Baker College

I've been attending the campus classes for almost two years now trying to complete my Bachelors in Information Technology and Security. About half way through my degree my fellow BITS students and I noticed that many of our classes were being phased out. Not in the sense of being removed from the curriculum - no. In the sense that they are FORCING us to go online to complete these classes. Many classes that require HEAVY hands on methods so that you can fully understand how parts work and how you will deal with certain programs are now shoved onto you in online format along with an overpriced book that resales for next to nothing if your lucky. Those same classes are then slowly removed from campus so you can't try and squeeze in there. All online classes are designed in the same concept of "attendance" is posting normally two times a day, five times a week to discussion boards where most of your fellow students give you little to nothing to actually "Discuss." A typical discussion goes: [A]: here is an article I found [B]: I found this interesting [C]: I too found this interesting [D]: I have to agree with [B], x is definitely the correct thing. And if you happen to find some way to inject something meaningful into that conversation it is up to the instructors discretion if your post means anything or not. You could meet the two post for five days and still get no points if the instructor didn't "FEEL" like your message contributed in any way to the discussion. While the campus classes you could have done everything and more that the online offers minus the mirage of "flexibility" of course but you actually have people and an instructor who are willing to have an intelligible talk with you on something if need be and if you run into problems you don't have to communicate via email and hope they get back to you before the deadline. Yet, they still charge the same for tuition so you get less for more, yay~

I just completed my second year at Baker. So far I have been pretty middle of the road with the college. I attended OTG classes at other colleges and with my schedule, working parent, I believe Baker Online is a better choice for me. I did have a misconception that online would somehow be easier. The posting can be difficult and I understand the frustration of APA. To be clear the frustration usually comes form APA in regards to the posting requirements. I have not been given credit on a few post because I didn't cite even though the information I posted was general knowledge. The math classes are the toughest but most of the instructors are good about keeping them going. They may seem like general obvious questions but if you post they are pretty good about giving credit. Be prepared to teach yourself and utilize outside sources for help with learning. I have an outside tutor for my math classes and in general the web has great resources for help with other classes. It is not easy and I have had pretty good luck with instructors. Grading is about 50/50 being early or on time with return grades. I have never had an instructor be late except with final grades. Some of the one star post I agree with but online schooling is for a certain type of person. I am already a professional in a field for 15 years so the degree is just for a boost to management. The Classes are 6 weeks long and it is usually over before it began. Very fast paced and there is a lot of information to digest. Mids and finals are pretty tough, maybe a little tougher then the OTG classes as I remember but that may just be because the OTG finals were many years ago and these ones come every 3 weeks. Do or don't it's not easy or for everybody so good luck either way.

Oh yeah, it's relatively cheap. Can't think of anything else positive. The "professors" seem very unhappy and that is reflected in their hostile attitudes. There is very little support. There is indeed a strange fixation on the number forum posts you do, quite odd. I'm looking for another school.

Score: Overall 2. After one and a half years, I have a laundry list of issues and not much good to say about Baker College, however, I will post the good towards the end. Materials: Books are typical college level text. There are no lectures and about half of the instructors I have had will offer the textbook's accompanying power-point slides. All classes rely solely on the textbooks. Assigned chapters to read each week and assignments consist of the textbooks end-of-chapter exercises or questions. Teachers: 1. Just one instructor I have had thus far actually seemed knowledgeable of the curricula. Very few instructors post grades on time and few reply to emails before two or three days. Institution: 2. No one is ever in their office and leaving messages rarely works. I am a 3.8 GPA student who was very concerned about one grade in a class I took 4 months ago. Backboard system (which is where all work and communication goes through for Online students) has a extremely low up-rate and students receive several Blackboard outage emails each week. I had to determine the best time of the day to log-in because of a two, sometimes three, minute delay while submitting answers on quizzes and test. The delay caused for over ten hours recorded of wasted time staring at the screen waiting for Backboard during the first five weeks of the course. I spent a considerable amount of time just trying to convey my experience with the colleges officials and nothing seemed to come out of it. The college is completely non-responsive to any complaints and for that I scored them a 2. Support: 1. See previous. Value: 5 This is one of the few good things to score of my experience with Baker College. Technology: 1. I know of much better technology than that of which Baker College administers. The college cannot even seem to keep there email system up. All video resources used by all instructors (which are far few and in-between)seemed filmed thirty years ago. Mainly just the math courses have used videos as part of the curricula. The Oral Communication course requires video uploaded and the system used to upload and review is utterly junk. As a tech guy, I can say with certainty, Baker has not much pride in their use and administration of technology. They must save a fortune in this area. I did much research before deciding on Baker, however, I regret my decision much. I just transferred to a local University mostly to take advantage of class lectures and the benefits of having a instructor that participates in the learning process. Baker College seems almost like a Degree mill in that you are given a textbook, expected to teach yourself entirely from just the book, and take erroneous tests and quizzes to prove your understanding of the material. I can buy the textbooks for half the price Baker sells them for and teach myself for much less money. The $800.00 per class is entirely for the four credits on paper. I have received an A in courses which I did not feel comfortable with the material whatsoever and received a B in courses which I already understood every bit of the material before talking the class. The Baker system is very much flawed and there are many holes in it. I took three programming classes which covered the exact same material. Therefore, I paid $2900.00 to learn conditional statements and loops. I could not image being ready for the job market after graduating from the Computer Science program at Baker. If you are looking for a easy degree which mostly consist of posting whatever to a discussion board twice five days a week for each course, than Baker is for you. Other programs may involve a much better curricula than the C, so please do not consider my post if not seeking a CS degree. The overall experience and service should apply to all. Recap: the good-an degree mill. Easy degree, but not for those who actually want to get a job after college.

