University of Arkansas Grantham

I attended Grantham from March 2012 until I graduated in November 2014. I believe this degree is made for people that are already in the field and are looking to advance their career. The BSEET program is ABET accredited now and is back dated to October 1, 2014. This is a step in the right direction, there are few online schools out there that offer ABET accredited engineering degrees. I am glad to here this seeing this will open more doors for grad school (would be more if they were regionally accredited)... Read More and employment. I wish Grantham would offer a Masters in Engineering eventually seeing this is something I want to pursue.

My education at Grantham was paid for by my employer. Being currently employed in the industry, they were eager for me to have a degree that could be listed when bidding proposals. The calculus courses were challenging causing many sleepless nights. The technical courses were applicable to my position as a site engineer. In 2002 I moved into engineering management, my Grantham credits were accepted at the University where I got my bachelors and masters in science. The key seemed to be my experience... Read More and the University's desire to enroll students. I would say that schools of this type are most effective for career advancement for people currently working in the business, particularly if the employer is willing to reimburse tuition. Today I'm a systems engineer pulling $130k with my pick of jobs. My Grantham degree started me on this path.

My advice to anyone who is considering Grantham to go seek elsewhere. Grantham started out great. As far as the education goes, there are resources to help you if you are struggling and communication is always the key. The advisors suck a** and have the knowledge of a 8th grader. They are absolutely no help at all. I swear in the end, it's IIke it's their mission to fail you. I was down to my last class at Grantham and I'm proactive so I was already doing job apps and trying to find a master's program... Read More at a different school....My degree was frowned upon because employers said that Grantham wasn't accredited. My credits were no good BECAUSE GRANTHAM ISN'T ACCREDITED. I was so hurt. I wasted time and thousands of dollars for nothing.

At times, the course material was very challenging, especially the "Systems and Signal Theory" class. But if you give it 100%, you can complete your degree as I did. My goal was to obtain a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering with a 4.0 GPA, which I was successful in doing. For me, GU's online program gave me the best opportunity for completing my engineering degree, as I work full time with limited time to drive to a college. I must say something about my student advisor, Katie Langford.... Read More She was awesome in helping me obtain my degree. Without her help, I would have been forced to take one more class to complete my degree, which would have given me ~132 credits. Thanks Katie!! Even with this one class issue, I would strongly recommend GU to anyone. For the most part, the class professors were accommodating to student's needs. Interacting with them through discussion posts and emails provided a connection that was a conduit for learning. My very first professor, professor R., told me I was her first student to obtain a 100% in her class, and she wanted me to keep in touch (this was in 2011). Every year since then I have sent her an update on how my classes were going. Even though she no longer teaches at GU, she was still encouraging me to complete my degree. It was awesome telling her I graduated with a 4.0 GPA, which she knew was my goal. Professor's like Professor R. is what makes GU so special.

Great School, I graduated in 2014 with distinction (3.8 GPA)! My first job after returning from Afghanistan was working for NYU Langone Medical Center making $51,000 as a supervisor. The next job was working for Koch Industries (Georgia-Pacific)--yes the Koch brothers lol--as a production supervisor making $65,000 a year. Now I'm making a little over $100,000 a year working for another billion dollar Fortune 500 company, though I did build a business on the side as well. The fact is, college is what... Read More you make of it, what you put in is what you get out. So, through "good planning and hard work" you can definitely increase your earning potential and become the top 10% of Americans (Proverbs 21:5).

Grantham seems to be a small building with about 40 employees, including faculty, in the middle of nowhere. I was excited to attend this school and tried to make it work. I think "trying to make it work" includes graduating, which I did. However, their ENDLESS IT problems (not user error, mind you - but BlackBoard issues), not being able to access grades, not being able to get a simple printout of my account with tuition and student loans, as well as having the same professor over and over again... Read More for coursework that was not in any way related to healthcare. Overall I am very disappointed and feel that even though I have the credential of a Masters degree I have learned significantly more at my workplace by networking and asking for extra projects than I have learned from Grantham. I was hoping for a comprehensive healthcare Masters program and instead I got a hodgepodge of random coursework that slightly related to healthcare if I made a significant stretch. I would not recommend the curriculum, the advisors, the professors, or their version of BlackBoard to ANYONE. I used BlackBoard for my entire undergrad education in one capacity or another and had no issues in comparison to daily issues with their version. Select another school.

Several important points regarding this school: 1. NOT regionally accredited--so your credits won't transfer. 2. Most employers view this as a cheap, online college where you pay for a degree and don't learn much. (They're correct.) 3. Grantham only cares about your money. They'll pretend to want to help you, but in reality, their 'admissions advisers' are paid by how many people they can get into classes. 4. They will mislead and outright lie to get you to register. 5. Overall, they have VERY HIGH... Read More teacher and employee turnover. There's a reason for this--this is a churn and burn program. People don't want to work there for good reason. Recommendation: Find a way to attend a regionally accredited school. Alternately, find an apprenticeship with a skilled worker of some sort. Learn to be a mechanic or a welder. Once you're established there, you'll make just as much money (probably more) as you would with an online degree.

