I am curious how a the Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Phoenix which is offered online would be received by the IOP community and potential employers. Before I go ahead with the program I want to be confident it will be respected. In general what do you guys think of a online university vs a traditional brick and mortar school.
I had a friend who dated a girl who worked for the University of Phoenix. She explained the workplace as a college dorm and detailed how the entire staff was told to blatantly misrepresent their financial figures. They were involved in what I would call a pseudo pyramid scheme buffered by elaborate financial reporting. Imagine if your mediocre degree from this institution was devalued further by a financial scandal and nationwide shutdown. This is not where you want to get your degree.
Look into accreditation and things like that. From what I have read and been told, degrees from online universities are not well respected.
Whenever we get resumes of employment and they list that school as their source of education, we move on to the next applicant. In my opinion, its not very well respected at all. Infact, it hurts you.
I would laugh at it, but who knows, in a few years that may change as online programs become more acceptable.
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My wife got her undergrad from there, and believe me, they worked them as hard as any residential school. She did not do online classes though, she attended twice a week for about 2 years. You want to look at a joke of a place, look no further the LeTourneau. Now THAT place is a completely ripoff joke. UoP is not, and whoever said you ignore applicants who actually went through the process of getting a degree while still working a full time job, who went through that sacrifice and actually applied themselves, well then your personnel department is the joke, not the graduate. Sure, some poor prospects have gone there, but that is no different than any other college. Pisses me off to see people say things like that. Your company could only dream of being lucky enough to have an employee like my wife. She has since gone on and earned her MBA fron Bauer, and will be attending law school next fall. And her work ethic is three times that of any other employee at the firm where she works now. Shame on you.
The thing I don't understand is many colleges offer online classes and online degrees. I attended the University of Memphis and Arkansas State University and I know that the University of Memphis offers bachelor degrees and Master's degrees completely online now as well as online classes. The university I work at and graduated from, Arkansas State University, offers tons of online classes and has several Master's degree programs that are completely online. The only reason that people don't know that it was done online is because it is from a traditional brick and mortar school and there is no required specification that these classes/degrees were done online. Sad truth about it is many people still don't respect classes/degrees from online universities. My question is, if brick and mortar school offer these and are looking at ways to expand this offering, what makes their degrees more significant? That's why I said check into accreditation and things like that. If the program you want to go into is accredited by an organization that accredits traditional schools than I really don't see the problem except the stigma that is attached to these degrees and classes.
Some people need to know the facts before they say stuff completely ignorant. I guess people just like to assume they know. So far, UoP is completely undervalued on here and its a shame because there are a lot of good things about it. I won't go into details and differences between UoP and others. Sure its not for some people but for a lot of people, its great. I swear my ignore list grows each day...
Shouldn't it depend how much of the program was completed online? They aren't even in the top 25 for Online College Programs (http://oedb.org/rankings). But they have over 200 campuses and over 400,000 undergrad students across the world, there's no way it can be a pyramid scheme... I'm sure it's legitimate depending on how the degree is completed.
