Having quit UoP due to issues with learning pathways and other challenges, I'm now studying at a state school. The coursework at my current regionally accredited state school is manageable and flexible. I don’t have to read ass long chapters and write several assignments per week. Honestly, the workload at UoP felt unreasonable and like a torture.
I'm currently in the MEd program at UOPeople and compared to other schools I've attended I feel like the homework load and the amount of paper writing is a bit much. I started out taking 2 classes at a time and ended up cutting back to one class at a time because the workload can be overwhelming.
Don't get me wrong, I know I'm in a graduate level program and I had no delusions about the amount of work it takes to complete a masters. (I've done it before at a different school and it wasn't this demanding.) For one week of a class, my workload typically looks like this:
-Read about 100 pages of study materials
-Create a discussion post and then respond to a certain number of classmates, plus anyone who responds to you
-complete a written assignment (multi-page paper)
-complete a portfolio entry (another multi-page paper)
Then on top of all that you have the peer assessments, so I'm reading and grading 3 of my classmates' papers a week, and then there are the mandatory group projects for every course and all the challenges that go along with that.
I am about halfway through the program at this point so I want to see it through, but it just feels like a slog. If you have a job or family/outside obligations, it gets overwhelming REAL quickly. I feel constantly bogged down. Often I feel like I'm just writing papers for the sake of writing papers. There really isn't time to explore concepts in depth because you're overloaded with what often feels like busywork. A lot of my instructors are barely present and I assume it's because they aren't being compensated for their labor so they don't care as much.
I also want to add that the inflexibility in general adds to the stress. Like, you can't miss a deadline to turn in a paper. You can't email your instructor and ask for an extension. UoPeople is the only school I've ever attended that was so rigid in this way. I've never needed to ask for an extension at any of my schools, but at other places, it was a comfort just knowing that it was a possibility. It just adds an extra level of stress knowing that if I get sick or something, regardless of anything else that might happen in my life all they care about is me cranking out papers to meet an arbitrary deadline.
I appreciate what UoPeople is trying to do with their educational model. But I feel like some of the administrative choices they have made cause students to bear the brunt of the lower monetary costs in other ways, if that makes sense.
Edited to fix formatting and add a paragraph.
Yeah, I'm going to be taking a LoA next semester because I can feel myself burning out. It's good to know I'm not alone, but also I wish the university provided more support for students.
CS Major in a US university here. The largest paper I had to write in my undergraduate program has been a research paper for English. ~15 pages minimum (~7,500 words). I ended up doing 17 pages.
No other class had anything close to that. Next up was my ethics class in which I had to write 4 essays throughout the semester, each at least 500 words.
Other majors might be closer to your experience.
I have experience at a few universities/colleges:
1. UoPeople: I was never able to take more than 2 classes at a time. As long as both were not hard/heavy, I was fine. The term I took College Algebra and CS1103, I burnt out baaaaad, because both were hard and heavy. Consider: UoPeople classes are double speed. They cram 16 weeks of work into 8 weeks (9th for the exam).
2. My local community college: I took a summer linear algebra class, a 16 week semester class in 8 weeks. The pace was INTENSE, particularly as it crammed 2 weeks of work into each week of summer. It was a ton of work. It was heavier and more difficult than all but the hardest/heaviest courses at UoPeople. Note: being a double speed course, pacing was comparable to UoPeople.
3. Georgia Tech OMSA: Gatech is grad school, so the work is harder. They suggest taking once course per term and I heartily second that. If I did not need financial aid, I would have taken one course instead of two. The first couple weeks of the semester, I put in 70-80hrs total, the second 60 hours, then 50, then 40, The last weeks were more around 20-30 which is manageable. This went on for SIXTEEN LONG WEEKS. I am soooo burnt out at this point. It's finals week and I wanna cry, bc I still have more work to do than I can accomplish and I am not going to get it done. There was zero reading, but there were videos, one class there could be 3-5hours of them/week (I skipped most of the videos for that class bc my Python Fu is strong).
4. Carnegie Mellon (circa 1990) was like Ga Tech on steroids. The undergrad work was about 2x-3x as hard as the grad work I'm doing now. The workload was *obscene*. Four to five classes a semester were common. There was usually a 200 - 300 pages to read each week total, plus a problem set for each class that would take anywhere from 10 hours (if you were a super genius) to forty hours. When you could do the durn thing at all.
Is UoPeople "too much work?"
Absolutely not. The pathetic amount of work that students do these days--and whine and moan about--boggles my mind. What has happened to the academic ability of the average student?
More writing and crappier tests at UOPeople. Generally, worser put-together curriculum and instruction. Comparable difficulty tho. I obvi prefer brick-and-mortar. For the price, it can’t be beat. Also, some caring and really likable instructors.
You don’t have in-class time at UoPeople, so there are more written assignments to accommodate for that. There are fewer exams at UoPeople as well, and sadly it is very easy for students to cheat on the exams at UoPeople. So again, more written work vs exams.
You could easily format the tests and questions that would make cheating very difficult, if not impossible. My kids online school has pretty much, in my opinion, perfected the online education model, and have successfully automated it to where you get immediate feedback on quizzes and tests. I really wish UoP would adopt some of it into their education model.
Having quit UoP due to issues with learning pathways and other challenges, I'm now studying at a state school. The coursework at my current regionally accredited state school is manageable and flexible. I don’t have to read ass long chapters and write several assignments per week. Honestly, the workload at UoP felt unreasonable and like a torture.
How much is your new tuition?
I got a full ride.