I have mixed feeling about Grantham University. Some of the courses I took were very good, mostly on the business side. Some were poorly organized and there was not enough interaction with the instructor, mostly on the electronics side. Had I not had a few decades of experience I feel I may not have made it through some of the courses. You really are just dusting off what you know and getting a piece of paper saying that you know it. It would be extremely difficult to come in fresh and expect to... Read More learn that much material that quickly. My biggest negative is my own fault. When I enrolled I never thought about a master program. Now that I am looking at a masters program I have come to realize that no regionally accredited school will take this degree for a systems engineering masters program. So if you have plans for a graduate degree in the future you may want to look elsewhere. I never had any negative experience with any administrative folks but some of my instructors were not very good. Then again I have been enrolled in five different Colleges / Universities over the years and I can say that about all of them.

I am going to be as straightforward and honest about Grantham University as I can (First of all, I don't know what the constant whining about the financial aid office and student advising is about--they have always gone out of their way to help me, and financial aid has always responded to me within a 24-48 time frame). I can't give Grantham a positive rating, nor can I recommend anyone else try them, and I will explain why: Their curriculum is TOO RUSHED. It's as though their primary goal is to... Read More get students in and out as fast as they can. Some courses had us reading up to SIX (1,2,3,4,5 6!!!) chapters of material in one week and answering rather basic and general questions that didn't require exploring deep into the subject. Nor were we given projects to do on our own for a grade. Come on, we're talking about a computer science degree--how do you expect students to learn without having them get their hands dirty? It's like having a group of construction students watch a house be built, then asking them basic questions, awarding them a certificate that states they are approved to work on construction sites, and then sending them on the fields to find work. It doesn't work that way, I really would have liked to have been able to go deeper and do projects that would have helped create a skill. In addition to all of this, the fact that the pace is so rushed often meant that in several classes, you would be forced to ask for an extension to be able to retrace all that you had been reading and make sense out of everything. Often times, I needed to retake a course from doing so poorly just because they were moving so fast. As far as the instructors are concerned, it is a luck of the draw who you will end up with. Some of them will bend over backwards to help you (One of them frequently met up with me on Skype to help me with whatever I was struggling with), some of them generally do not give a rat's ass and will simply mark your assignment with a 100% and not answer any of your questions, and some are complete jack@@@* who will whack points off for typos and using the wrong font. I am graduating with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, but I am genuinely disappointed because I don't feel I have learned as much as I should have, and I think that probably most of next year I am probably going to spend studying independently on some of the material and working on self paced projects. The last thing I need to do is apply for a programming or technician job, present them my degree, get hired, and then sit at the desk looking like a damn fool. Is Grantham a scam? My opinion says no, they're legitimate. But unless you can work at a pace of 3-4 chapters a week, I would say skip this school...they are more concerned with dragging you through the degree program at a high speed, grabbing your money, thanking you, and moving on.

Grantham's degrees are accepted at most major companies and the government, and experience to go with it helps. You may get questioned on the school, but if you have semi-relevant experience there shouldn't be a problem. For the most part you will be working on your own. If you require extensive time with an instructor to be shown how to do something don't go to Grantham. The instructors have been good when I needed them which was not often. In the lower level classes like the 100 and 200 levels... Read More you will come across poor grammar, cut-and-paste, and seemingly dim-witted people. As you progress to 300 level classes it gets better, and in 400 level classes it is more professional with small class sizes. In fact, I took a course with just me in it. Get used to writing a lot of papers. The learning style is pretty much self-taught. Financial aid and advising do what they do. Some are good, some are bad. I didn't attend to get refund checks, and if there was ever a problem the fin-aid crew would take care of it quick. The courses have gone through a re-vamp, so some people may get stuck on the older plan which required more credits or different classes. That is what happened to me. For a working adult needing to get ahead this can work out to be a good school. If you already have a job within an industry a Grantham degree can work.

Let me just say that Grantham is DISTANT learning certified this isn't regionally accredited so the credits do not transfer. I have my bachelors from a top university and decided I wanted my Masters, the tuition is extremely affordable but not meant to start a career. I am already in my career and just looking for advancement from my experience and having a Masters really isn't necessary for me. Overall I DO NOT like the financial aid office, I never spoke to them, they never answer the phone, hardly... Read More respond to emails. Be sure if you are attending or plan on attending this school you are fully aware of costs because you will get no direction from them. The person who enrolled me was pushing for me to start too soon and I understand the quota mark but I didn't like feeling rushed. My student counselor I never speak to because they are annoying and never follow up with what you requested. I have done online schools/classes for different certificates and they are typical of online schools and they aren't the worst. The professors are actually knowledgeable and friendly. I do believe like any school there are some that truly do not care and it is up to the student to get the education and ensuring they are truly reading the material. As I said before they are a typical online school but much more affordable they are no different from University of Phoenix or DeVry but the name isn't as large as for profit like them so many employers do not snicker at your degree. I don't recommend getting your bachelors from here but more of a Masters than anything after you are already in your career. Once again the financial office is a joke and extremely unprofessional.