What's the deal with the program? As I was reading through the requirements for the online MLA at TCU I noticed that all that they required was proof of a bachelor's degree. No minimum GPA mentioned, no GRE required. For those of you who have done this program, is this an open admission type program? I know it's a non-career degree, but what does that mean exactly? Does this also mean that it's not a "real" academic degree? Like, extension credits only? No possible progression to a ph.d? Are (for example) the units are not transferable anywhere else or does this mean that it can't count for a masters+18 units adjunct-teaching type of deal? Will the units count as academic credit for those that want to obtain a masters in something else entirely later? I've emailed the school a while ago but haven't gotten a response.
This is one of my favorite DL degrees, although it's on the expensive side. There are no required courses, you just need to amass a certain amount of credits from the list of very diverse MLA courses, and you earn the degree. Not good for doctoral preparation, but it would absolutely be fine for the 18-hour minimum for adjunct teaching, provided you earn at least 18 hours in a specific discipline. As far as transferring credits to another Master's program, that generally isn't allowed anyway. If you have graduate credits that haven't been applied to an earned degree, some schools will accept them in transfer, but graduate credits from an earned graduate degree will generally not transfer to another graduate degree program.
So with this degree you can literally take whatever classes you want, no matter what they are in, and you get the degree? My husband nearly fell out of his chair when he read this. He is wanting to teach online, and he was thinking he would maybe get this degree and then a certificate in whatever he wants to specialize in and then he could teach. Is he on the right track with this? Or would he have to teach in person for this to work?
Online teaching jobs are competitive. A general masters from TCU (whoever the heck that is) may not be the ticket. On ground experience is always helpful when applying for a teaching position.
No way to get 18 semester hours in one discipline The individual TCU MLA courses are also multidisciplinary, so there's no way to gather 18 semester hours in a single discipline. Still, it's still a master's degree from a good university, so it'll have value on in a lot of scenarios, but is probably not too useful for college teaching. Here's how TCU describes their MLA courses: "Each course approved by the MLA Advisory Committee, must meet the philosophical intent of the program to provide a multidisciplinary, non-career oriented graduate education in the liberal arts."
For anyone who's interested, TCU = Texas Christian University (regionally accredited). Info about the program is here: http://www.mla.tcu.edu/default.asp?cat=catalog The page notes that "The MLA degree requires successful completion of 30 hours of course work. Twelve of the 30 hours must be in MLA courses designated "Perspectives on Society."" (The Perspectives on Society seem to be a subset of the offered MLA courses.) Tuition cost is rather high ... $730/hour plus $112 fee per online course. So assuming 10 courses to earn 30 credits, total tuition cost = $23,020 (plus books, other fees, etc)
