University of North Carolina at Greensboro Rankings by Salary Score™

The MSIA (MS in Informatics and Analytics) program at UNCG is a complete mess. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you avoid it. What became very obvious to me within my first two classes is that this program aggressively recruits international students (I was one of very few Americans in my cohort) for the purpose of raking in as much money as possible. They do not care about instructional quality or even if you graduate. This is purely a "credentialing" program. I learned more from DataCamp and ChatGPT... Read More then I did from any of the so-called core classes. And when I needed to take a class at an external university, it was like pulling teeth to get the program director to agree to let me transfer the credit in despite the fact that it clearly fell within the bounds of the graduate school policies AND it was a more rigorous curriculum than the one taught at UNCG. They market their capstone project as a core benefit of the program in getting hands-on analytics experience, but in reality there is no support to help students find mentors and the program has zero relationships with local businesses (which is a real shame considering their proximity to the Research Triangle). The only reason I was able to find a good placement for myself was because I have worked in academic science before and know how to navigate it. Even then, once my capstone work was under way, the program communicated rubrics and deadlines to students inappropriately late (in some cases after the deadline had already passed). I and other students were left off of the email meant to schedule our capstone presentations and were only made aware of it two weeks in advance. Overall, I could not have had a worse experience with this program, and I genuinely believe it was created with unethical motivations. I hope it is discontinued and no more students are ripped off, especially considering that the international students pay so much money and travel so far to be here. UNCG should be ashamed.

Worst academic experience of my life. Previous degree in related field. Transferred in from another design school to finish this degree. Design majors need heavy software skills and projects for a portfolio. Almost all the work consists of writing papers. No design firm is paying you to write a paper after graduation unless you are in journalism or research. Very little software and hardware experience so I took classes at yet another school to learn that side. I was in groups with seniors who didnt know how... Read More to use Adobe software. Group projects are the norm. Your grade is based on other students work. This is not the norm for design students. After a couple semesters, am leaving for another school that says, 'We tried group projects one semester and won't do them again because it doesn't allow students to showcase their best work for potential employers.' Made phone calls and visits to competing schools in similar majors; sitting in on classes and presentations and was blown away by what they were learning and knew if I had to compete in the job market with them, I won't get the job. Teachers are uninterested in who you are and treated as a number. Lectures regurgitate chapters. Where is robust discussion? Exploratory projects? Students asleep during guest speaker visits and openly cheating during exams by hiding phones. Lots of class time is upselling other degrees, study abroad etc. Watered down and disappointing to say the least.