My experience at SNHU as a BS Finance major

[neilsf]

Hi all, I'm new here.

On and off with SNHU due work / life commitments, but also got stung by the 'new' GE course catalog requirements. I wish I had found this board sooner! I had to take HUM-100 (Humanities) due to the course catalog changes.

I'm finishing classes 7 and 6 and in a few weeks should have 5 remaining for my BS Finance. I am an adult student and attended Ohio State a very long time ago -- they accepted nearly all my transfers in and I've just been very slowly hammering away on the BS degree.

Happy to speak a bit about my SNHU experiences if anyone is interested.

[LevelUP]

Hi all, I'm new here.

On and off with SNHU due work / life commitments, but also got stung by the 'new' GE course catalog requirements. I wish I had found this board sooner!  I had to take HUM-100 (Humanities) due to the course catalog changes.

I'm finishing classes 7 and 6 and in a few weeks should have 5 remaining for my BS Finance. I am an adult student and attended Ohio State a very long time ago -- they accepted nearly all my transfers in and I've just been very slowly hammering away on the BS degree.

Happy to speak a bit about my SNHU experiences if anyone is interested.

Welcome to the forum!

Despite having over 170,000 online students at SNHU, we have received limited student feedback on DF.

Here are some questions:

1. Which courses have you completed? Please provide brief feedback for each course, including the most challenging ones.
2. Which courses do you still have left to complete?
3. Are you working full-time? 
4. Do you tend to work ahead in your courses?
5. How have the deadlines impacted your life? 
6. Approximately how many hours do you spend per week on each course?
7. What is your current GPA? 
8. How challenging has the grading been for your papers? 
9. What is the average length per paper? 
10 Have you ever revised a paper after submitting it to improve your grade?
11. Could you share your overall experience in dealing with professors and advisers?
12. Would you recommend SNHU to others?

[neilsf]

Hello, LevelUp.

I'm happy to make the time to do this - would you prefer I reply in this thread or perhaps start a new one? I've been generally very impressed with SNHU and yes, I would recommend them to others.

Let me know and I'll reply -- your answers will take a bit to pull together

My best!

[LevelUP]

Hello, LevelUp.

I'm happy to make the time to do this - would you prefer I reply in this thread or perhaps start a new one? I've been generally very impressed with SNHU and yes, I would recommend them to others.

Let me know and I'll reply -- your answers will take a bit to pull together

My best!

I split the thread so you have your own thread on this topic.

You can post here.

[neilsf]

Thanks, LevelUp.

I'm working on final papers in my two classes this term (HUM-100 and FIN-336), so I don't have a ton of time to post today

You asked (and please let me pluck out the questions I can best answer on the spot):


2. Which courses do you still have left to complete?
For my BS, Finance degree -- after this term, I will have 5 classes remaining. 
FIN-341 (Financial Regulation and Ethics)
FIN-450 (Investment Portfolio Analysis)
BUS-400 (Driving Business Opportunities)
DAT-210 (Foundation of Data Analysis)
Senior Capstone


3. Are you working full-time? 
Yes, absolutely. I have been the entire time through my SNHU coursework.


4. Do you tend to work ahead in your courses?
I did when the classes were "easier", say 100-level or 200-level. But now that I have 300-level (and again soon 400-level) classes to be immersed in, I can't. It's just too much reading / homework / papers / online discussions to keep up with. I'll also say that the class structures and online coursework is generally structured in a way for the whole class to keep up with one another. Some classes have deep online discussions, and if you're not up to speed on the reading, or post late, you won't get the interaction with classmates nor peer feedback. I find it is best to stay "lock step" with the weekly assignments, neither falling behind nor getting ahead. 


5. How have the deadlines impacted your life? 
You mean, have I had to say no to fun things and trade off personal time so I can study and read and write papers? Absolutely. I'm the "no fun friend" for the last year and change as my coursework difficulty has ramped up and I'm just not available for last minute drinks, meals, weekend activities, invitations to parties, etc. It's a little lonely but soon -- in a little over 25 weeks? -- all that will be over. Then I get to start grad school, ha. 



6. Approximately how many hours do you spend per week on each course?
As you'd expect, the easier classes require less time. My initial 100-level classes were too easy, and I'd procrastinate and wait too long to make 'last minute' posts or write a paper from scratch with 'hours to go' before the deadline. As class difficulty has picked up -- like mid 200-level and higher -- now there is real textbook reading, electronically scored homework, an increasing number of papers and projects, and online discussion board posts and replies. As the material got denser, I needed to set aside more time to read, study, take notes, ingest and think and understand, make the first discussion post, write the paper outline, re-read the book, do the online assigned homework, respond to peers, and then submit the paper, etc. 

At first, I was likely spending 2-4 hours a week per class.
At this level I'm easily spending 5-8 hours a week per class, and more when needed. 
Today I project I will spend 6+ hours piecing together my final paper and project submission for FIN-336, which is on top of the interval project submissions I've previously made, of which only half were graded, but all were required. 



10 Have you ever revised a paper after submitting it to improve your grade?
Yes, once, but because my second submission was after the SNHU cut off time for late work, the professor kindly gave me feedback, but it did not improve my grade standing. Since then, I've taken to trying my best to get the paper right the first time. 

Once a professor gave me a zero on a paper, and their feedback was very focused on the first page of my paper as submitted. I emailed the prof within minutes of that grade posting and asked for an explanation; it turned out that the software reader on the professor's side had paginated the paper differently than Word did, so she didn't easily see the remaining 4 pages of my paper submission. After getting that fixed, my paper was properly graded and that was the updated grade for that assignment. 


