How Do Managers Rate On-line Universities?

pstreck asks: "I've been going to a traditional university part-time for a couple of years now and am finding the pace slow, and classes to be at inconvenient times. So I have been considering transferring to one of the on-line universities like ACCIS or the University of Phoenix. How do you managers look upon a degree from one of these universities?"

Comments

A Degree is...

[Evanrude]

Unless you are looking for a job that requires a Masters or Ph. D. most managers just appreciate the fact that you took the time to go to school. Having a degree demonstrates to them that you can be taught and are willing to learn. Most of the time, where it comes from isn't a critical factor.

Alternatives to the slow pace

[FreshMeat-BWG]

I always felt that the university classes were slow and watered down. As such, I got books on varying topics that interested me and not only read them, but made myself complete real projects with the newly learned skills (not the cheesy example projects in the books). I picked up several skills this way.

The cool part was that when I went to interview for jobs, I had a lot of knowledge on varying subjects in the interview. The interviewers either didn't ask where that information came from or were impressed that I had gained that information from my own personal studies.

Sure, you can probably rush yourself through an online U faster than brick and mortar, but in my case I was better suited to take my time in school and use all of the slow time to expand the breadth of my knowledge.

Just because you didn't learn it by getting a sore rear end in a classroom doesn't mean you can't put it on a resume.

Can you do the work?

[awerg]

Currently, I am a project manager and I do not care if you have a degree or not, only if you can actually do what is required for the job. If you are going to define success in education as a degree, then you should graduate from the most impressive University you can. However, in hiring for projects Cert's mean more than a degree. They are tangable and directly apply to the job. I have found that people who invest the time in their education are the same people who will invest the time necessary to learn and complete the tasks assigned to them. But, you can get more milage from attending classroom training on relevant topics than on a degree. It may not be the best thing in the long term, but to get a job today, you must have something that separates you from the rest of the resumes. Just my .02

State of education

[the Man in Black]

I think it says something about how we as Americans perceive education when we have to look at it from the viewpoint of "Can I get a job with this?". Education is it's own reward, in that it gives you options in life, not just the workplace.

Least that's what I think. Personally, with s omuch of America's workforce working 50-60 hours a week (at least us IT types), it can be an impossibility to go get a post-graduate degree. I hope the idea of online coursework becomes more prevalent for this reason. It will give those of us with the will but not hte time the chance.

Re:you dont have to spend much time on HW or in cl

[acousticiris]

UOP claims that you dont have to spend much time on HomeWork or in Class.

Having attended the local UOP classes and now being a UOP Online attendee, I can tell you that there are stark differences between the two. I found that the UOP standard classes were, IMHO, about equivelent to the local community college (which I also attended for a semester). There was a reasonable amount of homework and if you failed to achieve the minimum requirements that a college would expect of a student, most of the professors would reflect that in your grade.

The online university was quite different. The first thing I realized was that it was the first time in a university setting that I actually learned something.
You have to realize that the people in most of your classes are presently employed doing the things that you are learning. Because of the participation requirements, you learn far more from the students themselves than you ever learn from a university class at an undergrad level.
An outline of the typical class goes as follows: Each week you are given 3-4 questions about the reading/lecture that you must answer (different requirements per class on what constitutes an answer but usually a 100/200 or so word essay style question is asked). In addition to answering the questions, you are expected to post well-thought-out replies to the answers of other class mates (typically minimum 3 reponses per day for 5 days out of the week). This is your participation grade. In addition to that grade, you receive a grade on written assignments (usually 2/3 per week depending on the class, content, and professor).
Then comes the group project that starts in week 2. You are given a major project that you must complete in a group setting with 3-4 other students. The projects range from introducing 2/3 more written assignments per week to just a single large (report style) project you have to complete at the end of the class.

I was very surprised at the extent of work each class required. Now, of course, there are professors who will let you get away with doing next-to-nothing, who relax the participation restrictions (including one who didn't get the notice that I dropped his class and gave me a full passing grade in week 3...even though I had done none of the work) But you get that kind of crap in the university setting. The things I didn't get in the university setting was a group of professors with Master's degrees who had been working in the field (after degree completion) for at least 2 years. It's amazing going to a computer class being taught by someone who is presently employed in the field talking about the *real world*, not some BS set of concepts that programming instructors teach that when you get to the "First Job" you realize are done completely differently.
And I'll tell you, if you're aiming for a 4.0 in the class, you spend an hour or two per day just doing your participation requirements. You also dread landing a class where there are too few or too many students (too few means you can't come up with posts to make your participation grade, too many means you spend two hours reading through replies).