American Military University : Information Systems Security Reviews
5
10
Asherm21
(In Progress) on April 29, 2012
(email verified)
| Materials: |
|
Teachers: |
 |
| Institution: |
|
Support: |
|
| Value: |
|
Technology: |
|
Do not waste your time and money.
Do not waste your time or money going to this "college". This school is ideal for individuals in the military who simply need a piece of paper that says "B.S. / B.A." on it in order to be promoted. This school isn't a diploma mill but it's pretty close. They are nationally and regionally accredited, however, after taking 5 "upper division" classes, I feel that accreditation means a lot less than I originally thought. I had completed my A.A. at a local community college and transferred to this school in the hopes of earning a degree but not having to pay the outrageous tuition rates of the local 4-year universities. In that respect (being cheap), AMU gets a win...at least until you find out what you are paying for. I began the B.S. program in information systems security and I've completed 5 classes so far. Based on my experience, I can sum up the classroom experience as follows: Read some chapters in the textbook, answer questions on the discussion boards, maybe do a short weekly written assignment, complete open-book tests and quizzes every 3 weeks or so. That is about it. You are essentially paying for the ability to read a book then talk about it with other students. In the five classes I have taken, there has been ZERO practical application. The "professors", while many have advanced degrees, are little more than moderators. The textbooks have material in them that is suspiciously similar...I don't mean material overlaps, but material that seems to have been written by the same author or group of authors, even though the book says otherwise. Furthermore, in two of my classes the "textbook" was a ridiculous DIY book that you could purchase off the shelf at Barnes & Noble. Then there is the issue of grade inflation. At first, I put a lot of effort into my assignments and I was getting perfect scores. Then, I started to half-ass a few, just to see what would happen. On the assignments that is half-assed, the lowest score I received was a 93% and that was usually due to a citation error. To further make my point, I purposely turned in an assignment an entire week late and completely BeeEssed it. I did not cite anything, I did not address any material from the current chapters in the class, I didn't make any attempt to do a good job and it was pure, unsupported opinion. I got a 100% on that assignment which indicates to me that the "professor" didn't even read it, or just doesn't care. In the end, if you simply need a degree to get a promotion and nothing more, then by all means, go to AMU. If, however, you actually want to learn something that would be difficult to learn by simply reading a book, don't waste your time. I believe that any employer who is familiar with the curriculum at AMU would toss your resume in the trash. If you managed to even get an interview, they would laugh at you and you would certainly make a fool of yourself for not knowing the answers to basic questions that any undergrad at a state university could answer. I value the quality of my education and for that reason, I will no longer be attending this ridiculous school and am instead transferring to a state university. The tuition might be high, but the quality of the education is incomparable.
9
10
Anonymous
(Graduate) on November 20, 2011
(email verified)
| Materials: |
 |
Teachers: |
 |
| Institution: |
|
Support: |
 |
| Value: |
|
Technology: |
|
Needs improvement but worth the time.
Matierials are probably one of this schools strong suits, they don't charge you for books and the books them selves are very informative. Some of the texts I used were a little out of date but just because they are a few years old doesn't mean that the information provided in them is useles, infact it's much harder to learn much less understand the newer information if you don't have a solid base of previous applications and systems.
I liked the teachers here because they are, for the most part, working in the field that they teach. I had one professor teaching a network defense class that actually works on network security for his fortune 500 company. What I did not like about the teaching here was that is seemed too easy to just coast and they teachers didn't really enforce due dates for assignments, and while on the one hand it makes it easy to catch up if life gets in the way for a while but also on the other hand it sometimes felt like I was being babied. I think that the teachers sould consider adding penalties to late assignments, if gives the student flexability when life get hecktic but also holds the student accoutable for his/her assignments. Most of my professors didn't do this, some did to an extent but I feel like it should be across the board.
The school it self was easy to navigate and very user friendly which i feel it something that is great for students who, like myself, are to online learning.
The school's support staff probably needs the most work. Over all the staff is a very informative and helpful group; the times I have ad to call in to the school and get information or have a question answered they were more than happy to help. The problem I have run into, and this may not even be the school or the employees' fault, was when I would email and ask a question it would take them a while to respond and usually their email alone did not answer all my questions.
The value of the school is really hard to beat especially for an online school. Most schools that I have looked at for online degree programs charged around 300-500 per credit hour while AMU only charges 250 which is perfect for those of us in the military whose tuition assitance will only pay 250 an hour.
The use of technology that I saw at AMU was probably the best and most effective use of technology I had seen in a while. The majority of my text books were in PDF format which is probably the most widely used document viewing format next to JPEGs, but that would take up a huge amount of data space. Their systems and classrooms were easy to access and easy to move around in which made learning and doing my assignments easy and effective.
Overall I think this is probably one of the best online learning institutions that a person, especially a soldier, can go through. This school is regionally accredited, the classes are challenging and require a good amount of work, the value is very hard to beat, the staff is helpful and informative, and they are more than willing to help the students out with anything that comes up. The schol does need some improvement, but at the same time it's nothing major that makes the school unmanagable. I did not feel like this was one of those "on-line degree factories" because the classes were challenging and required a good amount of effort on my part. I will, and have been, recommending this school to several of my fellow soldiers and friends.
7
10
Yourexodus
(In Progress) on July 18, 2010
(email verified)
| Materials: |
 |
Teachers: |
|
| Institution: |
|
Support: |
|
| Value: |
|
Technology: |
|
Challenging, But Not Enough Technical Focus
AMU's Information Systems Security (ISS) program is still in its "beta" phase apparently. Since signing up for the program in 2008, they changed the program to include a Digital Forensics class (but made the class unavailable to "older" ISS students).
The course material is relevant, but most of the books are very outdated. For some reason, many of the core and major classes use CIW training books, which are between 4-7 years old - an unacceptable amount of time for Information Security. It was only with one or two core/major classes that a real up-to-date book was used.
Also, there are next-to-no real hands-on labs that can be practiced. AMU does not take advantage of Virtualization Technology to help students practice the labs included in the books. Multiple students have recommended that AMU setup a practice environment for students to practice what they've learned (i.e., setting up a practice server to perform enumeration, scanning, and exploit techniques on, etc.), but the request has fallen on deaf ears.
The ISS degree does teach students a lot of theory on the Information Security field - something that can prepare them for a more management-focused position. Where they fail is on the technical Information Security "side of the house." I wish I would have known about the IAE/CAE accreditation before signing up, but I am now just a few months away from graduating. I plan on transferring into a graduate program that is IAE/CAE distinguished, so AMU's regionally accreditation will help with that.
Most of my learning came from the final papers I had to write (average of 10-15 pages per class). Since I conducted the research on my own, I was able to learn a lot about specific subjects. Also, some of the students have a good amount of experience in the IS field, and they can be awesome resources for information during the discussion boards.
Most of the courses went smoothly, but some classes had exams and quizzes with questions unrelated to the course material being studied. It seems like the instructor(s) copied and pasted questions off of exams they've taught in other courses, leading many students to answer incorrectly.
To summarize, AMU's program is acceptable if you already have experience in the IS/IA field. DON'T expect it to turn you into a technical practitioner with penetration and auditing abilities. DO expect it to teach you a broad view of the Information Security field; DO expect employers to accept the degree as being regionally accredited; DO expect flexibility with your military/working schedule. If you want to learn how to be a "hacker," many of the labs included in the books can be practiced on your own time, with your own security lab (don't expect to conduct any teacher-assigned exercises during the program). If you're a new undergraduate student looking for a Information Security degree, try to find other alternative programs that are actually IAE/CAE distinguished.
You can help by Writing a review
