Tom Head's HUX Review

On 12/22/00, I graduated from the Humanities External Degree M.A. program of California State University, Dominguez Hills. I highly recommend this program to anyone who would like to earn a traditional-model M.A. by correspondence from a regionally accredited school.

My transcripts officially cleared earlier this week, and I'm now free to pursue doctoral work. It occured to me that I'd once promised some folks a comprehensive review of the M.A. from my point of view, just because I haven't seen a thorough first-person account of someone going through this program. Figuring that sort of information might be useful to people considering CSUDH, I decided to post a "student's review" on my web site:

www.tomhead.net/hux.html

If anyone has any questions about this program, I'd be happy to field them; I also notice that Nicole Ballard, of the HUX program office, has joined us. (You might not have noticed this because Nicole, unlike some folks we've had around here lately, has been extraordinarily careful not to do anything that might even remotely resemble an advertisement.) But I figure if we can have a 30-message thread about Century University and a 12-message thread about St. George's University International, we should be able to discuss something less, you know, depressing.

Bear in mind that I don't know a whole heck of a lot about CSUDH's other distance learning programs, but the HUX degree -- as the only 100% nonresidential regionally accredited M.A. program in the humanities available, to the best of my knowledge -- has a special place in my heart and, in about two weeks, a special place on my wall. So, if you've got any questions...


Peace,

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Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

Congratulations on your graduation, Tom. I imagine it’s a good feeling. You may recall our correspondence some time back; I entered HUX after seeing your previous posts and, having completed a year’s worth of trimesters, am enjoying it immensely. Most grateful to you! My own interests center around literature and will likely do my final project on some aspect of Henry James and the novel.

Your report is just great. Some follow-up:

I notice you completed 18 hours of interdisciplinary courses, when the HUX requirement is only 9. Does HUX have some kind of limit on the total hours one may take (either in the interdisciplinary or disciplinary categories)?

Did you pursue any Independent Studies?

And did you regularly contact the professors by telephone or just mail in your assignments?

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Phillip M. Perry
www.pmperry.com

 

Thanks! It is.

I'm very glad to hear it -- and I do remember your email, and it came at a most opportune time. I had just recently left AED (for either the last or next-to-last time), and was very much wondering if all the time I'd spent posting to that forum led to anything good (besides a book contract, which of course would have been enough -- but I wanted to think that I helped someone, in some way, at some point). Your kind email was very much an affirmation that my time had in fact not been wasted, and I appreciated it.

Marvelous!

Nope -- no limit whatsoever. This is one of the beautiful things about the program for me; there's no law saying someone couldn't do a 90 hour master's, for instance.

Nope, though I kept meaning to (I wanted to do a course in Midrashic Literature under Dr. Frankel, but by the time I felt my Hebrew was good enough to justify such a course, I was ready to start my thesis).

Gosh, this is a good question; I think I'll modify the HUX page to incorporate my answer. The short answer is that it varied; I spoke to some professors over the telephone (Hagan, Mahon, Heifetz, Giannotti), emailed others (Giannotti, Shimomisse), and wrote letters back and forth in another case (Mahon). For most courses, though, I just didn't have much contact with my instructors beyond grading.

Glad you're enjoying the program, and best of luck to you!


Peace,

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Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

Nice review of the program Tom. There are a few points that should be clarified however.

The Humanities External M.A. program has a five year limit. While you're certainly welcome to take as many classes as you like, if you go much beyond these five years, we won't be able to validate the courses that fall outside the five years and you may have to take course work over. What I usually recommend to students is that they complete the requirements for their degree then come back to us as alumne and take as many additional courses as they wish. (No residency requirement for this, just contact the HUX office and we'll facilitate the registration.)

The most important piece of advice I can offer is to echo Tom's admonition to be proactive. If you have a problem and don't let us know, we can't get started on untangling it.

I'm not here to advertise--our program is one of the finest--and oldest--distance learning masters in the world. I've also noticed the students in our program provide eloquent, informative answers without my having to hit a keystroke. I'm here to learn as much as I can about the constantly involving field of distance learning so I can provide better answers when my students ask. It's great knowing there's a place like this to refer them when they want to pursue more than we can offer.



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Nicole Ballard
HUX Phase III Advisor
Thesis/Graduation requirements

 

I recently was accepted in the HUX Program. I received my course materials today for the Summer session along with a library card for the Cal State system.

Do you know what library support is provided for students livings outside of California or who don't live near a Cal State campus?

 

The services available through the CSHDU campus library are constantly evolving and improving; a little research on your part should provide the best, most current, information. Start with the library homepage at: http://library.csudh.edu which will lead you to 1) a student registration page, 2) information about Interlibrary Loan, and 3) various electronic databases you can access remotely. (Your paper library card is primarily an identification card to help you to register for lending privileges at your local university or research library.)

You might also wish to contact a student in our program who recently took a full-time position with the campus library as a Reference librarian. Her name is Carol Dales, her email is: [email protected] and she will undoubtedly be joining this community at some future date.





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Nicole Ballard
HUX Phase III Advisor
Thesis/Graduation requirements

 

One thing I discovered was that many universities and seminaries sometimes have reciprocity policies for students in programs at other universities -- which is to say that you might be able to leverage your CSUDH library card into a courtesy card at a local college, university, or seminary library.

Besides, it just looks cool. I've been trying to talk the National Writer's Union into sending me a press pass for years; I don't know that I'd ever use it, but I've always wanted one of those. I just think they're nifty.


Peace,

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Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

The very cool CSUDH diploma arrived today -- about a week before I would have started expecting it -- and is now hanging on my wall in a nice little wooden frame. I'm a happy camper, needless to say.


