NCU Bound

Hi All - I want to thank everyone for their contribution to these message boards. These contributions have helped me make the decision to transfer from Capella to NCU. I'm doing this for three reasons:

1. No residencies. I estimated that the three residencies required by Capella would cost me over 5k. Furthermore, the tuition at NCU is significanty lower.

2. Self-paced learning. After almost completing my first term at Capella I've found that that I was constantly 2-3 weeks ahead of the course, and was frustrated that I could not move through the course more quickly. Moreover, the weekly requirements and the posting requirements felt contrived to me.

3. Pace of program. I believe that with NCU given the self-paced nature I will be able to to finish sooner.

I should say that I think Capella is an AWESOME school! I've been extremely happy with the quality of instruction, the service of the staff, and the caliber of the students. Although I've only attended one term I will miss the school. However, after one term I know that NCU will be a better fit for me. I do think though that NCU could learn from Capella, and polish up their website a bit.

It's also worth noting that the negative posts on NCU were taken into account during my deliberation. The lack of Title IV financial aid was a consideration. However, I was able to get an SLM loan at a very low interest rate. I think in the long run I will be paying much less than if I stayed at Capella given the higher tuition. NCU's relationship with SCUPS does not both me because I know and understand California's licensing process and that there are several excellent school in California that may be nationally accredited, or simply licensed by the state to operate. I know that all states do this, but California does it a lot.

Bottom line - no residencies, self-paced, lower tuition won out for me.

 

First, good luck with your decision. I hope it works out.

Second, I want to put in a plug for residencies. As most readers know, I graduated from Union Institute and University. The Ph.D. program has residency requirements that take several forms. I can say--and others on this board who've completed similar short-residency programs can back me up--residencies were a highlight of the program. Independent doctoral study, even with simulated online classes, can be a lonely thing. Residencies allow the learner to plug into his/her "invisible college" of peers and faculties in ways simply not accomplished online. (Or at all, in the case of NCU.) Residencies are not only about the time and money; they're also about advancing your learning and using your peers and faculty as resources to stay on track.

All that said, it sounds like NCU is a better fit for you--you seem to thrive on having an unbridled pace available.

It's also nice to hear that it was NCU drawing you--and not just Capella pushing you away--that led you to this decision.

Finally, I suspect the end result will be the same. I doubt if there is much difference in terms of utility between the degrees issued by each school.

Again, good luck.

 

Hi Richard - Thanks for the reply and well-wishes. I agree that residencies can be awesome. I did some graduate work with the Saybrook Graduate School, which does require residencies. I enjoyed them very much. However, I travel a lot for work, and am gone too much as it is from my family. With that and the cost factor the residencies were a concern for me. However, part of me, given my experience at Saybrook, was looking forward to the residences. The primary reason for the switch however was the self-pacing, the residency issue helped push the scales. S.

 

Congratulations, sburrus, I agree with Rich that it is refreshing to see a "from good to better" positve decision about schools! I would love to have any advice from you about Saybrook, I am very interested in that school.

 

Sure, send me any questions. I'd be glad to answer them. For now I can say the positives are excellent instructors, solid curriculum, flexible content areas (if you're into less traditional content areas they're o.k. with that). The biggest negative for me was the payment structure. It's around 16K per year regardless of the number of classes you take. S.

 

Flexibility is king

Welcome aboard!

Flexibility is a good thing. I have a lot of stuff coming at me in December. Went online - pushed a couple buttons - and now my course is extended 30 dasy so I don't have to worry about it. Thus going fast is great, but you can also go the other way if necessary.

Good luck and I agree, their web site it hiteous, but they are developing a new one now based on what they told me.

 

Welcome to NCU

Hi Sburrus,
As one NCU student to another, I think you made a good choice! Maybe I missed it somewhere, but which degree are you going for? I'm going for a Ph.D. in Education with a specialization in Technology Management. I have been with NCU almost a year now and I'm about 1/3 done.

It seems to me that few people actually express the "contrived" nature of weekly discussion assignments in distance learning. I feel they are contrived too! I teach online and I don't mind the discussion component for my students but I knew that when I searched for a program for myself, I was hoping I'd find one that was self-paced without a huge part of my grade depending on contrived discussions which are really hashing, rehashing and overhashing the course reading for the week. Quite frankly that is not my preferred way to learn and I think the "learning experience" of these discussions is over-rated though it does give a nice "class feel" to online courses, which you may find missing in NCU.

Don't worry though, NCU students do find ways to connect! If you don't want to feel isolated, you may even find others in a similar program that you can communicate with even if they are not taking the same class at the same time as you. So far my experience is very good and I have no regrets about choosing this school. I saved all the money from one of my online teaching jobs for a year and then paid off all of my tuition soon after starting the program which resulted in an unexpected 10% discount in my tuition. NCU rocks.

 

And what a huge negative this is! It seems to me that the only financially realistic way to finish Saybrook is to max out each term, whether or not the rest of your life is in a position to let you do that, because you are basically charged double for taking fewer classes. Did you find the programs geared toward licensure? What kinds of thing were people doing after graduation?

