Thomas Edison State University Reviews of Bachelor's in Liberal Studies

I am glad to have found Thomas Edison State University. I work full-time and was able to earn my BS in Technical Studies. I have earned military education credits and additional credits from community college that were both accepted. I am glad to have found a school that accepts and appreciates the hard work of our military personnel. I have learned a lot during my time here at TESU and would recommend to anyone looking to further their education by earning their Bachelors Degree. Classes were easy... Read More to access and the instructors were always there to assist in anything I needed. The exams were taken through a proctored service and they had individuals who were dedicated and professional. I have come away with a better understanding of the technical information prescribed during the course study and look forward to putting what I have learned to work.

I am due to graduate this year 2019, however I do not think it will happen. I am a military member and at first I loved taking online courses at TESU but everything changed when I started taking my last course in order to graduate. The oh-my-God-why-do-I-have-to do-this Capstone course. I am in my 40's and trust me that if I really wanted to do a thesis I would take a course that required one. I know some people and professors say that it is the best way for them to see that you have learned but... Read More I disagree. I have never done a "capstone, "thesis", "mini-thesis" or whatever they want to call it. I have a career and I believe that requiring a capstone in adults in order to get your degree is crazy and senseless. I need to prove nothing, I have a career and I just wanted to finish a degree in Liberal Arts. I am not getting a degree for a career or to get more money or a promotion. I just wanted to be able to get one. Lets just say so far the help I have been getting is almost non-existent. "read the syllabus", is what they recommend. So even as I have never done a paper like that they offer no samples, no help, even less support than a full emergency room on the 4th of July. I would recommend adults, especially those with a career to find another school or even better a school that does not require a capstone and instead appreciates the fact that you already have a career and decades of experience that a thesis/capstone will not really help with.

To preface, let me get something off of my chest about some of the positive reviews of this school: why the condescension? (for example, "this is a school for grown-ups, go back to community college if you need the hand-holding.") How ironically immature of anyone who uses that language. That said, I will try to keep this review helpful. I found TESU was not for me for these reasons: -It's a catch-22. Yes, TESU is affordable and potentially fast for degree completion, but the coursework is self-guided,... Read More sometimes poorly coordinated, and condensed into 12 weeks. This makes for stressful amounts of work, even if the material is easy. Trust me on this one. Can one realistically perform well at a mid-level or moderately-stressful job AND maintain a TESU course load that allows one to finish in one year or less, with great grades and valuable rapport with mentors? Not unless you are indefatigable. You will miss more sleep than you would as a traditional undergraduate. Therefore, unless you have no more than 21 credits remaining (that's 2 courses per session, max, and that will keep you very busy), expect to buy a subsequent year here. -I don't have extensive work experience in a specialized career area to which I could apply my self-guided learning. Many courses at TESU assume most of their students are already well-established in a recognized field, so you'll have an edge if you have that. Also, make sure you know people in "the real world" and interact with them (at a job, etc.) if you attend TESU, because assignments regularly require you to reach out to the general public or other professionals (luckily, that wasn't a problem for me). -I am not a good standardized test-taker, regardless of hours spent studying. For those like me in this regard, prepare to receive grades that don't reflect your general level of intelligence. It can be frustrating for perfectionists. Most exams also require the highest level imaginable of memorization, seeing how they can cover literally anything found in a textbook of several hundred pages. -In every class, I came across multiple tedious assignments that just had no relevance to the real world and/or to a payoff in the overall course grade--much more so than I did at traditional university. It felt like a terrible, sometimes heartbreaking waste of time whenever I encountered those. These are not complaints, nor do these facts make me a weak, undisciplined, or immature person. Note that I selected "Yes", I would recommend this school. I would recommend it to those students with opposite circumstances of the above. However, I cannot pontificate about TESU from a positive perspective, because the school is simply not for me. If you think you can relate to me as a student type, I urge you to save your money and financial aid for a school at which you can really excel! TL;DR: You can finish fast, but you cannot finish FAST. You'll waste thousands of dollars if you try.

If you have a lot of credits from other institutions and you don't want to take the 60 credits most universities require you to take then TESU may be a viable option. Go elsewhere if you are just starting off. TESU is not flexible by any stretch of the imagination. If you're late on a discussion post you get a zero, which has a profound impact on your final grade. You can go on their website and look at a class syllabus, which I would recommend, because TESU is big on high stakes testing. Meaning... Read More that 50% of your final grade comes from your mid-term and final exam. Like others have posted, TESU lacks study guides in a lot of classes and the classes that do have them state that you are not guaranteed a passing grade by studying it. It actually says on the bottom of the study guide that you may not pass by knowing all the information on the study guide. I don't know why TESU claims that they are flexible. You sign up for a class, they have due dates which must be met, and that's it; there is no flexibility. Per credit hour is expensive for out-of-state tuition, which is everyone living outside of NJ. In fact, Purdue University is more affordable. And who is TESU? No employer knows who they are.

Only go here if you need to transfer credits that are all over the place and don't fit into a traditional colleges degree program. I have yet to receive a study guide for midterms or finals. Also, my math teacher will not help any students. He just says ,look at the book. The courses are not set up to prepare you for the mid term and final exams. You can do really well throughout the course and them bomb the test because there are no study guides. They just leave it up to (in my case this last time)... Read More a book with 525 pages. You have to fish for the possible information, it's crazy. I also attend an actual university that teaches students and this school is not what you are looking for, even for an online school. If you do not have to have a lot of credits from years past transfer over in a workable degree plan, run from here. Your grades WILL suffer. And if you go here and they do suffer, it's not because of you. They simply don't know how to deliver the information. I'm disappointed. It's workable, but it's disappointing.

The school at times can be a mess. If you are aggressive, problems are solvable, but you have to be persistent and do your best to get in touch with the right person. The courses themselves weren't so bad. Mentors ranged from helpful to marginally available. Courses were good. A lot of work, but most teachers had fairly liberal grading policies. --The school has potential, but needs administrative reform! -The reason I recommend it because its a State run school, so respectable, and affordable...... Read More