University of Maryland Global Campus

I recently graduated with my Masters in Cybersecurity, and I can genuinely say that UMUC is an exceptional school. For those people that have this school at 1 star, you have to ask yourself, "Are you putting in the effort?" UMUC is one of the top online schools for military and civilian alike. I have at least four offers from my Masters and oh, by the way, I'm still on active duty until next year when I retire. Right now I'm working on my dual master's program (MBA), and it's very tough and challenging.... Read More Guess what? It should be! UMUC has an excellent reputation, and I would HIGHLY recommend this school to anyone. It's known worldwide, and I'm proud to say that I'm an alumnus. Not to mention that I teach classes with UMUC so I can give back what's given to me. Choose UMUC!

Although it has been over two decades and prior to the online school craze, the University of Maryland University College set the foundation for where I am today. I started on Campus at College Park but in 8 years of duty in Europe, this program allowed me to complete my undergraduate degree setting the stage for graduate school. Having a wonderful range of professors, especially foreign professors, gave me a wealth of insight into the classes I was taking. Having a Russian professor teach a seminar... Read More on Russian history, having President Regan's former National Security advisor teach a class on Terrorism, and a history professor who lived in Israel during the 70's Arab Israeli conflict made the classes far more interesting. This degree was sustainable once I left the military giving me the academic foundation to successfully complete graduate school at the University of Oklahoma and to also gain a Graduate Certificate at the Saint Joseph's University. If I had any complaint it is the fact that getting transcripts after graduation is a little tedious and the University of Maryland at College Park has no records of students who attended the University College division.

After many years of classes with this school, here is a review for anyone considering this one. The instructors don't care about the students here anymore. Many are now worried about getting paid, since they get paid so little. The administration doesn't care about the students anymore here, since they are worried about lying for to school to maintain their own tuition reimbursement. The school will cheat you out of once earned credit now, when you become to close to graduation to try and make more... Read More money. Stay away from this one, and look elsewhere!

After taking a 2 year break from a private school in Ohio, I decided I needed to return to school to finish my degree. I transferred to UMUC and had the best experience I couldve imagined. From the application, to registering, all the way through graduation I had great interactions with all of the professors, staff, admin, and other students. Taking the online courses gave me the courage to be the student I wanted to be and speak and sound the way I want to be heard. You will see throughout these... Read More reviews individuals who have had a bad personal experience make sure that their voice is known through these comments. It is important to understand that of course troubling things happen throughout college but I can assure you they have done everything they can do to make it i work and I am happy that others like myself are also writing reviews. I agree wholeheartedly with others that actual learning at UMUC will depend on what you put into it. Those who want to play the system and find an easy program, easy classes, and easy professors can do so and do well with minimal effort. On the other hand if you want to truly prepare your self for your career and life you can do so with UMUC. I fell somewhere in between the two and graduated Summa Cum Laude while learning a great deal (still with, in my opinion, minimal effort. Overall, good school. Allows a student to be the kind of student they want to be. In the end if the student doesnt learn anything it will only be at a harm to themselves. Pick UMUC

If you are seeking to start a career in Healthcare this degree may be a waste of time and money. Despite telling my advisor that I needed to be employable immediately upon completion and that I have a passion for Healthcare, she used her well memorized selling points to help guide my decision to this program. Prior to graduation I began applying for entry level and mid-level positions. I quickly learned that my more than twenty years of employment experience was irrelevant since it was not in Healthcare.... Read More Although I had held a volunteer position with a Healthcare facility; that did not help. Seeking to leverage my diverse employment relationships I began applying for government jobs. Again, you apparently need experience to get experience. Five years after graduation I have given up applying for positions am settling for my 32k/year job which is well beneath my skill sets. Tread cautiously.

I chose UMUC because I wanted a graduate degree, but with my hectic schedule I knew going to a classroom would not be an option. Most of the classes were challenging, especially the finance class, which I appreciated because if forced me to take time to learn the content, ask questions and become more engaged in the class, so that I could be successful. Like ALL schools the professors were not all the 'perfect professors', but I learned a great deal, I wanted to learn!!!. Anyone who says they don't... Read More learn anything just did not apply themselves because these online classes took discipline and excellent time management; and, essentially, you will get out of it what you put in. I successfully completed my MBA program and I recommend this school as long as YOU HAVE THE DISCIPLINE AND DETERMINATION to be a success.

