American Military University

After attending a "brick and mortar" university for two years, a multitude of deployments and military moves interrupted my degree plans. As a spouse of a military member the difficulties that plague our lives are a bit more complicated due to the constant moves and spouses who are not always available. I completed a Bachelor of Arts in Child and Family Development with a focus in Certified Family Life Education with AMU in 2012, during a spouses 18 month deployment ( I overlapped courses, sometimes taking 9 hours at a time). I worked full time and raised two sons alone. AMU recognized this providing ample time and support to assist in achieving my degree. While not becoming a Family Life Educator I used my degree to apply to Texas Lutheran University’s Post Baccalaureate Teachers Certification Program and completed the program in less than two years, as many of my hours transferred from AMU satisfying the programs curriculum. The courses at AMU and professors prepared me for this achievement. Having graduated from AMU with honors, honors were also achieved at TLU along with an EC-6 Generalists Teachers Certification, ESL Certification, and Reading Specialist Certification. The Veteran Affairs office was incredible, Professors were amazing, the Registrar’s office, and Admissions office were very customer service oriented. The education I completed with AMU has been invaluable.

After deciding to return to college to get my Bachelor's Degree in Child and Family Development, I realized how different online college was compared to going to classes on campus. I found that the classes were much harder, but more enjoyable. My biggest challenge was the Library; the most confusing thing at AMU. There must be an easier way to do research! The e-books also gave me a problem; they were harder to read than a regular textbook, but I did get use to them after awhile. I enjoyed all my classes and learned much from each instructor. The instructors were very helpful and did not seem to mind answering questions when I needed more explicit instructions. I graduated in May, 2014 with 3.93 GPA and was ecstatic to realize that all my hard work paid off by graduating with Latin Honors. Not bad for a person that had been out of college for 35 years. I would recommend AMU to anyone who is willing to work hard and will be committed to the work that is required (especially to the more mature students, like myself).

I loved my experience with AMU. The professors worked with my work schedule and deployments. My only negative remark is that AMU went to digital textbooks, which caused issues for me since I am a hands on learned and I had to purchase paper copies of all my textbooks. I love that with AMU you don't have to pay for your textbooks, unless you are a hands on learner like me. It was a rewarding feeling turning in my last assignment and knowing that I did it. When I started AMU, I had a GPA of 2.3 due to my stubborn youth. I am graduating with a 3.4 and I couldn't be prouder of the work I was able to do with AMU. Thank you, AMU for helping me find my academic career path. Now I am on to bigger and brighter goals like completing my MA in Counseling.

I started this program because it offered an internship however, in the middle of my degree completion AMU gave no notice to it's child and family development students that they would no longer be offering the internship. Don't be fooled when they tell you, you can either take a 16 week course or an 8 week course. Very little courses are offered as a 16 week course. Before amu had a book grant offered for hard copies of textbooks, they've recently gone in the wrong direction in which many of their students are not satisfied with. No longer are texts books available, able they are online textbooks. You have the option of purchasing a textbook through them but you still have to pay for a technology fee when you enroll in the course. The courses themselves are as challenging as an online school can be for the most part. But I have had a handful of courses where it seemed the instructor checked out and only logged on once a week to post grades and had no interaction with the students. When I started my program I was very happy with the school. Now that I'm coming to a completion...I would have chosen another school, a not for profit school. I won't be returning for my Mastes.

I've been attending AMU since 2007. I was withdrawn a couple months ago without notice. I was 9 classes away from graduating with a BA. Yes, I was very excited. Well, since they decided to withdraw me from the school because I didn't take a course within a year (personal issues) I had to reinstate. First off, I was very upset that they didn't give me some kind of warning that I was about to be withdrawn from the school or I would of took a class so that wouldn't of happened. Well, I got reinstated last month and they had to redo my TCE and they took all my credits that I had that transfered over when I started in 2007 away. Now I am not even halfway done. I have been going back and forth with them for weeks about this. I am so irate I can spit fire. If they do NOT give me back my credits I'm withdrawning and going somewhere that will take all my credits from all my schools. This is absolutely absurb. I can't believe they done that to me. They have really messed up my education and career path by doing this. Watch out people!!!!

I only wish I had known about this school while I was active duty. I decided to leave a quick review since I noticed most of the commentary was on military, history or intelligence majors. All in all this is a great program especially if you want your CFLE or to move on to an alternative teacher certification program. The classes are very informative, teachers are excellent, and I never have a problem getting in touch with Veteran's Affairs or my advisor. This a great online school, I recommend it to every one looking to pursue their degree while working full time.