UoP: Bring on the Pain

In my running review of my experience on the MSA program at the University of Phoenix online, I feel it is necessary to share what a candidate might expect in terms of peer contributions, since the UoP still forces its students to endure group assignments in every class.

Recently, one of the students posted the following in a discussion forum in my communications class:

I believe that my analytical skills and attention to detail is higher than
most of my colleges. I perform reconciliation's on a daily basis. I
am communication with auditors financial information.

My response was profound: huh?

Imagine working with a group of students that write at this level - master's candidates, no less - and having your grade depend upon their performance. Noun-verb agreement? Forget about it. A basic grasp of the rules of pluralization? Not in this class, baby. Sentences that at least make sense? You're asking a wee bit much. Spell colleagues c-o-l-l-e-a-g-u-e-s instead of c-o-l-l-e-g-e-s? Hey - never mind anything the spell checker doesn't catch.

The top ten percent tends to pull the load for the bottom ninety percent in a group situation, in my experience. In a work situation, however, high performers tend to work for organizations that hire other high performers - so the performance margin difference is slim at best. In the United States school system, however, if you can pay your tuition, you're in.

Somehow, in my latest class, I got saddled with riding herd on the lowest half of the bell curve. So if the subject of group assignments is getting old, beware of what is ahead of you if you are entertaining thoughts of attending the University of Phoenix online. This week alone, I was forced to combine several badly written segments to form a three-page (it ended up running to six pages) memo. I had to combine prose like "Reality is based on how we see it. We see reality by using our experiences, background, motivations, and needs" with works of Shakespearean genius such as "When a receiver receives information that has been manipulated by the sender is called filtering. When people filter information, the information usually is in companies with hierarchies. An employee will only tell their boss what they think their boss wants to hear just to keep them happy and pleased with them. The disadvantages to this is that their boss could need to make improvements to help the company succeed and the boss thinks that they are doing a job good, when there are opportunities for improvement that are not being heard."

And everybody's compliance with APA standards? Don't even get me started.

This has all made me deeply unhappy. I am engaged in an ongoing battle with UoP staff over the appropriateness of group work in an online environment. Apart from that, my experience has been largely positive; the stress created by the group assignments, however, cause me to question my choice of school.

To be fair, the Senior Faculty Liaison that has followed up on my complaints about group projects has responded to every email I've sent - and sympathetically so. However, this person is not empowered to do anything other than listen. The Powers That Be escape my scathing indictments of the group assignment policies in curriculum design at the UoP.

Sound like the Sears Complaint Line service model? It is much the same. This isn't a recipe for responsive governance.

Worse, students like myself that are constantly exposed to below-par writing begin to wonder about the quality of the school. What will my degree be worth when so many UoP graduates with master's degree certificates can't even write a sentence? The UoP needs to work hard to get away from the reputation it has earned in some quarters as a degree mill. If the cream of the UoP crop tells horror stories to everybody they know about pulling the collective load in group work, it will put other potential UoP students off of the school.

Even Ivy League schools are more worried about ability to pay nowadays than ability to learn. My own brick-and-mortar school graduated some real winners, too, so it isn't just the UoP online that has problems. Academia in the United States has problems caused by the mad dash for the tuition dollar. Still, it is little comfort to know that I am part of a proud collection of individuals who were capable of landing a student loan. That isn't much of a distinction.

But at least I need not feel lonely. Nowadays, who isn't in debt?