I was just looking around the web and I saw Empire State College, SUNY. It seems almost too good to be true: $181 per credit, 100% online, and regional accreditation. Does anyone have any thoughts or know about this school? www.esc.edu
If you do a search for Empire State College on this board, you will see many references to it. It's a safe choice, I would say
ESC is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. The $181. 00 per credit tuition is for NYS residence only, otherwise the per credit tuition is $442.00. I completed my undergraduate degree through the center for distance learning. I earned a BS in Business Management and Economics with a concentration in accounting. During the time I was in the program I took classes online as well as print base (Print base- I completed and assignement and mailed it to the professor, this was mostly my accounting classes) The program was well worth the price (for a NYS resident) and extremely challanging.
I used to teach at Empire State. It is as real as it comes ! I hope this helps you make an informed decision! peACE! ACE
regarding online classes through SUNY I HATE them. I took biology of the Brain at Empire State and Emerging Infectious Diseases at one of the other colleges, forget which one. The majority of the work and the grading comes from posting and responding to threaded discussions. A typical week might be, teacher posts 3 page pdf on the West Nile virus, each students is required to read the file and post one thought provoking question regarding the article, then each student is required to respond to at least 3 other students's posts and make thoughtful/insightful responses that contribute to the overall discussion and learning experience. Then search the web and find a web site that contributes to that week's topic, WN virus, make a seperate posting that critiques and reviews the web site, and then reply to 3 other student's web site critiques and make thoughtful/insightful comments that contribute to the discussion and show that you have read each web site. It is a lot of work. I don't mind all the work, but i never really felt like I was leanring anything. I just felt like I was in a big room with a 100 small, noisy conversations going on. I was frantically running from group to group trying to listen in to each one. I would pick up a line here and a thought there, but never fuly felt engaged in the conversation. It was all, "can't stay, gotata run,...run, run, run." You had to get to the next group and contribute and you had to do it QUICKLY are else you'd have nothing to say except, "Good point, gotta go!". Can you imagine an actual calssroom being run like that ? it was pandomonium!
I had almost the exact same experience as James. I took 2 courses at Empire State's Center for Disantance Learning, and each required weekly posting of a thought-provoking question related to the reading for the week. We also had to respond to 3 other people's thought provoking questions, and we couldn't have the same question as someone else. Dialogue never really took off, b/c we were all trying to be sure and post the required # of questions and answers every week. I have to say I didn't learn much that way, and would have preferred an essay on a specified topic instead of having the forced "conversation" with fellow students. Or a relaxation on the required # of weekly posts, which seemed kind of childish.
ESC The tuition for ESC CDL courses is the same for in state or out of state residents. http://www.esc.edu/esconline/across_esc/finaid.nsf/wholeshortlinks2/CDL+Tuition+and+Fees I teach online for ESC. For the two courses that I designed, discussion requirements are more relaxed than the posters on this thread described. Personally, I am no fan of courses based mostly on responding to discussion threads.
There must be an error on their web page because if you go here www.esc.edu/esconline/across_esc/finaid.nsf/3cc42a422514347a8525671d0049f395/83d88a8944ea98bf85256c3d004e1371?OpenDocument It shows two seperate tuitions rates. Most schools in NYS have an out of state as well as an in state tuition. I took classes over three years ago and did not have the similar experience, however, I alos did not have to response to at least three other students. Maybe some changesa are not for the better.
Oh, yeah. What James said. I ran into that at the much-vaunted AMU, along with guess-who-the prof-is this-week. Once around that fire hydrant was enough for this old dog. That method sounds stupid, but Empire State is utterly reputable and apart from that method an excellent choice. Best wishes to you. J.
Empire State Tuition There is no error. On the page that you linked, notice on that on the left of the NY State tuition rate, it says Center for Distance Learning students and Navy students pay in-state rate. ESC has options which are not online and these are the options that have a different rate tuition for out of state. The idea of "responding to three other students" is different with each course. It depends on the course and the professor. I don't design my courses like that. --Sue
This is the page that I was referring to. UNDERGRADUATE TUITION AND FEES PER 16-WEEK CYCLE (includes Center for Distance Learning students) Effective Spring 2006 Term NYS Residents Credits Tuition *Center for Distance Learning and Navy students pay in-state tuition 1-11 $181 per credit 12-16 $2,175 per term 17+ $2,175 per term plus $181 each addition credit Out of State Residents 1-11 $442 per credit 12-16 $5,305 per term 17+ $5,305 per term plus $442 each additional credit Is there a standard format that each Professor must meet as far as respondin to the thread discussions.
I was looking at a brochure from our local city council and was looking at the biographies. The one that jumped out at me was: BA, Empire State College JD, Harvard Law School If it's good enought for Harvard...
Thanks to everyone's replies and information. I think I am going to enroll. Based on what everyone has said and my own research, it may be my best bet. Plus, my wife and I are moving to the NY/NJ area in few years. I have an AA degee from a FL CC and some credits from FAU; I hear they are pretty good about transfering credits over too. So, I should be done in a year and a half. As JH50 said in the last reply, if its good enough for harvard... I should have no problem getting into grad school with this degree, right? Thank you
Discussion responses Chris, No, there is no standard format or quota for professors. We do get evaluated though, based on student surveys and other things. Our supervisors can directly enter our classroom to see how much we are responding, and how we are responding. Individuals design these courses and therefore discussion requirements and other activities vary. I believe the idea of designing courses to be mostly "discussion based" is encouraged in SLN course design training sessions and therefore a lot of SLN courses are designed that way. I'm sure after enough students complain, they will change their ways! I am a graduate of ESC myself (AA in 1991 and BS in 1994). I only took one course from CDL. CDL courses were all "print" courses then and you mailed the work to the professor, so there was no interaction with students. For my own program, I took many courses with "tutors." That is, I met with my instructors live, about once a month (the recommendation was every two weeks but you could work that out with your tutor and there was no set requirement). Because I was going into education, I had to take a lot of courses that were not offered by ESC in order to meet NY State Certification requirements. Because of this, I have taken correspondence courses from many schools including Penn State and Brigham Young and several others. (New York Ed. Department had a list of schools they would accept correspondence courses from; this list did NOT include all RA accredited schools and I'm not sure what qualified certain schools to get on the "approved" list. I had to take my student teaching and Education methods courses at traditional universities with teacher programs (I did student teaching with St. Bonaventure and Methods with Edinboro University). Through all those correspondence courses that I took, I had a couple of recurring thoughts. I wondered how many people started the courses and dropped them. I imagine a lot did because the feed back from professors was almost non-existent and you generally had no due dates and you had up to a year to complete the courses. I love that format for myself because I am very self-disciplined and always did the courses within my ESC terms regardless of the providing college’s schedule. I think most students need more outside structure, especially assignment due dates. I started working for ESC in 2002 and at that time, the courses I taught were "print" courses. Students could mail or email work. I encouraged email but did not require it. The email option improved the way print courses were conducted. Students received prompt answers to questions and feedback on their work. But now ESC CDL has thrown out the baby with the bath water by eliminating all print courses. I say this because the print courses were good and I think, in many cases they were probably better than their online "discussion based" replacements. Still, I highly recommend ESC and I do think it enjoys a better reputation than many other non-traditional choices. --Sue
I just wanted to add that the prof for one of the courses I took via CDL was excellent. Course layout with the forced Q and A's was awful, but the individual feedback I got was thorough, encouraging, challenging. The prof obviously cared a lot and put a lot of thoguht into the feedback.
