Texila American University

[michaeladsmith2]

UPDATE: I have decided to Withdraw from TAU. A few things to consider [and reasons for my Withdrawal].

1. Yesterday at 3am MST [I'll explain that below], over 32 students had a mandatory TEAMS Presentation with the professor of our course: Research Methodologies. 
  a. The language barrier is absolutely one reason I am leaving. [I'll explain below].
  b. The time zone difference is also a reason I am leaving. 


2. The reading materials and Quizzes are questionable. Many of the materials have not been vetted and questions I know are correct, I am being marked as wrong. 

3. During the meeting, at the end of the session, the professor engaged us in a 45 minute Q&A. Over 10 students, including myself, expressed our dislike of the school's policy that the cohorts are PROHIBITED from interacting, creating study/support groups and in any way communicating with each other. 

Ok, let me clarify the points mentioned above:

1. TAU is HQ'd in India. Even though they have 3 campuses in Zambia, Nicaragua and Guyana, ONLY the in-resident Medical Schools are housed in the campus locations. All of the non-medical degrees [PhD, MBA, MSc, etc] are administered, staffed and instructed by people in India. As a result, the time zone issue is a very big problem. They are 12 1/2 hours time difference from me, so 100% of the communications are between 11pm - 7am my time here in MST. My Class yesterday; my upcoming Final Quiz, and any WhatsApp communication is me being up at 2-5am to interact with Indian Standard Timezone. 

Second, they are NOT native English speakers. As a result, it is EXTREMELY difficult to understand doctoral-level words, terms and concepts in both live verbal communications [ZOOM or TEAMS meetings], pre-recorded Videos for classroom instructions and live WhatsApp calls. The language barrier is very difficult, especially when they don't understand you and they can't explain the issue correctly in English. 

I would NOT recommend this program unless you are from India. They misled many students as we were under the impression that instructions were to be provided by [in my case] the Guyana campus, and we would have peer-interaction and support from our fellow Cohorts. This is NOT the case at ALL!