The University of Arizona Global Campus Reviews

The enrollment process was quicker than the last time that I did it with Ashford. I was in the United States Air Force at the time. Back then, one of the paperworks didn't go through, so had to do it twice. When I did that, I kept telling Ashford that I was taking one class at a time, but I wanna take a break between each class. They were signing me up for class after class after class. When I told them what my job was in the military and my plan, my adviser stuck with my plan and checked in with me after every three classes asking, "Do you still wanna go with this plan? Do you still wanna go with this? You wanna switch any of the classes right now before you take another one?" They did more than ever.

When my grandmother passed away out of nowhere right before finals week for one of my classes, I told my professor, "Hey, I'm bringing my laptop with me. I will have WiFi at my uncle's house, but I got this going on." The weekend the final was due and I told him that I got my grandmother's wake memorial, and then the next day the funeral. My professor gave me an extension until Tuesday. She was extremely professional with me about it. When I landed back on Monday back home, I got an email during the time I was on the plane from her. She said, "I realize I gave you till Tuesday. I'm gonna push it till Thursday because I know sometimes these are a little bit traumatic times and I know that was your grandmother and you've written about her. So I'll give you till Thursday to turn it in with no points taken away." I've never heard of anyone doing that. I still turned it in by Monday, but I was so thankful for that.

If I decide to go for my master's, even though I don't have the GI Bill, the only school I would go to would be University of Arizona. I know how they work, they know how I work. It's a perfect match. Their handshake program has put me in contact with federal agencies that I wanna join. But due to how our country is going with the politicians and law enforcement, I have decided to pull away from possibly being a federal agent this time. But I love your handshake program because there are companies I've never heard of setting events inviting to work for them.

A lot of things that I experienced from work, I saw it in the coursework at UAGC. Then a lot of things from the coursework, I was able to relate it and be able to use it when I was at work as well. So it played a part for each other in its own way. The classes that I will be taking will talk about a certain subject. For instance, it could be about special education and their behavior and how to respond or interact or prohibit certain things. I apply some of what I've learned to my work during the time. Then when I had to answer things for homework or even write a paper, I can use some of the things that I have experienced to guide me and answer the questions that I needed.

I like the library and the writing center. I even like the fact that they had a peer program, where if you were having issues or problems, you can have an extra step to having extra help. With the peer mentor program, they had people who would check in. You would talk two or three times a week to set up your schedule and the mentor’s schedule as well. You could talk about anything. It's not just academics. There are things that you can sit there and go through together. If I'm having a paper and I need help, I can ask them if they could go over my paper with me and then they would do it. It's not always about school. It's just them genuinely caring about you as a person and being a part of their community.

With the writing center, it was resourceful too because you can turn your paper in, and then they'll try to help you by looking over it and tell you, "Hey, you might want to add this or take this out or reloook at this." The UAGC library was another strong tool that they use a lot too. We had to look up a lot of, like scholarly articles and journals. So the tools that they had were very accommodating.

When I got my bachelor's degree from University of Michigan a few years ago, it was all in class. So, some of the online stuff just came into play. This time around, everything was virtual. I liked it. Once they had their basic classes for continuing education, I liked the virtual aspect of it. The classes I had were all assignments. Communication and assignments through chat or post. For my area of study, I would read the information and it was a lot of discussion back and forth. I liked that and the learning aspect of it.

We had a diverse group and most of them were already working. We had a lot of views that came from different industries, which was cool. I would have liked, sometimes occasionally, even if it was a recorded video. There were a couple of them I had. I would just introduce who I were. But some aspects like that sometimes could be cool too, just as a learning format, especially from an instructor base.

With business, it's not as big of a deal. But if I was in there trying to do everything virtually for a Chemistry class, I'd rather see some videos or something with the instructor going through instruction like that, versus just read. Only because some people could read the book, but everybody has different ways of learning that is helpful for them.

Even though it was more like reading and discussing an assignment, some of the instructors also linked a lot of great educational information as far as videos on YouTube or examples or different things. For this area of study, that's fine. But if it was something different, like an undergrad where there were classes, maybe people were not as interested in but they have to get through them, sometimes just with the way everybody learns differently, maybe some more visual learning could be beneficial.

A lot of times, the discussion boards were not neutral. Everybody in the class was answering the same questions so you're using the same quote out of the book and it's not adding to anything. Besides that, it was to try to build a community so you could get to know your classmates. But we're all adults and we're not typically gonna make a friendship within six weeks with these people. I'm here to just get my schoolwork done, gain the knowledge that I need to gain and move on. I've been to in-person college classes, which was where I got my first degree and you're not graded on participation. I don't have to raise my hand every so many times in class to get that grade, and the University of Arizona is using participation in these discussion boards as part of the grade. That’s a lot of busy work and a waste of time.

