University of Maryland- University College experiences?

I know I'm going a little crazy asking questions here, but I have yet another question to ask!

Has anyone completed the MBA or a MS from UMUC? Did you like the school? Were people in your cohorts generally cooperative?
Was the pace just right, too long, or too short?

http://www.umuc.edu

Rhonda

 

I completed one semester and transfered. I was not impressed.

 

UMUC

I took a few B&M classes from UMUC when I was in the Military. To me it was kinda of a joke. To pass the classes, I think all I had to do was pay my tution and show up for classes !

 

Re: UMUC

Eek, were these undergrad or grad classes? Did you take them at the Adelphi, MD campus?

Rhonda

 

University of Maryland-University College experiences

Steve, All,

UMUC has an extensive "brick and mortar" presence. I completed an undergraduate degree with them when of active duty in the military in Stuttgart, Germany. In the last ten years, the distance learning section of UMUC has grown.

Fred

 

Re: University of Maryland-University College experiences

UMUC used to have a classroom presence at almost every major Army & Air Force base, IIRC.

 

students review

There are a lot of reviews for the school here:

http://www.studentsreview.com/MD/UOMUC.html

They aren't very favorable, but most of them seem to be about the overseas campuses.

 

re ....

Eek, were these undergrad or grad classes? Did you take them at the Adelphi, MD campus?

undergrad at UMUC extension campus at camp casey korea ..

 

Wow, I seriously did not know UMUC got so many negative reviews. I would have never known. I at one time considered enrolling here for the M.S. in Environmental Management. I am glad I decided not to. Cost was a major factor to me as this school changes a lot for out of state students. Now that I know its reputation, I am glad I saved my time and money and am deciding to go elsewhere. It is a shame to see a state university have such a bad reputation. It was my belief all of the University of Maryland campuses were of high quality. Again, what a shame!

 

There is another Web site www.umucreview.com as well as [email protected] which gicves some information, and not all of it's so great for those of us already invested in UMUC. In PSYCH436 Intro to Clinical Psychology by DE everyone found out taht their professor has a doctorate in the psychology but that his license had been revolked for unprofessional and unethical. It was alet down.

In another thread I posted the following question ands statement hoping to get some feedback:

Does anyone know what's going on at UMUC (Adelphi, Europe, and Asia)? UMUC has a new president, Susan Aldridge. That is not so much my concern though, although maybe it's a factor.

I've noticed that UMUC is tapping instructors to to teach courses in various fields other than the field in which the instructor is trained and credentialed. There have been a lot of comments lately about it, and I'm wondering if there is some sort of administrative change behind that. Most universities are kind of conservative about instructors teaching outside more than two departments. Not that it can't be done, it's just kind of rare at b&m colleges I think.

At UMUC, according to bloggers who calculated combinations of courses, UMUC is assigning an instructor of IFSM, for example, to teach philospohy and math, or an anthropologist to instruct psychology, IFSM, sociology, and biology. There's another teaching English, philosophy, and another subject. That's a lot. Doesn't it stretch training and competence. There are other instructors with other combinations of courses to instruct at UMUC.

I once thought there must be some sort of rules about who teaches what, but I think the lesson here is that there are no professional rules about who teaches whatever subject. It's up to somebody in the college adminstration. As a grad student I'm wondering what is the real expertise of the instructor teaching a course in which I'm enrolled, especially when I notice how many different subjects the instructor teaches psychology.

If there are other Marylanders there in cyberspace, please let me know what's going on with the college. There must be more to what the bloggers are saying. Maybe I'm not seeing the situation correctly.

 

Re: University of Maryland-University College experiences

UMUC-Europe is academically and administratively distinct from UMUC in the US.

 

I am currently doing my MS from UMUC and here are my views
1) Majority of the profs are good.
2) Few bad apples, but then they are in all institutions.
3) I have taken 6 courses and found 2 profs very of high quality, 3 okay and 1 bad.
4) While I think I could have learnt more if I was in a B & M school, I have to remember that I am not. So make the best of what I have.
5) Ultimately in a DL education, YOU are the one who is responsible for learning. Profs will only guide you.

In the end, for people like us who are doing their DL education, it is the degree that is most important. Except for DL schools like C. Mellon, not sure if any HR person really cares where we got our degree.

