Golden Gate University

The finance program, at least the online version, is extremely compromised by impersonal one-sided interaction, subjective grading, and department politics that protect incompetent/unqualified professors. I voiced all of these concerns early on, administrators did not address the concerns, then I suffered backlash as a whistleblower and finally I left the program. To give you a taste, on one occasion I was accused of cheating on a non-graded homework assignment--four times in quick succession. Making matters worse, the accusation occurred in the discussion log of the course. Relevance? 1) it shows the school does not screen professors adequately or keep faculty that adhere to common standards of academic conduct and ethics, 2) it shows the school is all too willing to overlook valid, substantiated complaints regarding inappropriate behaviour (extensive text logs of harassment/subjective grading). On a legal contract level, the school was not willing to hold up to its duties and fix the matter so I could continue as a student. Think for a moment, if you cannot fall back on administration to right a wrong then how can you trust that same administration to construct a degree program worth any value at all. I lost thousands of dollars, essentially teaching myself (with quite a few blind spots and points of confusion caused by the professor’s negligence/malfeasance) and gave up my aspirations to pursue accounting as a career. Many years have passed but I can still say with confidence the online students are disadvantaged in a personal/political way to those on-campus. This is the worst kind of discrimination because academics should be objective, particularly among those of the same entering class, course-type, and professor. They simply do not care. Beware of brick-and-mortar schools, like this one, that view their online programs as an secondary, under-supervised, under-managed, essentially moneymaking scheme. The true test is when you see discerning concerned students, such as myself, being culled out by faculty beholden to one another, rather than open discourse that betters the performance, learning, career development and even enjoyment of everyone involved. On the practical day-to-day rigour, support, instruction and format of the program, it was severely lacking. You are expected to teach yourself, post frequently to discussion boards on inane topics irrelevant to the core skills and competencies of the profession, and essentially brown nose the faculty member. The textbook was good but contradictory, more often non-existent, instructor commentary wears away the salience and comprehension of the text. It is the type of instruction where the professor hides his own deficiencies behind course confusion and unfounded chastisement of the class, which only undermines what little the students could have learned on their own. I went on to gain graduate and professional degrees from institutions that had true substance and concern for, indeed protective of, online students. I would not return to Golden Gate for any type of instruction.