Using the discussion boards for discussion was great but that typically wasn't what they were used for. They were used for putting up a question and we need to answer it. You need to respond to at least two other people in the discussion group with at least 200 words, plus at least one to three sources. That's not a true discussion board. They're assigning extra work, which is fine, but don't call it a discussion board. And don't tell people when they're signing up that they have till the end of six weeks to get all this done because that's not true. That part was a little bit harder because I had to regauge my family time with my career time, and my personal time as well.

I have mentioned the University of Arizona to a few of my other staff and they have signed up. I was very honest with them. I said there were a lot of good things but be prepared that they will have these discussion boards and it is busy work. So they should be prepared mentally when they sign up that that's something they're gonna have to have. But for everything else, there are a lot of sources out there. There's a robust career opportunity for degrees and fields to study. I enjoyed the actual classes and I just don't like to do busy work. It's not beneficial to me and my career growth. It didn’t give any knowledge bases nor grow my knowledge more than doing the assignments. I graduated with my BA and decided not to continue with my master's.

The advisers were very helpful and knowledgeable. But some of the classes were a bit dumbed down. I had one teacher whom I had a bit of an issue with because she was quick to call out different formatting of how she wanted things to be written. Yet when she would write her emails back, there were several misspellings, mispunctuation and my name was spelled wrong. She couldn't even send me a legitimate email that was proofread. When I challenged her on it and sent her a review of her email highlighted with all of her misspellings, she took another look at my work and increased my grade. But it was one of those things that, as a proctor, she should be more attentive if she's doing the grading and what she's sending out, especially as an English teacher.

The accumulation started to get weird and I had to call about that and the rep said it was just the way that the website calculates. And when you graduate, that department doesn't necessarily correlate with the other departments and so you have to keep asking when you do call. They’d tell you to keep checking the website and that it should be updated soon. For people being out of state, it makes it a little bit harder because we have to pre-plan our lives to travel if we want to go to it. But other than that, the website is very user-friendly to get assignments and find your classes.

The enrollment process was easy. I had completed my associate's degree probably 10 years before I started at UAGC. Plus, I had taken classes at a four-year university. I was quite scared that a lot of my credits would not transfer. The enrollment advisor was actually extremely helpful in placing classes in areas that she thought would fit and getting more to transfer than I assumed was going to. She made my life so much easier by getting me where I needed to be and not having to repeat too much.

I really enjoyed the learning experience at the school such as having the discussion boards. That forces classroom interaction. At a typical four-year university, you don't necessarily have all of that. You may go through an entire semester and never know a single person in your class. Having that interaction and being able to see different views from different people was very beneficial because it really opened your mind to things that you may not have thought of otherwise.

There were a couple of professors that I was not impressed with and they didn't respond very well or maybe their responses were not very clear. But for the most part, the instructors were amazing. There were maybe one or two that were a little more challenging. That was not necessarily a bad experience. They just don't communicate as well as I think they should.

On the whole, I would highly recommend it UAGC. I probably wouldn't have made it through school without UAGC because when I was at the four-year university, I was ready to give up and never go back. UAGC actually had a huge role in me finishing my program. I went through business administration. When I initially started, I wanted to be in the accounting world. As time progressed, I started to want to migrate towards HR. By the time it was said and done with the degree that I have, I had a job where I get it all. I have HR and accounting. Having that degree was very beneficial in landing me a role that I really love.

The only misleading part was it started off a little slower in terms of the workload and the responsibilities. Towards the end, it was a little bit more demanding as far as the assignments that were due and how soon. Some were a little unrealistic especially for someone working full time. You went from doing a quiz and assignment to doing a quiz, a paper, an assignment, and a powerpoint presentation. That's a lot for one week. There was one professor that I had an issue with. I had a death in the family and had to travel out of state. I wanted to get an extension on a assignment but for her, if it wasn't somebody immediate, she couldn't give me any leeway. That was insensitive. I was very upset, and that was when I took a leave. It delayed my process of graduating.

I've referred someone to UAGC and she's graduating next week. It's a good opportunity for people with some time management. We have until midnight to complete some assignments so I was able to do those things at night after work. That was the only way I would have been able to finish my degree so that part of it was convenient. However, you pay for the material but you no longer have access to it once you're done. I like to keep my book. If it was a hard copy book that I had to buy, it would still be mine for me to review. Where I work, I deal with medical ethics and law, and I got a lot of information from that class that was helpful in my role. I should have had an option to be able to keep that information.