Bachelor of Science - Business Administration Reviews

Walden U - You get what you pay for.

By: twykke (In Progress) on March 3, 2009

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

Review:

Materials:  I gave this a five since I never bought any materials.

Teachers:  Staff may possibly have been well-qualified, but they made up for it by being uninterested.  Most responses obviously copy/pasted.

Institution:  Emails were not responded to in a timely fashion, if ever.  Account frequently frozen because of poor communication between financial aid and accounting departments.  Lots of institutional spam.

Support:  Again, I gave a five just because I did make use of this service.

Value:  At the time I enrolled, Walden was the cheapest online program on the market.  I have never bought any course materials, further saving quite a bit.

Use of technology:  Software for the web-based courses was somewhat outdated and clunky, but usable.  No major usability issues, just could have been a lot better.  Outside resources, however, were mainly for-pay, and not worth using even if they had been free.


'Pro':  The pros of this school are that it is one of the cheapest country-wide institutions (go to a state or country school if possible).  Also, they will give a degree to anyone, and I mean anyone who can string several words of questionable English together.  If you are developmentally disabled or English is neither your first, nor indeed second language, Walden may be for you (this is unfortunately not a joke).

'Con':  In general, poor quality of online materials (need to buy lots of books, despite nominally being an 'online' university).  Also, poor quality of classmates.  Amazingly, many students could not spell despite there being a spell-checking tool built in to the posting form.  Some students would fail completely to understand the assignment, basically just do whatever they felt like, and receive an 'A' anyway.  Teachers were probably qualified, judging from their bios, but generally disinterested and would only send canned responses.  Back on the 'pro' side, that means they are easy to game.


Summary:
If you live out of the country like me, or there are no good local choices in your area, Walden may be a good choice.  If you want to get a degree with little-to-no work and little-to-no actual learning, Walden may be a good choice.  If you are on a budget but cannot find anything cheaper, Walden might be a good choice.  If these three considerations are not foremost for you, or if you really want to learn business administration, do not choose Walden as it is little better than a degree mill.