My thoughts....

 

Found this on epinions.com . Looks like this is a old one - Jun 04 '00 and Jun 28 '04 (Updated Jun 30 '04).

http://www.epinions.com/educ-review-61B8-631EAA4-393ACCE7-prod5


http://www.epinions.com/content_145499459204

Looks like a mixed bag of opinions.

 

I did not know any better so I signed up for classes at UMUC during my time in Japan and Korea. Now, during the lower level classes, where I was actually in classroom, I felt the instruction was superb. My instructors were well qualified...I even had an MIT educated instructor for some of my lower level math classes, which I thought was a waste myself.

As soon as I finished what they would offer in classroom (they have a limited selection overseas) and began working on my requirements via DE I was very unimpressed. Almost every class I took, with the exception of a few standouts, were horrible "Teach Yourself" style classes. Most were extremely unorganized with little to no feedback.

Now let me talk about the proctored exams overseas. Absolutely ridiculous, I would go to my exam - sign in - and they would give me my test and send me to a classroom with all the other exam takers - No proctor would actually sit in the room. I would have people I knew were taking the same Closed Book, Closed Note test I was taking sitting there with their book and notes out. I was extremely put out by that, as you can imagine!

Just some of my thoughts...I am so glad I left. And besides, for a "Military Friendly" School they barely took any of my military credits toward my degree. Once I transferred to Excelsior I was, all of a sudden, about 20 credits closer to my degree...go figure.

Shawn

 

Re: We don't need no stinking campuses!

Steve,

You have some facts that are a little off...

I worked for UMUC in 2003 for 9 months.

They have a lot of classes at their Adelphi campus, as well as run night classes in the UMCP campus.

UMUC is not necessarily just distance learning, as they offer night courses on not only many military bases in the area, but they also teach on some of the community colleges at night, and they also offer a wide range of onsite courses at the Waldorf Center in Waldorf, MD.

Also UMUC has daytime courses that are done interactively at different locations that are directly linked to UMCP where students watch the course via a video screen and call in with questions. UMCP and UMUC students take the same class but they get the same credit. I believe it it is called Interactive Televison (ITV) courses?

In any case, I sometimes feel that UMUC is somewhat misunderstood. They are inconsistent with the quality of their on site courses because they will often hire locals overseas or on military bases with no teaching experience, but will put tenured faculty (which they do have) from UMUC or UMCP in their MD classes.

 

There's a post on the Yahoo! group for UMUC students and UmucReview indicating UMUC has had problems with PeopleSoft, and other things. For example, this link was posted to the student group:

http://www.ed.umuc.edu/general_info/publications/ newsletters/faculty/Report2FacultyTerm42004.pdf

Actually there are a lot of links available on the Internet where one can read about internal issues and the internal discussions between (and among) the faculty and administration. It makes them look like a real mess, and I think that kind of information showed up on the Internet unintentionally.

While I haven't experienced any difficulties, some others have grumbled about UMUC's PeopleSoft and other programs.

 

UMUC is regionally accredited and the credits earned will transfer to any University of Maryland Campus as well as any other regionally accredited college as long as the GPA is good enough.

Now, the quality of the instructors might might be inconsistent sometimes overseas because they probably hire who they can at the military bases overseas.

When I attended, I had some great instructors and some not so great instructors. Just like some brick and mortar colleges.

Fred

 

My experience with UMUC has been with DE, so the whole debate about the quality of instruction in F2F at Adelphi, in Asia, and Europe is new to me.

The differences are fascinating, and sometimes discouraging. Most people complain about the quality of European instruction in particular, and, in general, about UMUC payroll and benefits for their adjunct-like instruction staff.

One good thought recently has been encouraging more people to contribute to and utilize www.ratemyprofessors.com as a way of getting some idea about instructors instruct, when one has a choice of instructor.

The posting of internal memos, minutes from faculty meetings, and other documents that I imagine are for internal use only is a great instrucional tool for undergrads who want learn how a college really works behind the scenes. It's less about Plato and more about how many cents has the travel allowance increased by, less about psychology textbooks and more about how to get in touch with the president of UMUC. Fascinaing in a way. Thank you World Wide Web.