Online CS degrees

[jedwards1150]

I am thinking about getting some sort of degree in CS, dont know which one yet, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice. I looked around online for some online programs and found this one http://www.americansentinel.edu/webdegree/cs/

 

I am not very familiar with online degrees, but this one seems to be pretty cool. It is cheap, compared to other online universities, and it is accredited. I like the fact that it is online because it is flexible to fit in my schedule. They have quite a few CS degrees (IT, MIS, Web Design, etc) THey also have a CS specialization in game programming which is something that interests me.

 

Anyone have any ideas?

[ecoli]

The university of Phoenix has a good reputation, I think. I'm not sure about its CS classes, though.

[Pangloss]

I work in this industry so let me see if I can assist you. The one and only thing you need to know about American Sentinel University is that it is not regionally accredited. Don't be fooled by misleading advertising -- there is one and ONLY one valid type of accreditation, and it's the same for all schools of ANY kind in the US. (I can't speak for schools outside the US, but the one you listed is a US school, so I'll assume you're in the US.)

 

The University of Phoenix, for example, has the same accreditation as Duke or the University of Miami or any other major university in the US -- regional accreditation, which all comes from the same organization (though it has six divisions covering six geographic areas of the country). This school you mention has something called "national accreditation", which is recognized by the Department of Education, but just means they can get student loan backing, it means nothing about the quality of the education you would get from there. It's an awful scam.

 

Most employers don't care a whole lot, they just want to know if you can do the job, and if you can do the job in spite of a bad education, that's fine. But just to show you how bad that education is, it's almost impossible to get into a serious graduate program at a major university with a degree from a school that is not regionally accredited. You also would have a very hard time transferring credits from such a place into an undergraduate program at a regionally accredited university. So if you go there for a while and then decide it's not for you, you're probably out of luck (and a lot of money).

 

In my opinion an online education for something like Computer Science is an iffy venture at best anyway. And bear in mind that I occassionally teach computer science courses online (at one of the schools listed with a blue bar on that page). I know exactly how those programs work, and I work extremely hard to avoid having the problems they have in my own classes. I mostly teach on-campus (traditional classroom environments) courses, but the school I work for has a large online presence and I'm sometimes asked to help them out with a specific course.

 

The thing about those online courses is they're completely cookie-cutter, even at the regionally accredited schools. They throw a LOT of people into the "classroom", and the instructor may be teaching as many as 35 to 40 other courses in the same term. He's not coming up with new labs or new materials each term like I do, he's not reviewing the textbook each term like I do, he's not even responsible for the textbook or materials like I am. He's a part-timer (I'm permanent faculty), and you won't have a single opportunity for live discussion with him during the course.

 

You'll interact with him via email (if he even replies), or discussion boards, and mostly that won't work very well, because he's not going to take the time to explain to you what you did wrong, because he doesn't have time. When I teach online, I actually make a screen-capture VIDEO showing them EXACTLY what they did wrong, how to fix it, and two or three related problems to watch out for. But I can do that because I've only got 10-15 students in a class and never more than 3-4 classes per term. I also use screen-cap video for lectures, and they typically do not, relying on the textbook and written labs, plus some really arcane and awful Flash-based materials they didn't write. This term I recorded more than 45 hours of new lectures for a class on ASP.NET for some online students, I hosted 4 hours of live chat per week, I made up all new labs, and I spent a great deal of personal time with each student in the class. And I might get one more term out of those videos before I delete them because I'll consider them to be too dated to use anymore.

 

But you'll pay the same amount for that course that you would pay for sitting in mine. (Or nearly so, in the case of the school that you posted, which I've never heard of, by the way.)

 

Online is okay if you are extremely well-versed in the material and/or get very good instructors with light workloads. If you're in the former category and just looking to get a piece of paper that says you know how to do what you already know how to do, go for it. If, on the other hand, you need to learn, it's not a real good option, because there's no way to tell ahead of time (except via word-of-mouth) if you're going to get the kind of situation like the one I described.

 

It's unfortunate, because online is the fastest-growing area of the education industry, but the system that's just now coming into standardization (described above) is just awful, and it's going to continue to be awful, and people who go through it aren't going to have learned much of anything, unless they did it on their own on the side. Society is going to pay for that sooner or later, I'm afraid.

[jedwards1150]

Thanks for your input. I have been on vacation and just now checking my posts.

 

Irregardless of regional vs national accreditation American Sentinel IS accredited. I have communicated with several students who have went through their programs and have been happy with the outcome. I havent decided on anything definitely but American Sentinels price per credit hr is a very attractive option, especially when compared to University of Phoenix. Im still exploring my options.

[Phi for All]

Irregardless of regional vs national accreditation American Sentinle IS accredited. I have communicated with several students who have went through their programs and have been happy with the outcome. I havent decided on anything definitely but American Sentinles price per credit hr is a very attractive option, especially when compared to University of Phoenix. Im still exploring my options.

Wow, you should talk to them about working for them. You know, you could join some online forums, pretend to ask about online degrees, and then tell everyone how wonderful American Sentinle is. The Google hits alone should be worth a fortune to their program (if you spell their name correctly).