David, I see you dropped the MA at APUS for the DA at Harrison Middleton. I'm about half way through the MSM at Salve Regina University and I'm looking ahead for my next program when I'm through at SRU. I'm quite interested in the history programs at APUS and I'm wondering if you could shed some light them. How was the program? What was the workload like? Typical assignments? Feedback, tests, projects? Should you have extensive prior work in history? Thanks, Mike
I have 18 graduate credits with APUS from about the past year and a half: RC576 – Historical Research Methods LW560 – Ancient Warefare OC610 – The Ancient World OC617 – Society and the World I HS501 – The Greek Civilization PS502 – Political Philosophy I started out in the history program, switched to humanities, then to political science. The quality of the material, instructor interaction, and level of rigor are very high, it is a top quality program. I switched because, for me, it was too structured. I do much better with a list of assignments and the ability to set my own pace. Generally each class was roughly a similar formula around history and humanities. 4 to 6 writing assignments, the goal seems to be around having you write 40 to 60 pages per class, either in a number of assignments or in a big research paper due at the end of the course. Weekly graded interaction on the discussion forum, with what seemed to be a goal of having you produce 500 words of interaction per week when nothing else was due that week. Either a timed internet based midterm and final, or a proctored final. Readings of I would guess about 1,000 pages per course. Stickler for Chicago style format in History, APA format in Political Science (which was good for me, the business stuff is APA which I kind of know, having to remember the differences for the Chicago stuff was a pain in the neck also). Instructors don’t mind handing out low grades, but often there is the chance for extra credit if you are lagging. I did extra credit in two courses for two A-, leaving me with 4 A’s and 2 A-‘s from the above. The two A- would have been B’s if I didn’t do the extra work.
You might also benefit from this thread: http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19467
Thanks guys, it looks pretty good, the proctored testing might be a pain in the neck for me. Sounds very solid.
In the end, this is what did me in. I used the local community college testing center, but to frequently have to coordinate this was a huge pain in the neck. If you had a testing center that was convenient and flexible, it might not be as much of a burden..