First Term Free at Walden!

[jsd]

Doing the OMS CySec courses non-self paced is killing me. There's no reason watching a few lectures and reading a chapter or two should take a week.

CBE has completely spoiled me.

[mysonx3]

When I started doing actual courses I was shocked how slow moving they were. It's much easier when I have alternative credits to work on on the side though, which I guess won't really be an option for grad school...

[MNomadic]

I agree with all your sentiments on self paced and competency based education. My last few courses at TESU are becoming a real drag! Hoping to find something self paced in my field for grad school.

[Ideas]

When I started doing actual courses I was shocked how slow moving they were. It's much easier when I have alternative credits to work on on the side though, which I guess won't really be an option for grad school...

I've been doing alt credits for a second undergrad degree. I think that only helps a little. The grad degree is still so slow.

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Doing the OMS CySec courses non-self paced is killing me. There's no reason watching a few lectures and reading a chapter or two should take a week.

CBE has completely spoiled me.

Me too. The options for competency Masters degrees are too limited  

Even when more schools start offering CBE, they're likely to do the popular programs (MBAs, teaching, general IT).

[davewill]

... I'd rather focus on one, finish it, and then move on to the next. If I take one course at a time with 12-week courses, it will take several years to finish since courses are only offered in spring and fall; at two courses per year, it would take five years to finish... which is also not happening. To get it done in two years I'd have to take at least five courses per year spread between the two terms.
...

There's a summer term as well, so you can get the 30 credits done in three years plus one term, doing one course at a time.

[Merlin]

... I'd rather focus on one, finish it, and then move on to the next. If I take one course at a time with 12-week courses, it will take several years to finish since courses are only offered in spring and fall; at two courses per year, it would take five years to finish... which is also not happening. To get it done in two years I'd have to take at least five courses per year spread between the two terms.
...

There's a summer term as well, so you can get the 30 credits done in three years plus one term, doing one course at a time.

Hmm, when I was on the site it said something about only offering classes in spring and fall terms, no summer option. But maybe that was just for starting the program?

Even with 3 terms per year, yeah that is more than 3 years to finish the program, plus however long after that before graduation is confirmed and degrees awarded. That just seems unbearably long, and I'd be miserable the whole time I bet. Now, if I needed the degree to fill out my resume, then 3 years might be worth it.

If I did it, I might need to take a page out of Ideas book and work on another competency-based degree elsewhere at the same time. That would still require task switching, but it would be short term, and I'd at least feel like I was making progress.

Anyway, once Walden, WGU, NAU, or some other college opens up a competency-based masters in CS, this won't be as big of a deal anymore. I have 30 years of hands-on CS experience, so I'm pretty sure I could blow through a CS program pretty quickly given the opportunity to do so.

[sanantone]

I could probably finish all my 16-week University of Florida courses in one month, but I'd rather deal with the slow pace than do a bunch of busy work. I don't know if it's because I'm in a science program, but there are virtually no long papers. I think the longest paper I've had to write so far was five to seven pages. Most people in the real world are not writing 15 to 20-page literature reviews, which is what long papers in college usually are. That's good preparation for a PhD program, but not non-academic work unless you're a journalist, grant writer, etc.

Short answer and essay exams should be enough to test the understanding of the material. Multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and true/false are enough to test memorization. I will likely never complete a competency-based master's program in STEM due to the amount of unnecessary writing, but I think this is a feature of non-traditional schools, in general. I've found that non-traditional schools tend to require more writing, and I think it's to give the illusion of being more rigorous.

[eriehiker]

Okay, so I have six competencies in the bank on the transcript with one fully-completed class, credits and grade on the transcript. I have three additional competencies complete and turned in. I'm currently working on three competencies, but I am half way to the graduate certificate in early childhood administration without any transfer credit. I think that I'll get at least one of the classes in transfer and maybe two, so I think that I am in good shape with 36 days left.

One thing that I will say - the professors are pretty good. I am working on a budgeting/grant writing series of competencies and the professor is an associate professor at Boise State. Pretty good quality for the price - free and/or $1750. There is A LOT of writing, so if you don't like to write, don't do this program.

[allvia]

I'm out.  I have nothing bad to say about Walden, or their MBA Project Management competency-based Tempo program itself.

I've come to learn that the MBA subjects other than the Project Management topics for me...well, I've just had enough of them through the process of earning my BSBA (I'm burnt out on Business Admin).  I'm going to put my master's money towards a degree related to IT (my first love) and work on preparing for the PMP on my own.  I also may have jumped into a master's too soon (I started 7 days before my bachelor's had even conferred).   I'm going to take a short break from school - a few months to a year off.

[sanantone]

I'm out.  I have nothing bad to say about Walden, or their MBA Project Management competency-based Tempo program itself.

I've come to learn that the MBA subjects other than the Project Management topics for me...well, I've just had enough of them through the process of earning my BSBA (I'm burnt out on Business Admin).  I'm going to put my master's money towards a degree related to IT (my first love) and work on preparing for the PMP on my own.  I also may have jumped into a master's too soon (I started 7 days before my bachelor's had even conferred).   I'm going to take a short break from school - a few months to a year off.

You're not alone. I thought about an MBA years ago, but I knew I would be too bored to get through it.

Does anyone study business administration because it's interesting? I guess there's someone out there.