Louisiana State University/Brigham Young University

Any personal experiences with these school's online classes to share? The prices seem too good to be true, especially LSU at $229 a course.

 

My wife just began LSU's Western Civ course. Living in Estonia, we may have a different perspective than most, but all in all it has been a good experience so far.

We had to pay $50 more for the course for international shipping. Add a $100 more for books which we got used at good prices, but shipping to Estonia was $60. It took awhile for the material to reach us, but again, that could be an international thing.

They have been responsive to emails and questions, though.

We could let you know more later.

clint

 

Race Chick-
I've just started two classes from LSU, Colonial America and the American Revolution. It was very easy to sign up for the classes, and the school got me my materials very quickly (4 days). The school cautions you not to buy your books until you receive the course materials, which increases the wait time before you can start the class. Also, the books for these two courses were difficult to find, in that I had to go to three different suppliers (LSU bookstore, B&N, and Amazon) to get the required books. Several of the books were older and out-of-print.

Once I had everything, I find the lessons are easy to follow and the questions are easy to understand. Both of these classes require essay answers to questions, recommending 1-3 pages of answer per question. I also find it hard to stay on schedule, because unlike B&M or online classes, there's no immediate pressure to get the work done. Overall, I recommend these courses if your situation has time or money constraints.

Hope this helps.

S/F,
Ryan IV

 

Where will you take your exams? Do the American embassies systematically provide for this?

 

I took a distance education course with them. What I really liked was the ability to confirm on the web that the assignments had been received and to to get my assignment grades online immediately. I've taken distance ed coursed with eleven colleges, and they were the only one to offer this service.

 

I should have mentioned that my comments were about LSU. They also gave exam grades right away online.

 

Not systematically. When I asked them about it, you would have thought I was trying to get an audience with the President. They basically had no idea about what I was asking.

However, we have contact with some folks in the education sector and one of the lecturers from the Estonian Music Academy has agreed to proctor the exams. LSU seems to have agreed to this arrangement, at least via email. But we are still working this one out.

Really, this was my only real complaint about the whole experience to this point. Before she enrolled, we asked about the proctor situation and if various people could serve as proctor. We provided a list of options and were told that each of them were acceptable. The Music Professor is about #5 on the list. When we actually tried to get it done, all the others were rejected - even though we had email confirmation of their acceptability earlier. So I chalk that one up to experience and a reminder to keep a copy of all correspondence (which I had not done).

clint

 

My wife takes her final exam for her sixth course from LSU (Advanced Accounting) right this moment, at the public library. She is also completing her seventh (Non-Profit acctg.) and already bought three more.

So far, experience is good. Especially, the price.

 

I have known several people who have taken independent study or online courses from Brigham Young U. and a few (including my sister) who have been in BYU's degree completion program (BGS). Everyone has expressed great satisfaction with the program.

Since I have three degrees from BYU, I am a bit prejudiced toward that institution

Tony