California Southern University Reviews of Doctoral in Business Administration

CalSouthern University offered a great experience and increased my passion for research. The dissertation process was very challenging and rewarding. My chair Dr. Maria Schellhase was nothing less than amazing! This school will challenge you, so if you are looking for an easy degree without paying the price and sacrifice required, this is not the school for you. Overall, I rate my three-year journey a 5 with academics that transformed my career! I commend the school and recommended it to every serious... Read More learner!

For a study-at-your-own-pace experience, I am self-motivated and this program was great. I liked not interacting with classmates or relying on the instructors, I prefer researching for myself, studying, then writing my analysis of the work. You get what you put in. They did a major overhaul of the platform in summer of 2021 and are still making improvements. My thesis committee was great, my chair was excellent, and she pushed me. As for the coursework, it was on par with my MBA work from another... Read More accredited school, so I feel it was fair. If you are new to online learning or need a lot of teacher/peer support, then this may not be for you. But if you want to work hard, fast, and do a lot of writing/research to earn a degree, then this program is good. Top notch? Not entirely, you do get what you pay for, but it is accredited and doable by any working professional.

I took the first course in the DBA program and dropped 4 weeks in. I should have dropped sooner. The instruction is horrible. The instructor is completely disengaged. Assignments are reading text book chapters, writing papers, getting a grade and posting a chat in the forum from time to time (these are graded). I learned nothing from the instructor because he relied on the text book to do the teaching. and referred questions to web sites so you can find your own answers. He used a bachelor degree... Read More level text book, so if you have prior instruction in business, you learn nothing new. The online system is proprietary, meaning I think they developed it in-house. It is really primitive and has only the basic functions of uploading papers, and posting in the forums. I give the program a grade of C-. Their DBA program has a high student attrition rate. You would think they would dig into the cause and work to improve. The instruction reflects either a lack of knowledge of how to teach or a lack of commitment to students. I felt like people in the program were basically buying a degree. If all that is important to you, then this is the place for you. But if you are looking to learn to excel in the competitive world of real business, go elsewhere. If you dicide go to CSU for your DBA, I hope to connect with you on a business deal because I will be taking advantage of your poor education and taking all your money!

The program is not self-pace and is way too fast for you average working adult. I believe the school in one way is trying to give you an education, but at the end of the day is a business and will act and do accordingly. School is expanding since they got RA status and the price of tuition was raised. Now, if you got lock in a payment plan and you rush to finish, you may get your degree for about $27k plus fees etc.... Since, with previous experience with them (Northcentral University), when they... Read More grow chaos start to surfaces and things does not go accordingly to plan. Truth to be told, getting a DBA from any university is a vanity move (an expensive one), and is not worth the money or the time. Times has changed and education is not worth what is used to be. Things to remember in the new economic, experience counts more that what you had accomplish in education and is who you know that matters. Good luck to anyone attending CSU, you will need it for sure.