Is SCUPS having success getting people licensed? Are you doing psych at NCU?

 

Re: Welcome to NCU

I have not found my NCU weekly discussions to be worth very much so far. They are indeed contrived. Many just post to post some comment and finish the requirement. I had the same thing happen in a distance course I took at Indiana. I recall my MBA classes at CSUDH, though. Those discussions were actually interesting and worthwhile.

At NCU, my experience so far is that a mentor posts a question and students answer. I haven't seen mentors even participate in the discussion at all. At CSUDH the profs interjected quite a bit. My mentors at NCU have done a good deal of 1:1 interacting, though.

I have found this forum to be a better connecting element with other NCU students than even NCU. NCU used to have a link to other NCU students but they took it down. Now, you only know who is in your particular course.

 

NCU Discussions

Bing, I think the only reason that NCU has a discussion requirement at all in some courses was because of the short-lived time they were participating in Title IV. While I post what is asked for in any "discussion assignment" for most of my courses so far there is no one else in the same course at the same time to "discuss with. " It is more like a short essay that is shared (potentially) with my instructor and others who might join the course. My mentors usually do respond to my posts so it is "one on one" and I like that. I personally, don't like the type of discussions that others apparently do like where you have 15 in a cohort and they have to post an initial answer to a topic and then they have to respond to two others (or six others, or whatever). In some courses I teach, students must post two major "contrived" (in my opinion) re-hashes of the same thing they write in their application assignment for the week. Then they must respond to two others with "substantial" responses (all together, six substantive posts plus a major application assignment in one week). I think it is a bit much and the learning is redundant. I like NCU's structure better for myself. I have connected with quite a few NCU students outside of this forum. At least NCU's discussions are not a major part of a grade. I hate being graded on "discussion." As I said before, I don't mind that it is required in the courses that I teach, though I would structure it differently if I had a choice, I like that NCU's discussion requirements are minor. I'd rather concentrate on my applications and projects than discussion posts. I think they are all "contrived" even at schools where the instructor has to participate and everyone participates as directed.
--Sue

 

Re: NCU Discussions

I think that the discussion requirement CAN be a good thing. It does not have to be a rehash of the assignment.

I think NCU should just open up the Title IV and have shorter terms. It would allow more students the opportunity to do an NCU degree. But, apparently, the business model they chose seems to be working for them or else they would change it back to Title IV.

 

Re: Re: NCU Discussions

I'm not sure, but I think NCU canned Title IV because this financial aid program arbitrarily required participants to follow the federal government's mandate for a 16 week term in addition to other constraints, like contact time - the forum postings, etc. I called the financial aid distance program director of the federal program and NCU definitely dropped out voluntarily. I think the constraints became to rigid after they got into the program.

 

Re: Re: Re: NCU Discussions

Is that a new Title IV rule? I know that in my CSUDH MBA program we had people doing student loans. I think the terms were 9 weeks. They were pretty compressed...and they were not quarter hrs either.

 

16 week term

the demonstration program through the dept of education admitted NCU in the last round. they have lots of info on the DOE website about the demonstration program for DL, which is intended to examine the feasibility of DL as being worthy of federal assistance, among other things.

NCU's president articulated the reason's for canning this program, which may be on the site still. I thought it required 16 weeks, but also a problem was that the courses needed to start and end on the federal cycle based on their distribution of aid, not on NCU's cycle. Thus, starting courses in any month was precluded by the Title IV, from what I recal. The constraints on flexibity became too great, according to Dr. Hect at NCU.

 

I was under the impression that the course discussions were no longer required and more of an optional exercise.

Due to the nature of the one-on-one mentoring philosophy at NCU and small classes, IMHO that the discussions should not be a requirement anyway.

Craig

 

Yes, they were done away with by NCU. But I guess the syllabus could make it a requirement, nonetheless.

 

Best and blessings to you.

 

Welcome to the light!

I did the exact same thing (switching from Capella to NCU) a few years ago. Cost and frustration of the courses was the reasons I chose to leave Capella.

Good luck!

 

Welcome to the growing number of NCU learners on this forum.

I have completed 28 hours in the PhD business administration program

Bill Hurd

 

From a current NCU syllabus: “Learners are expected to be involved in a minimum of one scheduled instructional activity per week.”

This requirement was imposed so NCU could meet one of the many requirements for Title IV funding. I was in the middle of my second class with NCU when Title IV funding went away so, when Title IV officially went away, my professor informed me that the weekly contact requirement was no longer required.

The current syllabi still state the contact requirement but, since NCU is in the midst of rewriting their syllabi to accommodate the change from a 16-week semester to a 12-week semester, the paragraph may be dropped once the change is in effect.

Personally I like communicating and working with classmates but, given that NCU classes are self-paced, it is not very feasible.

Sburrus, good luck at NCU and keep up posted on your progress.