Concord Law School - JD Health Law Track

EJD Program

By: Anonymous (In Progress) on July 10, 2009

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

Review:

I am a 3rd year EJD student.   The first year was fine and I would have given the kind of positive appraisals others have posted here. From the beginning of year 2 and continuing to less than an hour ago I find I must  cajole, push, confront and demand that Concord provide the program as described.

In my opinion and experience, this is NOT a program for fulltime employed adults.  The course work requires about 40 yours a week.  A student should plan on taking about 3 weeks vacation from their job in order to meet Concord’s schedules for course work, exams etc.

The focus of courses even EJD courses is passing the bar exam.  This is NOT what the EJD program is about.  The course topics and assignments are designed for the practice of law.  In my opinion, we EJD students are viewed as lesser, JD unqualified and JD wanna-be students.  Concord does not understand nor value neither who the EJD student is, nor what the field and professional application really is.

The curriculum is not well coordinated.  Readings (cases) don’t match lecture topics.  Assignments don’t promote critical analysis of the EJD field and do not have any application to the real world.

The technology is out of sync with the rapidly advancing field and I have had to down grade to earlier versions of software programs in order to be compatible with the Concord platform.  Technology services can take days to respond.  

Administrative responses to questions are NOT prompt. The tone and demeanor of responses is often negative, judgmental and blaming of students.  More recently, I have noticed a tone and structure that assumes students are cheating and make them jump through hoops to prove they are not.  It is most unfortunate that they appear so disinterested in student success and more interested in creating barriers for students. Students are left to scour documents and search the fine print for answers that are neither readily available nor apparent.

Contrary to the criticism from other posts, I do NOT find that my colleagues in the EJD program are looking to have professors and advisors “hold their hands”.  Nor do they lack an  understanding that this is “graduate school”. Quite the contrary, all of those I am familiar with have advanced degrees and a history of success as graduate students.

I do believe that Concord  misrepresent as well as undervalues the EJD program and then has little interest in the students.

It is unfortunate because the potential to be an outstanding program is there but they fall short on a daily basis and seem to have no interest in improving. Listening to students is not their forte.