I just have to say, after reading all the complaints on this forum; I can understand why these people are saying that Baker College Online is so horrible. It is because they are not meant for online schooling; some people just lack the self-discipline to teach themselves--which is basically what online schooling consists of. "Online" does not mean "less work," (unless you are attending a diploma-mill school) you should actually expect to spend more time on your studies if you are completing your degree online vs. a brick and mortar setting because, for the most part, you are teaching yourself. However, one benefit is being able to complete your work at any time of the day. In addition, you can do this work in the comfort of your own home instead of having to drive to a campus and sit through boring lectures. For anyone looking into information on Baker College, I can provide you with a solid review of what you can expect. First off, you have to participate in active discussion on their forums with meaningful posts at least 5 out of 7 days a week. This participation is a majority of your grade, which in turn, many people may call it ridiculous; however, how many brick and mortar schools let you show up whenever you want and turn in your work at your leisure? In addition, to reference one of the complainer’s posts on this form, Baker is indeed very strict on their APA formatting. I believe that this person said, “Too bad it is utterly useless,” and that he could have “completed his work in a couple hours if he did not have to cite the source.” Now let us think logically, is there any college that does not make you cite the source of your work? If you do not, it is called plagiarism, which is against the law! In regards to the instructors, I admit that some of them do not seem like the most respected professors that one may expect from a college. However, I have witnessed their students first hand and what they have to deal with on a daily basis. The idiocy of said students often makes my head hurt when trying to participate in mandatory class discussions. These are the same students that are failed from the class and then go complain about it to anyone that will listen to their sob-story. To address the statements about Baker being a “diploma mill,” obviously these people have not attended DeVry Online, or University of Phoenix. I only say this because these sub-par students would have their degree handed to them because they made their payments on time, instead of being failed because of their lack of effort. Baker is a regionally accredited college with the Higher Learning Commission, as well as, the largest Private Not-For-Profit brick and mortar College in Michigan. I could rant about the inaccuracy of these people’s complaints for hours. However, I must sum this up by saying that Baker College Online is not for anyone. Moreover, it is also more expensive than your local community college. Nonetheless, if you are willing to put forth the 110% effort to obtain your degree online, you will not find any problems from this college. As with anything in life, you must strive to achieve excellence, if not you will not make it regardless of what legitimate college you attend. If this is the case, then you are better off paying four times the tuition to get your degree handed to you by University of Phoenix so that you can hang it on your wall and let it collect dust while employers laugh in your face.

I thought the degree was half decent and they have good professors. A potential problem is that they are basically unknown in other parts of the country and employers tend to rather higher candidates from colleges that they know. I also realize some employers have issues with online learning even though 90% of colleges have online offerings including some of the top computer science colleges in the country. I have had a difficult time getting a job with my degree from here and also have a master's degree from a Midwest public college as well. You may be better off attending a local college. It is unfortunate I am from a state withe the second highest student debt load in the nation and Baker is very affordable. Maybe sometimes it is just better to get an associates from a community college and stop there.

I loved my experience at Baker. I liked how most of our assignments were actually relevant to what I would be doing in the real world. I was handing in several computer programs a week per class when I was taking classes in programming languages such as C++, Java, and Visual Basic.NET. The books were very up to date as well. The program I was in taught me how to program in several languages, create websites that were interactive, database programming, using and securing web servers, and using and securing database servers. I like how the assignments were mostly hands on. I worked very hard for my degree and feel it gave me a head start when it came to experience.

This college is quickly spiraling downhill. The students they are producing for the most part don't know crap about their degree. This is mainly because they aren't hiring teachers that know what they are talking about, so how can they teach the students anything. They are simply giving the students good grades to pass them so they can move onto to something that will confuse them more. I had a class where the teacher didn't even have an associate degree and was teaching a 200 level I.T. class!!! To top things off even more the Port Huron campus offers a bachelors in IT and security but no longer actually offers the courses on their campus (in the third year and I'm now screwed). And to make things even better the Port Huron campus just hired an IT Department chair that's not even certified to teach the material he was hired to teach. Bottom Line: Don't go to baker. They will suck out your time and money. Their credits are like confederate money, just because you have lots of it doesn't mean that it's worth anything. A Baker degree will simply give you a bad reputation. Baker Credits will not transfer to any other College of University.