Sweet !
Do you mind recommending the school?
What do you mean?
What school are you going to now
Washington State.
I'm currently in the MEd program at UOPeople and compared to other schools I've attended I feel like the homework load and the amount of paper writing is a bit much. I started out taking 2 classes at a time and ended up cutting back to one class at a time because the workload can be overwhelming. Don't get me wrong, I know I'm in a graduate level program and I had no delusions about the amount of work it takes to complete a masters. (I've done it before at a different school and it wasn't this demanding.) For one week of a class, my workload typically looks like this: -Read about 100 pages of study materials -Create a discussion post and then respond to a certain number of classmates, plus anyone who responds to you -complete a written assignment (multi-page paper) -complete a portfolio entry (another multi-page paper) Then on top of all that you have the peer assessments, so I'm reading and grading 3 of my classmates' papers a week, and then there are the mandatory group projects for every course and all the challenges that go along with that. I am about halfway through the program at this point so I want to see it through, but it just feels like a slog. If you have a job or family/outside obligations, it gets overwhelming REAL quickly. I feel constantly bogged down. Often I feel like I'm just writing papers for the sake of writing papers. There really isn't time to explore concepts in depth because you're overloaded with what often feels like busywork. A lot of my instructors are barely present and I assume it's because they aren't being compensated for their labor so they don't care as much. I also want to add that the inflexibility in general adds to the stress. Like, you can't miss a deadline to turn in a paper. You can't email your instructor and ask for an extension. UoPeople is the only school I've ever attended that was so rigid in this way. I've never needed to ask for an extension at any of my schools, but at other places, it was a comfort just knowing that it was a possibility. It just adds an extra level of stress knowing that if I get sick or something, regardless of anything else that might happen in my life all they care about is me cranking out papers to meet an arbitrary deadline. I appreciate what UoPeople is trying to do with their educational model. But I feel like some of the administrative choices they have made cause students to bear the brunt of the lower monetary costs in other ways, if that makes sense. Edited to fix formatting and add a paragraph.
I'm also doing the MEd and you have just described my exact experience, thank you! I'm currently on a LoA as it was just getting too demanding.
Yeah, I'm going to be taking a LoA next semester because I can feel myself burning out. It's good to know I'm not alone, but also I wish the university provided more support for students.
CS Major in a US university here. The largest paper I had to write in my undergraduate program has been a research paper for English. ~15 pages minimum (~7,500 words). I ended up doing 17 pages. No other class had anything close to that. Next up was my ethics class in which I had to write 4 essays throughout the semester, each at least 500 words. Other majors might be closer to your experience.
15 pages is a lot 🤔
5000 words of academic text every week is much more difficult than my one time 17-page paper
I have experience at a few universities/colleges: 1. UoPeople: I was never able to take more than 2 classes at a time. As long as both were not hard/heavy, I was fine. The term I took College Algebra and CS1103, I burnt out baaaaad, because both were hard and heavy. Consider: UoPeople classes are double speed. They cram 16 weeks of work into 8 weeks (9th for the exam). 2. My local community college: I took a summer linear algebra class, a 16 week semester class in 8 weeks. The pace was INTENSE, particularly as it crammed 2 weeks of work into each week of summer. It was a ton of work. It was heavier and more difficult than all but the hardest/heaviest courses at UoPeople. Note: being a double speed course, pacing was comparable to UoPeople. 3. Georgia Tech OMSA: Gatech is grad school, so the work is harder. They suggest taking once course per term and I heartily second that. If I did not need financial aid, I would have taken one course instead of two. The first couple weeks of the semester, I put in 70-80hrs total, the second 60 hours, then 50, then 40, The last weeks were more around 20-30 which is manageable. This went on for SIXTEEN LONG WEEKS. I am soooo burnt out at this point. It's finals week and I wanna cry, bc I still have more work to do than I can accomplish and I am not going to get it done. There was zero reading, but there were videos, one class there could be 3-5hours of them/week (I skipped most of the videos for that class bc my Python Fu is strong). 4. Carnegie Mellon (circa 1990) was like Ga Tech on steroids. The undergrad work was about 2x-3x as hard as the grad work I'm doing now. The workload was *obscene*. Four to five classes a semester were common. There was usually a 200 - 300 pages to read each week total, plus a problem set for each class that would take anywhere from 10 hours (if you were a super genius) to forty hours. When you could do the durn thing at all. Is UoPeople "too much work?" Absolutely not. The pathetic amount of work that students do these days--and whine and moan about--boggles my mind. What has happened to the academic ability of the average student?
I’ve studied at three British universities and the UoPeople Masters was a ridiculous amount of work. Good though
More writing and crappier tests at UOPeople. Generally, worser put-together curriculum and instruction. Comparable difficulty tho. I obvi prefer brick-and-mortar. For the price, it can’t be beat. Also, some caring and really likable instructors.
You don’t have in-class time at UoPeople, so there are more written assignments to accommodate for that. There are fewer exams at UoPeople as well, and sadly it is very easy for students to cheat on the exams at UoPeople. So again, more written work vs exams.
You could easily format the tests and questions that would make cheating very difficult, if not impossible. My kids online school has pretty much, in my opinion, perfected the online education model, and have successfully automated it to where you get immediate feedback on quizzes and tests. I really wish UoP would adopt some of it into their education model.
Can you further explain how they did that? I would really like to hear what ways you can automate a test and have it be cheat proof.
Sadly instructors don't get to choose the tests, assignments, or exams. :(
More exams or more difficult exams > more assignments