Several Months into my University of Phoenix Experience

I took a bit of a hiatus from this blog for a couple of reasons.  One, I have been incredibly busy (partially my fault, as I should have waited until after summer to get back in school).  Two, I wanted to delve deeper into the University of Phoenix experience so that I could provide better insight for aspiring students.

As mentioned above, my schedule has remained quite busy since returning to school.  As such, I have continued to complete my coursework online, which was not part of my original plan.  However, that has already hit a bit of a snag anyway.

One aspect of the University of Phoenix experience I have discovered is that you must choose to take classes either online or on campus; you can't choose both.  The University of Phoenix previously allowed students to switch between online and on-campus classes seamlessly, but this created more problems than it helped (according to my student adviser, who didn't really elaborate).  Of course, you can change your mind at a later time, but attempting to do so too often will prove detrimental.

Admittedly, the dynamics between online and on-campus courses at the University of Phoenix is one aspect of the school that I did not research as thoroughly as I should have.  At my previous college, we could choose from a mixture as often as we wanted.  As such, I just assumed that the same would be true at UoP.  At first, this was inconsistent with my plan, since the proximity of one campus was quite convenient for me.  However, that campus has since closed anyways, forcing me to stick with online courses for now.

Like most aspiring students, I have experienced concern regarding an entirely online degree.  And while this has not proven ideal in the past, the world is changing in accordance with technology and companies are taking note.  I have spoken with a few hiring managers who have told me that it would not interfere with a candidate's chances if they complete their coursework online instead of on-campus.  In fact, some have even said that they prefer to register their own employees with online coursework when sending them back to school, since it facilitates a less hectic schedule.  Of course, there are still hiring managers that frown upon degrees earned online, especially at for-profit universities, as in a story from US News and World Report.  However, these types of degrees do seem to be gaining traction.  University of Phoenix recently received a prestigious ranking from Linked in, and this article explains why that matters.

It is possible that I will later switch to courses at another somewhat local University of Phoenix campus.  I would primarily like to do this to facilitate better networking.  While the online system features the PhoenixConnect networking platform, it doesn't seem to be heavily utilized by students.  I'm not sure why this is, but I still think it would be easier to connect with other students that I interact with in person anyway.  However, I am unsure of how this will affect the addition benefits of the University of Phoenix's online course experience.  Currently, I gain access to a plethora of educational materials that can easily enhance my value in the workplace (the details of which will be covered in my next post).  I'm not sure if these are more limited to on-campus students.