University of Phoenix

So like all schools their are positives and negatives. But for this school the learning environment on the negative side far surpass the positives. My biggest issue is the inconsistency with classroom experience, you have classes that have fantastic teachers that provide you tutorials that actually teach you how to do the school work and you learn. But not all of them are like this some are really lazy and just provide you the book and tell you get to work. A previous person said negative stuff about group projects, To be honest if you want to get anywhere in your career as a professional group environments are really important. That is actually valuable experience so that is a positive aspect of this school group learning. It does have Discussion points which can be beneficial but also a waste of time, sometimes you find good post but you mainly find people rambling just for points not actually learning anything. I do not have a lot of experience at other colleges for going above my associates degree, but the community college I went to was a more pleasant experience in regards to the quality of learning. However the community environment it is challenging to get the classes you need where UNOP has your class schedule pre determined so that is a plus, because you do not have to worry about getting into classes. Other people complained about the school not being accommodating for real life events that effect you from completing your school. Lets be honest this is not High School It is time go past the thought that the world outside of High school will accommodate you. School is meant to be hard and when you attend you accept the fact that you are going to give the class your full attention if you cannot do that then you deserve the grade given. Think of more like a contract and you will do fine.

Don't Go! Please don't go to UOP. It is to expensive. Keep your money and the government's money and earn your degree at your local community college or find another real online college. The school places to much emphasis on learning teams which is not always indicative of real life work. There are some jobs that require you to work and think on your own. That is what I did not like about the school and the fact that I keep hearing that the degree is worthless. I had good teachers the short 4 months I was there and they interacted with the class and gave good feedback but it is not worth it.

I am just a few classes away from completing my BS after 3 years. Most of the technical parts of the courses are good and mature. The online forums are polished and professional looking and work fairly well. I have had mostly good instructors with a few exceptions. I had one who gave me a poor grade because "that's what the book says" even though that answer was outdated and blatantly wrong using any modern metric. I would imagine bad instructors are a risk at any school. The primary reason I wouldn't recommend UoP is because of their emphasis on the learning teams. Each class has you doing a minimum of one learning team assignment (sometimes more). The learning teams are horrible. People don't do their work and the LT assignments end up only bringing your grade down. Sure if you're a dummy they are probably great, but if you are the one with the straight-A average doing all the work you will learn to abhor the learning teams. Further the school claims the LT serves to emulate the real world project teams you will encounter in the work place. Well they don't. I have never seen a real world team where no one was authoritative and no one could make a decision unilaterally. All project teams have someone in charge, but not at UoP. You have 3-5 people who, when they disagree, have to go whining to the instructor like children to get something to happen. You can't threaten or make anyone do their part. My suggestion is to go to a different online school which doesn't emphasize the team-based work as much as UoP does. There are plenty of them to choose from, there is no need to subject yourself to the UoP "learning teams".