to Ryan IV or other LSU onlline students

I was looking a the LSU undergraduate course offerings online. I would appreciate comments from anyone who has taken courses through LSU.

I am specifically wondering about the requirements for proctors and the average length it takes you to complete courses. Thanks!

 

Though I am by no means an authority on LSU and I just began my first course thorugh them, my understanding is that the courses can be completed in very little time.

They put forth a max of 3 lessons per week can be submitted - from what I saw the avg is about 15 lessons per course. So, 5 weeks + 2 exams... I'd say that you could do a course in 6 weeks, including exams.

I've not yet checked out the proctoring problem as I live in a rural area with the closest University an hours drive away - but I'll cross that bridge once I get to it (which'll probably be in about a month )

BM

 

In my wife's case, a public library did the proctoring for free.

 

The only problem I had was that they changed instructors on me twice as I recall. Do you really mean "online"? I took a regular correspondence course with them. What I liked most was that my homework grades and test grades were immediately posted online. Exams were typical proctor-based tests. I did mine at a certified college testing center. I took both a midterm and a final, but I've forgotten how long they lasted.

 

Angie-

First, thanks for asking me the question. Having somebody ask me a question on Degree Info makes me feel like Navin Johnson when the new phone book arrived (“I’m somebody now!”)!!

I haven’t taken “online” classes through LSU (www.is.lsu.edu), only the paper-based correspondence classes, so that is all I can speak to. I’m working on my fourth course from them right now and overall, I’ve enjoyed the lessons. I think they’re well written and easy to follow. All of the lesson plans do an excellent job of explaining terms, timelines, etc, so you can easily learn the material without input from an instructor or fellow students. Also, the course requirements are clearly spelled out, so there can’t be any confusion over what you need to do to pass the class.

The first two classes I took (Colonial America and American Revolution) required me to mail in the lessons, which due to my location really slowed things down. But once the lessons were received in Louisiana, they were normally graded within a week and as Jugador says, the grades were posted on line, which speeded things up a bit. For the third class I took (Intro to Psychology), we had the option of mailing the lessons in or sending them electronically. This made the course go much faster. All exams go by snail mail (both ways), so I commonly wait up to a month to receive my exams and another month for them to get back to the mainland. I’m sure your wait times would be much less in CONUS, but the extra time did give me an opportunity to study for the tests.

As for a proctor, I used my boss here in Iraq (a military officer) and didn’t get any negative reaction from the school. The impression I got from reading the paperwork they send you and from the LSU web site is that they are looking for a proctor who they can assume (with some amount of certainty) is trustworthy based on their title or job position. They probably wouldn’t let my cousin Bubba proctor the test, but clergy, military officers, librarians, etc, would probably be allowed to be your proctor.

How long it takes to complete the lessons really depends on the time and effort you have to devote to it. Having said that, I personally feel that completing three lessons a week is a very optimistic goal. Each lesson is the rough equivalent to a week in a B&M school. I found that for the psychology course, two lessons a week was the maximum I could do and still absorb all of the material. For the history courses, one lesson a week was about my maximum. Of course, there were a lot more required readings for the upper-level history courses, so they normally took longer to complete. I would allow at a minimum three months to complete a course, including finals and grade reports.

I hope this helps. I’d be happy to try to answer any other questions you may have.

Ryan IV

 

Thanks to everyone who posted. The info helps tremendously.

Special thanks to Ryan for the detailed response. You are definately "someone" in my book. The course I am interested in is Criminology, which is offered both snail mail and online. On all counts, it looks like it's worth giving LSU a try for the course. The only negative thing now is breaking the news to Cousin Bubba. Thanks again!

 

Anytime. I'm glad I could help.

 

Just wait till you have the honor of being attacked on degreeinformation DL or alt.education.distance. Then you'll really be a somebody!

 

I don't think either board has a fee pass on attacking posters on each others' boards. We can all do better. We are a notch or two higher on the evolutionary scale, are we not? I certainly have not been above the name-calling and attacking of posters here and there. Hey, new resolution, no more name-calling, attacking. How far will I get? Help me, Lord!