University of Phoenix - Online Campus Review

As my wie begins to look into graduate schools, it reminded me of my own experience earning my MBA a couple of years ago through the University of Phoenix Online.  I was further reminded of my past studes as I was ask questions about the program during a job interview last week.

 Here's the thing with UOP Online, it doesn't have the same stature of Harvard or Yale, but you do get a good solid education if you are willing to put the work in.  I don't know what employers think of when they see the school on the ol' resume, but I am pretty satisfied with the education I received, although I do think t was a bit on the expensive side.

 Here's the way it works, the classes are all newsgroup based.  You are provided with written lectures and assignments.  There weren't any tests per se, but there was a paper due every week of each six week course.  You also work in "Learning Teams" with 3 or 4 collaborative papers due from that each course as well.  I am generally someone who prefers to work alone and am a bit on the shy side.  Working remotely made it somewhat easier for me to do this group work, and, let's face it, if you want to be successful, you need to learn to work as part of a team.  This set up defintely helped me int hat regard, and I learned a great deal from my fellow team members as well.

 We were also graded on answers to weekly discussion questions as well as class "participation."  And there in lies the key.  Now, I defintiely would not recommend these programs for those of you fresh out of undergrad, but for working professionals, I think it is great.  The job I was working at the time did not have a set schedule per se.  I often ended up working evenings and weekends, so attempting to attend actual classes woud have been near impossible for me.  Plus, with the program consisting entirely of other working professionals, there were a lot of great discussions with bunch of different experiences and points of view.

 If you are not willing to participate and put your all into the assignments though, you are not going to get much out of it.  If you are however, you can certainly learn and grow a great deal.  The biggest thing that I got out of it personally was a big increase in my confidence through all aspects of my professional career.  If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely choose UOP Online again.  I got involved in order to change careers, but it seemed that most people were in it to improve their standing in their current ones.

 The only real complaint I had was the cost.  I mean, I realize that all higher education is rather pricing and only going up.  Still, it ended up costing me over $35K for a 2 year program.  I graduated in 2005, so I am sure it has gone up since then.  I think considering the standing of the school in professional circles, and the fact that they do not have to maintain any physical buildings for this program, maybe they could make this a bit less.  Still, it was probably worth it and I am starting to see a good return on my investment through increased salary.