Peace,

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Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

Congatulations Tom!

Gus Sainz

 

When I received my CSUDH MBA in the mail I thought it was fairly impressive, for a few moments anyway. I then proceeded to pack it someplace. Now, I don't recall where it is. Maybe some newly minted Hawthorne Ph.D. in paranormal psychic something or other can help me locate it.

My wife has a degree from Brigham Young University. Her diploma was not so impressive. They print BYU diplomas out on a cheap printer that smudged if you can believe it. In fact, she complained about it and they sent her a new cheap copy....this time with no smudges.

 

When I was in the CSUDH HUX program prior to May 2000, I used the San Francisco State and San Jose State libraries extensively. But I rarely checked anything out, so I rarely used that HUX library card that they sent me. If I found a journal article or book chapter I needed, I just xeroxed them.

I wrote about half my thesis in a coffee house on South First street in San Jose, and the other half in the College of Notre Dame library a few blocks from my house. That little Catholic college was very supportive of my distance education efforts even though I wasn't one of their students, and they let me use their special research collection on religious art.

Bottom line: Most university libraries don't ask you for an ID at the door, so just walk in like you own the place. You can use their collections all you want if you don't remove anything from the building. And many of those libraries will be very supportive if you explain to them what you are doing. They'll probably think it's cool and you may end up explaining the HUX program to a librarian who would kind of like to do something like that him/herself.

 

This is worth mentioning, Bill, and I'm glad you brought it up: of the six university libraries I visited during my HUX studies, five let me use their libraries to xerox materials, one let me borrow books after I filled out a set of forms, and another would have let me borrow books if I had bothered to fill out a set of forms. Only one of the six libraries actually had security at the door asking for ID, mostly because they wanted people to buy more $100 one-year courtesy cards, but their library wasn't all that great anyway (I had visited it a couple of times before they started enforcing this policy).


Peace,

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Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

Thanks for the clarifications, Tom. Most of the time I just complete papers and drop them in the mail without further contact; always wondered if the professors expect to hear from their students.

By the way, the lead for www.bookfinder.com was a good one. From time to time I search on line for a special book that I can't find at the nearby academic bookstores. Have been able to track down some obscure titles at http://www.alibris.com/. Rather expensive, as they charge shipping for each book, but sometimes money is no object when completing a project.

Trust all will go well with your doctorate work.


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Phillip M. Perry
www.pmperry.com

 

Dear Nicole-Hux or Tom-Head,

As a prospective student of the MS in QA at CSU Domínguez Hills, and out of curiosity, could you please explain why CSU takes six months to deliver the diploma after graduation? Other Universities take four to six weeks, and far as I know, it is 6 months just to print out a paper!!!! Or is there any bureaucracy involved in this process like the California Department of Education approval or similar? Thank you very much to both of you for your comments!!!

Tom, congratulations on your degree!! I hope I can start soon working on mine. JLV.

 

My two degrees and my several teaching credentials all took a few months or more. Nobody got anything to me in less than 3-4 months.


Tom Nixon

 

It doesn't; I got mine a little over three months after graduation, and that was only because there were some delays in processing the change of grade on my thesis. Ordinarily, the time between graduation and receipt of diploma is about six weeks (a month to process the transcripts, two weeks to prepare the diploma).


Peace,

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Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

Ugh, diplomas. My PhD diploma (and my wife's) are 8.5X11 and very unimpressive (same blank as the undergrads get-the name and degree is filled in by laser printer). My wife's name wasn't even centered originally (had to get a second one made).

She's in law school now, and will be getting a nice big impressive diploma when she graduates. Only the law, med and dental school do that here--the PhDs get dinky little diplomas. Oh well.

(now if the Alumni association would start addressing the mail to her with a Dr. we might be inclined to cough up some dough. As it is, the constant donation requests going to Ms. AAAAAA go in the circular file).

 

make that 8X10. Very unimpressive. At least it's better than my parents. The PhDs are fine, but their undergrad is 5X7ish.

 

It doesn't.

What happens is that during the thesis process you apply for graduation. It is a card you fill out and accompany with a graduation fee ($20 or something). Then they look at your records and verify that you have met all requirements except for X,Y or Z. (Hopefully just the thesis is outstanding at that point.) You get an evaluation back.

OK, you complete your thesis. Your committee chairman reads it. Perhaps he/she proposes some changes. You rewrite parts of it if necessary. After some back and forth, the rest of your committee gets it. It sits on their desks until you yell at them. Finally they all give you your grades for its content, and the HUX office sends it to the graduate studies office to review. It sits on a desk again, then it may be returned to you to alter format stuff such as margins or because you didn't follow MLA style in your bibliography or something. Then it goes to the library where it sits on a desk again until somebody reviews it prior to binding and perhaps returns it to you (again). They also send it out to UMI to be recorded.

You get the picture. All this can go well past the time that you orignally planned to graduate. It's probably the slowest and most frustrating part of the whole process. So rather than having to file a new application for graduation, they just graduate you effective your original date whenever all the paperwork is finally done.

So in my case I didn't actually get a letter telling me that I had formally graduated until July 2000, even though my diploma (which was available as soon as graduation was official) said that I had graduated back in May 2000, my original graduation date.

The delay isn't printing the diploma. That's available as soon as the graduation paper work is done. The delay is pushing it all through your thesis readers, the HUX and graduate studies office, and the library.

I have to say that the people in the HUX office were unfailingly nice and helpful to me at that frustrating time, and I thank them.

 

Tom:
I assume it probably varied per course, but could you estimate the average amount of time you spent per week on assignments?

Perhaps Nicole could answer:
What year was the program established? How many current students? Graduates?

To your knowledge, has any graduate gone on to earn a PhD?