You must take control of your personal learning at UMUC. I just graduated in May 2018. I received two job offers during my final week of class. This program is intended to help you "check a box" that you have a Computer Science degree. It's not going to help you pass a Google technical interview. I have a Bachelors and Masters degrees in teaching but wanted to get into Computer Science. This helped me accomplish that goal in just under 18 months. Most other 2nd bachelors programs would have taken... Read More me at least 3 years up to 6 years. With that said, nearly every topic is similar to other CS programs at any other university. The difference is the depth of the content studied. You will get the breadth of coverage here but the depth will need to be accomplished through self study. Study hard for those technical interviews and you will be fine and making great money soon.

I have to say that the technology classes at UMUC are complete GARBAGE! They have omitted all text books and rely upon peered reviewed resources or external free resources. For the technology classes, they pretty much give you an assignment and expect you to figure everything out on your own using Google. For the price paid for tuition, I would expect some level of mentoring! IT DOES NOT EXIST! I have maintained a 4.0 GPA for 3.5 years full time! I am no slacker! In my opinion, the software development... Read More course are designed for people who already know the material and just need a degree. I feel that most people will struggle to learn anything at UMUC, especially online. If they actually took the time and spent the money to design good courses, students could learn so much more and with far less wasted energy. I wish I had never left DeVry. They were exponentially better!

I was after a second bachelors degree in Computer Science. Their website and catalog both outline their requirements: must have graduated from a previous bachelors program and have taken adequate math/IT courses to be prepared for the program. I supplied my undergraduate transcripts from my previously accomplished BS. I paid the application fee and got accepted. That's where the trouble began. The academic adviser wouldn't allow me to sign up for class. They kept saying I needed more prerequisites.... Read More I kept pointing out that their own catalog clearly stated that I had met all the requirements (I had math and programming classes that were beyond their requirements and properly recorded on the transcripts they had received). Once we got past that point the target moved! This time I was informed that although I had been accepted into the program (obviously implying that I had met admission requirements) I was told that I couldn't really be evaluated until UMUC had received all my undergraduate transcripts. I have gone to multiple schools on 3 continents and taken a small handful of cleps/dantes tests over the years they said they needed them all. I explained that many of these classes were irrelevant to my degree plan and not required by the university catalog. Please remember that they already had the undergraduate transcript from my initial undergraduate degree and transcripts from the other schools where I had taken IT/Programming classes. Eventually I was even told that they could not move forward without the transcript from my graduate degree. I tried to explain to the advisers that if they would stop obstructing my progress I would be earning credits and they would be earning $ but in the end bureaucracy was elevated over both commerce and common sense. Or more accurately, in attempt to get me to take as many classes as possible, at the highest possible cost to myself, UMUC lost this costumer. For an unranked school in a crowded marketplace, they are amazingly obstructionist. You can get equivalent education at a similar price point at other schools without the extra headache.

I am a current student of UMUC with an anticipated graduation in May 2108 (two more months)! I chose UMUC for multiple reasons with some of them being that they are an online school which offers flexibility for my hectic schedule and they have eight week courses which means I can take twice as many classes in a given semester. Prior to begining my studies at UMUC, I took several online courses, as well as 7- and 8-week courses, so I was familiar with the condensed format. I can say that if you are... Read More not used to an online learning enviroment, prefer physical books or need face time with a professor, then UMUC might not be right for you. As with any college or university, there are always good professors as well as those who need training on how to talk to student and truly assist them when they are struggling, don't fully understand the context or have personal unforseen circumstances. The coursework was not difficult, other than the two tax classes and internal auditing; however, there is a LOT of reading and since the classes are only eight weeks long, it is easy to get behind if you do not keep up with the assignments. If you have an issue where you need to miss a week, talk to the professor as soon as you know aobut the problem, not after it is resolved. Life happens and most will give you an extension with a valid reason, which does not include needing to work more hours. It has not been easy and some of the professors were not the friendliest, but for the most part, they were very helpful, worked with me when I did not understand what they were trying to teach and more importantly they wanted to see me succeed. Please keep in mind that anyting worth having is worth working for and a degree must be EARNED. It will not be given to you regardless of the learning format. Happy Studying, Everyone!