Baker college online is nothing more than a diploma mill. They seem to have no standards as far as teachers. Some are good but most are not. The student support there is horrible. Don't even waste your time with trying to call. Nobody is ever in their office. A lot of the classes have nothing to do with the actual degree area. My wife had a class that the teacher quit and they had no teacher for almost 4 weeks. No help, no refund, and no explanation as to why their was no teacher. The apprenticeship program is a huge waste of time. They help with nothing. Their are no set rules for anything in the classes. Each teacher dictates what goes on. Complain to the dean is a waste of time (if you can even get through on the phone). All in all, Baker online college is a huge waste of time and money. They do not care about their students. DO a search online and you will see hundreds of bad reviews about the school from former students.

If you want to learn Obsessive Forum Posting and Advanced Concepts in APA Formatting then this is the place for you. Focus on actual course subject matter is secondary. Only good thing about this place is its CHEAPNESS.

Before I started using Baker College's online classes I was at a on campus collage finishing my computer science bachelors. Due to proximity challenges I decided to look into finding a college that provided my classes all online. I narrowed it down to Baker Collage. I wanted to make sure it was legit. So, I compared the classes I would take at my campus college with baker online classes. Then, just to be clear, I compared bakers coarse work to devry, ITT and U of Phoenix. Baker's classes where on par with other solid collages. I was happy it wasn't like devry or ITT tech. So far I really like it. It has been 2 years. It is not for slackers or people who want an easy way out. You have to be organized, dedicated and be willing to study/research independently more often. Most of the professors I have had have been great. About one out of ten teachers are poor communicators though. However, I have had few that have been incredible. My current C# teacher is awesome, voted Microsoft's mvp programmer like 7 years in a row, worked on the development of C# and has games he has worked on in Xbox live. He is all over the discussion boards and is massively helpful. As I said, online course work is not for everyone. I've seen other students struggle with it and blame it on the school or the whole online medium of study. Then, they go on message boards and trash talk the school when they didn't get the result they wanted. So, that is why I wanted to write a quick review. The college is great and their online course work is great too. It is not easy, nor is the online medium for everyone. For students who know the difference, can put in the effort and are truly inspired to dig deeper into their field of study, Baker Collage Online is a great school.

A large number of Baker's instructors focus solely on APA formatting and not real world implementation of skills taught. Baker's administration endorses this. Test materials and online quizzes are typically littered with errors. Do research on the institution. While they advertise a 98% employment rate for graduates, they have one of the lowest graduation rates. There are better schools for less money.

Overall I can't even begin to describe how terrible the entire system at Baker is. The people in charge have no idea what they're doing and it is an intense pain in the ass when you have a question and the dozen or so people you call to get help from have no idea what's going on. I had fun teachers. Fun being a word I use when I enjoy the classes but don't learn anything. The teachers themselves weren't bad but they never seemed to have applied for the job that they wound up teaching. Because of this a lot of the classes I had wound up being directly out of the book because the teacher knew next to nothing about the course. I took a computer course so you can imagine how nice it is to use a book that is 6 years old. That may not seem like much to an english major but considering they release a NEW book every 6 months to a year it gets to be a pain in the ass when I had to take a windows class in 2010 and the book was started out teaching you how to upgrade your windows 2000 It was bad.

The Game Software Development program is poorly put together and does need a lot of work. It would help if the college hired qualified Gaming Development instructors.

I am coming to the end of my first year with Baker and I cannot speak highly enough of the system. It is very intense and effort driven so if you are looking for an easy way to get a degree, do not go to Baker. I have read other students reviews and I agree, 5 out of 7 days you must post 2 quality posts to the board and sometimes it is difficult. It is not impossible and requires just a few moments out of each day if you know the material and yes, some instructors like a couple of paragraphs but what is the issue with that if you have read the material. And for those of you stating that not all instructors facilitate the posting process, that is ridiculous. You will have questions yourself, your classmates will have questions. By either asking a question and/or answering a question on course material, your making a substantial post. Bottom line is, it is a credible college providing high intensity workload in order to facilitate you not having to commute to campus every other day. It is no secret that online education requires great amounts of self discipline and dedication and those who lack these traits should definitely look for an easier school to attend. Just because you cannot commit yourself to the workload or maybe you give up to easily, does not mean you should try to discredit this college. Other students including me are paying hard earned dollars to get a degree and people who complain and pass the blame like this are trying to take away the good name of the college while not acknowledging their own issues. Bottomline, I researched many online schools before deciding on Baker and I have yet to regret the decision.

I do not even know where to begin with this school. First of all, if you ever need help to use their Blackboard system, then you better hope one of your fellow students are kind enough to walk you through because the support team won't help you and the teachers themselves do not even know how to work it properly. Grades are never posted in a timely fashion and it maybe by the end of the second seminar that you see your grades for the first one. If you do not understand what you are reading then don't expect that the teacher will either. I have had two teacher claiming to have PH.Ds and knew less than the students did about the material. Also, if you don't agree with the teacher on a particular topic like euthanasia or Native American heritage then plan on getting C's for the rest of the quarter because you are wrong they are right and that is that. Financial Aid is only done by one person so good luck on getting a call back for that. The business office staff may get back with you next week if you are lucky after calling them five times to get through. Seriously, Baker is a waste of time. There teachers are incredible messes and you are not getting a worth while education there.