USC students 'angry' about new online MSW

MSW USC Online Program Fiel Placement in the LA County Area

Hello, I know it's been a while since anyone replied to this thread and I am hoping someone will see this and answer my questions.
There doesn't seem to be much on this topic. I would like to know if anyone here ever enrolled in USC's online MSW program around the LA County area. How are their field placements? I have seen couple of very negative comments regarding their program but that can only be a couple of people who had a bad experience. I know the cost is a lot for an online program. But I like the fact that I don't have to drive in traffic all the time and can keep my job. At the end of the day what matter is getting a good field placement and having a degree to be able to find a job. So is there anyone here who has any experience with USC's Online MSW field placement in the LA County area?

 

I can't speak to every online student's experience, every professor's methods, every university's policies, but when I teach online classes, I make them tougher than the exact same class taken onground. More work, typically more difficult exams; tell my online students they're being shortchanged any of the rigor and they'll laugh in your face.

 

There are more online MSW programs now compared to when this thread started so perhaps the general reputation of these programs has improved within the profession.

Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) - Online and Distance Education

 

Or Duke, Columbia, Harvard, Georgia Tech, Cambridge, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, etc.

You know, if you made up an "Ivy League" of top universities that offer entirely (or almost entirely) online degrees, it'd be right there with the actual Ivy League, the above seven plus Stanford would make the nice alternative reality Online Degree Ivies.

Only thing I sort of disagree with. They're a truly great university, not just good, and really just a half step short of Stanford, their law school's top 20 out of 200 programs, their graduate biz school's top 25 out of hundreds. But, it is true they're not quite MIT--but still within shouting distance. (Disclaimer: major family ties, brother, father-in-law, mother-in-law all have USC educations, and all very successful).

 

Obfuscation doesn't equate to quality education

I've taught both online and traditional mathematics and engineering courses for several large research universities. The main reason I began teaching online years after acquiring tenure is that I want every single engineering student to have access to the best resources online technology can share, and in our field the Internet facilitates presenting this at least as clearly and broadly as I can with a closed presentation at the university. A goal of extra work or particularly circuitous/difficult exams for either community is absurd. In an era when exploding numbers of students (USA) are graduating and NOT finding work--including STEM PhD graduates--compounded by soaring tuitions and vanishing fellowships carrying tuition payment, educators ought to be preparing students for employment. I know many of my academic peers believe in education for education's sake and making "difficult" exams, but that model no longer serves our students or our country. Academic so-called rigor doesn't prepare students for the workforce, and there are many excellent peer-reviewed studies across the disciplines that demonstrate it's experience in a subject matter that leads to productive innovation, not "rigor." A clear understanding of skills objectives should be the driving force of a curriculum, and every student--whether in a traditional brick-and-mortar setting or online--deserves both to know precisely what (and why) the skills objectives are, and to be presented information that leads to a mastery of those skills.

Speaking as a senior educator, I'm appalled that a faculty member would purposely make learning hard(er), rather than clearer. It's too bad that, desperate for employment in an increasingly hyper-competitive workforce, students aren't the ones laughing collectively in such professional academicians' and financially sanguinary university administrators' faces.