I guess this is a two-part review, Undergrad which I rate a 4 and Grad, which I give a 1 or 2 at best. Undergrad online courses at UMUC were very good for the most part. Instructors cared, participated, the material was relevant to the course, and the assigned textbooks were fine. I had an issue with just one instructor, out of 2 dozen courses, so I cannot allow the one bad apple to influence or judge the others, which were, as stated generally very good. I did not feel that there was course overload... Read More at any time, nor did I feel that the coursework was subpar, or "busy work" as others have stated. So that's the Undergraduate program. The Graduate program (Cybersecurity) has been a different story. I don't award them high grades here; the material is poorly organized, confusing, in some cases obsolete or deprecated, and just not up to Grad level standards in general. They give you a sophomoric 2-minute cheesy video (scenario) at the start of each "Project" which always culminates with writing a 5-8 page paper (or two). There are some labs in which you basically do nothing but step thru a few commands in nmap or ethereal packet analyzer. The school overemphasizes research and writing, which in my opinion are skills that should have been mastered at the Undergrad level or elsewhere in your career/work. Not to mention that all this writing and research is very distracting to the learning process. I mean, I paid to learn Cybersecurity, not how to write a paper and an Executive Summary. There is a lot happening in Information Space these days, for example IoT, Web 3.0, cryptoassets, migration from cloud computing, high-speed TCP/IP, but you'd never know it from taking these UMUC Cyber courses. In my opinion if you don't already understand basic TCP/IP, data encapsulation or the networking models at this level, you have no business being in a Cyber Graduate program in the first place! They admit anyone who can pay, so you can get admitted and complete this degree even if your Undergrad is totally unrelated to Cyber. The program seems to be undermining the value of the degree(s) by teaching some rudimentary skill sets and calling it "Cyber", yet Cyber is the buzzword in today's digital networked world, so I think a lot of the students hope to further their careers simply by possessing the diploma and putting it on their resume. No knowledge of coding or computer languages such as python, java, C# or C++ is required in this program. You don't have to know any Data Structures or Discrete Math, or how an Operating System interfaces with its components, anything that a 2nd-year Comp Sci or CMIS undergrad is knowledgeable of. No textbooks even. Pretty sad state of affairs. Find a better program if you really want to learn Cyber.

If this is your last option, for my military personnel, for a degree program that is covered by TA, then all means go for it. However, please ensure you take time to consider your goals, post-military and post-graduate, to ensure that the degree program you choose is accredited for what you intend to do and will satisfy post-military employment or commissioning requirements. I will say that I enjoyed the online part of this school and I had a great time at graduation, the campus is really nice. I... Read More did feel like it was self-study most of the program, you get out what you put in. Some of the professors are adjunct professors and you can kind of tell which ones are which. Some are slow to give feedback on assignments and I had one professor who did not provide any at all. I would be sure to check out ratemyprofessor.com. Good luck!

This school is a scam. I'm a military spouse with a deployed husband, mother of 2 and I work full time. The instructors have a late policy that they do not follow. I turned in a doctor's note because I missed 3 days of classes from being in the hospital. I only asked if I could have a one day extension to turn in a project. Of course the answer was no even thought the policy states one letter grade will be deducted for late assignments. Now, I'm in jeopardy of not graduating because of one late assignment... Read More that is a major part of my grade. This school is a joke. Don't attend. I wished I had listen to other friends who started out at UMUC and witched to Westerns Governors College. They warned me about UMUC.

PLEASE BE WARY OF THEIR HIDDEN FEES. Even though UMUC is a "non-for-profit" school, it certainly doesn't highlights its extra fees pending on the classes you take. I was charged $91 for a "hybrid class" (80% online/10% physical classroom). I was never aware of this debt, nor was I ever contacted for it. Fast forward 6 months later, and now my debt is in collections. I only found out about this because I recently checked my credit history and found a big fat delinquent under my records. THANKS UMUC... Read More FOR SCREWING UP MY CREDIT.

If you want to get an online degree, this college is a scam, but most online colleges are. I signed up with UMUC, which was no easy feat because they don't help you at all and you have to keep on them constantly to tell you what the problem is now, but I got in and I got financial aid. Two weeks in, I had a personal situation that prevented me from working on my two writing classes for a week and half. When I came back, I asked the two teachers if they would help me get caught up, I didn't lack much.... Read More One said yes, but the other said no, that I should quit, and that I had failed to plan. When I begged again for help so that I wouldn't fail, this teacher, D. P., said "emphatically no" and again said I should quit. When I called UMUC, I was told not to withdraw or I would owe money back, so I didn't withdraw, I took the F's, knowing I wouldn't come back to them anymore anyway. They had crushed my spirit by this point. Then, at the end of the semester, I got a bill for nearly $3,000 along with two F's and absolutely nothing to show for it but the anger and hurt I felt. These people hired a teacher who abused me, and then when I complained, the school said, "What do you want us to do about it?" It was a complete scam. I tried at my age of 51 to go back and finish a degree I started when I was young, and this is the way I was treated. I won't try anymore. Thanks UMUC. You were a real encouragement. Not. I wouldn't recommend them but to my worst enemy.