Colorado Technical University Online - B.S. Criminal Justice

Pleasantly Surprised & Satisfied

By: chrisingrassia (Graduate) on March 1, 2008

Materials:		Teachers:
Institution:		Support:
Value:		Technology:

Review:

Let me just start off by saying that I am not an employee of CTU. I'm Chris Ingrassia, so you can verify that I was really a student. 

This school has its pros and cons. 
First, the pros:
The curriculum is very well-organized and straight forward. When completing an online program, just know that it requires you to be extremely diligent and focused on the tasks. All classes are 5 weeks long, you take 2 classes at a time. That's upwards of 20-25 assignments in 5 weeks! The university website is very clean and easy to navigate. Live lectures are cool, the professors can display PPT's or documents as they speak. The professors that I had were awesome.

Cons:
I hated group projects!! Please....if you decide to attend an online university, make sure you are prepared to commit the time and effort to your work and to other students. The incessant focus on proper APA formatting rather than content quality got annoying. This can really be a discussion within itself, but I found the professors to really be overconcerned with it. My uncle always told me "you're not there for an A, you're there for a BA." It helped me to get past the petty grading and just consistently turn in quality assignments because I'm paying for the knowledge not the grade.

Overall, I'm satisfied with my university choice. Do the research first and understand what will be expected of you as a student. Like I already said, I wish that more students attending really actually cared about doing the best they can on an assignment. Doing simple steps like spell-and-grammar checks, proofreading your work before you turn it in, using high-quality references, and really putting thought and research into your assignments will make the education that much better. I hated reading assignments by students who half-assed their work. People probably think that online universities are easier than an "actual college." Well.....kiss it. I busted my butt for my degree, and spent countless hours doing research and writing assignments and reading the text and putting together slides, I'm now exhausted of it all. But I feel empowered by completing it. I skipped vacations, did homework on christmas day, and have created friendships with other students across the country. The price may be expensive, but it's probably cheaper than a standard 4-year, plus college isn't supposed to be cheap, so people complaining about the cost should stop their whining. Here is my email: chrisingrassia at hotmail dot com if you want to really speak to me about the campus or have real questions on anything. I would be glad to help with whatever you want to know about the campus. Thanks for reading, and best of luck!! 

Study hard, work fast, move on!

--Chris Ingrassia