11. Could you share your overall experience in dealing with professors and advisers?
I've been an on again - off again student at SNHU. I had to stop attendance over COVID so that my consulting business could stay afloat, and I could make ends meet. That was *work*. Between the two intervals, the adviser side of SNHU has markedly improved: it's easier to reach the adviser (phone / email), easier for the adviser to see my interim progress, and easier for the adviser to help me "think ahead" in terms of progression planning. On the professor side, it's about the same: I feel like many are distant adjuncts, trying their best to batch grading, work, communications, and emails together. I always feel like being such an adjunct requires you to be running multiple classes (perhaps at a few institutions) in parallel so it's a non-stop firefight with the machines and systems for them to make the kind of money to live their lives. As a result, emails may take a day or two for response, cries for help are acted upon pretty darn quickly, but if you truly struggle in the class and get behind, you're at the mercy of the prof and the adviser trying to figure out how to get you back on track. I think I've only withdrawn from one class where I realized I was over my head, and I have knowingly failed a few classes as I would get so far behind there was no chance to really make up the time needed to read, study, and write papers. That both was as pandemic was settling in and before. 



12. Would you recommend SNHU to others?
Yes, absolutely. I started my college career in person in 1989 (gasp) when I was just graduated from High School. I was the smart kid, didn't have to study. Back then my major was molecular genetics and as class work in my major concentration got hard, I absolutely did not have the studying skills I have today to be successful. As a result, I was academically dismissed from Ohio State due to poor grades. I took business classes at a local community college as I explored changing my major, petitioned to and was reinstated at Ohio State, and after a few good grades of business classes plus transfer credits, started a business that has become my career. And never completed a degree. Now that I am older, I know for sure the degree I want and now I hope I know how to study  

The SNHU onboarding process was super easy. Applications and admissions process was straightforward and very handholding. I feel like many of my peers are adult learners looking to either finish an unfinished degree or to obtain their first degree but are now married with full-time jobs, etc. SNHU reviewed the whole of my transcripts (official ones I had to have a third-party service send on my behalf), I did not get any 'life credits', they gave me many credits (likely transferring in about half of the credits needed to obtain a baccalaureate) and it's been a slow grind to get to a place where I have only 5 classes / ~15 hours left to obtain my degree. 


Thanks for the chance to share a bit. I'm surprised there aren't more SNHU posts here, but maybe it's because they are all busy. I know I didn't answer all your questions, and getting to the more complicated ones may take me a few weeks between work and school (and kids) I'm pleased to be here and contributing.

[bjcheung77]

Despite having over 170,000 online students at SNHU, we have received limited student feedback on DF.

Wow, that's probably more than WGU in numbers! Last I read they were at about 150K each and that was just a few months ago... I wonder how they managed to add so many since they selectively removed College For America (I think they only partner with organizations for this option now).

[LevelUP]

Excellent feedback on SNHU!

Despite having over 170,000 online students at SNHU, we have received limited student feedback on DF.

Wow, that's probably more than WGU in numbers!  Last I read they were at about 150K each and that was just a few months ago... I wonder how they managed to add so many since they selectively removed College For America (I think they only partner with organizations for this option now).

150k sounds about right for WGU, they are growing fast as well
https://www.wgu.edu/about/annual-report....ommunities.

[neilsf]

A few more answers:

7. What is your current GPA?

Without the benefit of the current term where I've got good grades in these classes, 3.126 out of 4.

8. How challenging has the grading been for your papers?
If you mean: how tough are the professors at grading the papers? It varies. Like my earlier answer, there seems to be more leeway on lower level classes, but higher level classes certainly are held to a higher standard. Every paper has a clearly outlined grading rubric with expectations for paper content -- lower level classes tend to say things like, "Identify three things about your chosen subject that match up with the text and explain how it's like XYZ," and higher level classes may say, "Apply the mechanics from the reading from the last three modules to your chosen subject, articulate fully."

If you mean: how tough is it for me to get my papers graded and receive timely feedback? Not at all. Very consistent professor timing / process for all my classes.


9. What is the average length per paper?
I'm not a super wordy guy, but I am analytical, so I like to state my position, back it up with a reference, then explain how my position and the reference fit together. My papers tend to be 3-5 pages, plus bibliography / references, but I have written papers probably up to 15 pages with several pages of references. Often, the rubric itself indicates something like "follow APA-7 guidelines, in Times New Roman font, 12 point size, double spaced. Your paper should be XX pages." Most recently, in one of my Finance major classes, I looked at that and thought, 'I cannot possibly describe the change from 2007-2008 financial crisis to today about a public company's transaction, translation, and operative financial foreign currency risk in 1-2 pages double spaced, WTH are they thinking'. That was for a typical weekly paper, not a larger multi-unit paper and certainly not a final paper in the class. The paper in question ran to 5 pages and I even felt like I was cramming it all in.

More when I have time, thanks folks. I hope this is helpful.

[LevelUP]

What are the rules for taking terms off at SNHU?

Some employers max out the $'s given for education per year at around $5000, so students may need to take time off to maximize the $'s they get.

[neilsf]

>> What are the rules for taking terms off at SNHU?

This is a great question. In my case, I called and spoke to my Advisor and let them know I needed to take some time off. She said OK, I am removed the future classes I was signed up for, and was reminded that SNHU would still be here when I was ready to restart. Because the advisors are pretty "easy" to reach, maybe I followed established rules of notice and timing without realizing it.


>>Some employers max out the $'s given for education per year at around $5000, so students may need to take time off to maximize the $'s they get.

This makes sense. I think the best course of action is to discuss this with the advisor and make a plan for success. SNHU, in my experience, has a large enough area of students that anything you come up with they have already handled at some point before. So they likely already know how to handle 'uncaught exceptions' in the process.