to answer questions. A person can learn computor programming, algebra, and maybe even photography long distance. But trades where you have to interact with people? You’ve got to be kidding me.
U of P is VERY expensive but could be worth your while if current instructors are recognized for their excellence certain fields. They do offer financial assistance, whatever that means.
The problem is that they make promises they can’t keep. Spending $70,000 to learn “computers” (I heard that a lot) does NOT mean instant entre to a lucrative career, no matter what they promise. I’ve interviewed too many people who couldn’t come close to paying back their student loans because they were still looking for a job a year after graduating (if they did graduate).
What was that commercial a couple of years ago where a couple of guys were playing computer games, and one says to the other, “Isn’t it great to have a degree in computer game design?” Get their degree and get paid for playing FPS’s.
U of P was barely accredited sufficiently to qualify as a BA or BS for the purpose of admissions to University of California graduate programs in recent years.
I have read that studies demonstrate that community colleges offer degrees comparable to those offered by schools like UoP, and are MUCH MUCH cheaper. Community colleges vary too, as do programs within those colleges. My son is attending a community college which offers not just classes but study assignments with local businesses … don’t see how an online college can match that. Many community colleges also offer online classes, which means you can study at home and avoid the whole “online school” stigmata.
I used UoP as a quick way to finish my education after leaving the military, in information systems. I work in a professional field as engineer (but I’m not a P.E.), and quite honestly, I’ve avoided presenting papers at my professional organization because I don’t want my credentials read aloud by the presenter. Heck, even the presenters have their credentials read aloud, so I’ve avoided being one of those, too.
It’s no so much that UoP itself has a bad reputation, but there are only a few universities in the USA and Canada that even have programs in my career field, and UoP isn’t one of them.
I’m taking courses at a non-profit college but I need to take one class to graduate this summer. If my school would accept UoP (or similar) credits, would it make good sense to take it there so I can be DONE with my degree? I mean, a potential employer wouldn’t even know that’s where I got some of my credits, right? Because I’d just put “ABC College, Aug 2011” as my final education experience, right?
I know each college is different, but as UoP is accredited, are minimal credits there generally transferable to “real” schools?
My company’s tuition reimbursement program likes UoP. They almost seem to endorse UoP, to the point where the HR people will recommend it if you come to them looking for ideas on where to take some online classes. I’m not sure if there’s a paid deal behind closed doors or if they just got degrees at and like the place, but where I work (a Fortune 100 insurance company) a UoP degree is viewed as very legitimate.
My boss was interested in a management position that required a masters. She was encouraged by her boss to get it through U of P. She did so, and was then hired into her current position.
Last year she knew I was interested in a position that required a degree. She encouraged me to return to school, not pushing U of P, but saying it worked for her. I enrolled at Phoenix and was immediately offered the new position.
Each situation is different. I have nothing negative to say about Phoenix.
ETA: On second thought, I would complain about the high cost if I were not being reimbursed.
Let me add to my above post. Although I have this weird peer acceptance thing professionally, the school wasn’t necessarily bad.
Background: As I’d said above, I was in the military, and then out of the military. Because of the path that I chose willingly, I didn’t willingly go to a traditional four year university, but I did study while enlisted, and then afterwards. So I have Grantham College (distance learning in Germany), the University of Central Texas, my county community college, and Michigan State University under my belt, in addition to University of Phoenix.
I’ll say that at all of them the other students seemed pretty dumb, at least in comparison to me, with a few exceptions. But at UoP, they were the dumbest. On the other hand, despite the dumbness, they were also the most motivated to succeed: adults that were returning to school in order to earn/complete their degrees.
Professionally, my UoP education has not been a hindrance, other than my embarrassment at professional conferences. Luckily that’s not considered in my performance reviews.
In the real world, once you have a job, your education is of very little importance. How you do that job, though, is of the utmost importance. A college degree is not an indication of how well you can perform a job. Like I said, what I studied has nothing to do with what I do. I would thing that most liberal arts majors with good jobs would say the same thing.
My favorite bosses never cared about my schooling. It was my references.
All those A’s I worked hard for were not needed for my career of choise.
A very well educated and intelligent young lady that was just out of college told me that she’s been told that Cs make degrees That makes sense to me. Some of those A’s came with emotional grief. A C would have let me sail through without the grief.
Perhaps employers in your field of study only want your skills, not your background.