Online Degree Programs
Greetings!
The website is
http://www.unomaha.edu/~unoai/de/index.html
I went through UNO's Online Aviation Institute. I graduated Spring 2001. As I did not have all of the general ed courses required and UNO does not offer all of them, I had to take online courses from other institutions. I had to get courses from a total of 7 different online colleges and transfer them in to meet the general education requirements. Now that many colleges have their complete general education offerings online, that number should be only 1 or 2 plus UNO.
UNO gave me, WITHOUT COST (unlike schools in UT and FL), an evaluation of my transcript by my just emailing Scott Vlasek what I thought I had. The official transcripts arrived and the evaluation was the same.
UNO's program allows plenty of credit for life experience (up to 36 credits total). I earned 21 credits with my flight instructor certificates and the credit was granted as I completed the certificates (instead of all at the end like a certain other university out of FL). They would have done the same for my A&P and Repairman certificates, if I completed them while in attendance. Doesn't really sound important, until you need the financial aid to pay tuition. 21 credits can make the difference between unable as a freshman to able as a sophomore with a mid-year switch to being a junior. Important if you need to use the aid for living expenses. . .
Financial Aid determined that I was a junior my second semester, spring 2000. They INCREASED my financial aid so I could take more courses, even out of UNO's system, unlike Riddle which waits 'til the last semester to give transfer credit. Online students are considered state residents for tuition and off-campus housing for financial aid. Although I didn't take flight courses from them, there was enough to get a CFI certificate on the excess (another 3 credits).
The courses are not “gee this is the hot end of a turbine, this is a cold end” like another college out of UT that took 3 years to get that class online! UNO offered classes in airport management, safety, financial administration, airline operations, FBO management, aviation history, aviation meteorology, public administration, intermodal transportation (warning: 4 texts, five 20+ page research papers), and others. The co-ops allows for 6 credits to report on my working an aviation job. Even when I had to find another job during the co-op, I still received credit because I documented the reasons why (~82 pages).
Coming into home stretch, the final semester, the upper division science class I was taking turned out to be a real waste. Great text, but the school, U. of Indiana, wouldn't let me finish in 3 months, let alone a semester. The week before graduation, I picked up an ecology course from another college and finished it in 3 days (four small term papers, honest, one doesn’t need sleep).
I also had a few online courses through ERAU. The written work could be done in a weekend, but the participate every week postings took the entire semester (had to remember to log in every week and cut-n-paste. I asked for the finals early, took them, and returned them early, yet three days before UNO's graduation cutoff, I was on the phone to every department, including ERAU's Dean of Students, to get Riddle to send the transcript. Under threat, they finally sent it with one hour to spare. More on Riddle in a bit.
When the dust settled, I'd earned the degree in 3 semesters plus a summer session. Nowhere on the diploma does it state that this is an online degree. It is a Bachelors of Continuing Studies with a major in Aviation Studies and a minor in Mathematics.
It's not just an aviation degree. I've found myself going back to the course texts and pulling out information to assist in my current job. I’ve even called a former professor and got assistance with a seemingly overwhelming problem. He’d been through the same thing before. He helped solved the problem.
Other schools:
UVSC could never get their stuff together when I tried them from 1999 through now. They kept insisting I was a non-citizen even though one of the Utah State community colleges had me as a U.S. & Utah resident and all citizenship documentation 5 years ago. Then the classes I wanted to take were never available. Something's strange here. . . I really wanted to take some of their courses too, and might give them another whirl this summer. Or, maybe not. (Update: did take four courses from them. Shouldn’t have spent the extra dollars for the second semester. By the tenth “wrong” correct answer on the first midterm in one course, I wanted my money back, but it was too late to drop with a full refund. It still took an Act of Congress to be enrolled in their courses AND one of my clients calling the Department Chair AND the Head Registrar. This makes the Riddle Runaround look like child’s play. Tip: Have the college SCAN all of your citizenship paperwork and attach it to your files in admission, financial aid, registration, and the aviation department. I never did get a decent evaluation of my transfer credits into their bachelor’s program at the 1.5 year mark.)
The California Community Colleges, Bakersfield College especially, have their stuff together online. Cerro Coso still thinks 40 students in a class is a good thing. (No, the poor professors can't keep up.) The state colleges are way too expensive. BOGW, the Board of Governor's Fee Waiver can help students here.
UND is starting an online program. I know nothing.
ERAU is currently kicking my butt through grad classes. The online courses did not work well for me but I'm doing fine in their center classes, one weekend a month. The knowledge in "Corporate Finance" saved my company (At times a business is one crisis after another!). I am impressed by the caliber of my classmates and had to beat off three of them wanting me to work for their companies. Write one good SWA versus AA paper, and most of the grad program will be easier. The "Riddle Runaround" is rampant through all of their programs. Be assertive and persistent to get through the b.s. We are the paying customers, the future donors, and the folks that ERAU really wants good words from. They are more scared of bad referrals than a loss of revenue. (Update: Online grad courses were them sending out the materials for their snail mail correspondence courses plus some online participation. There’s been several changes to the online program since they first started 3 years ago. The resident center courses are simply awesome, If you have any sort of a life, take one grad course at a time until you can judge the workload. Again don’t plan on sleeping when you are working on the thesis.)
Don't expect anything but loans for financial aid. Careful, as ERAU does expect ALL of their students to have V.A. benefits or winning the lottery to cover exactly 51% of your financial need. Online undergrads are considered distance students and will not be qualified for enough government loans to be full time or half time at Riddle. I never felt like supporting Nellie, Sallie, or Citibank and the rich parents, nope, haven't seen 'em.
UVSC and UNO consider their students to be full or half time in-state residents as appropriate to course load (excepting UVSC’s fondness for considering foreign-born students to be international students, no matter current citizenship status). There are some scholarships available, and online courses count towards full time status for those scholarships requiring it. UNO’s online alumni are in the process of establishing a scholarship for the online students, more coming in the next few months.
Now, what to avoid in an online course:
1. Instructors that do not return messages within 24-48 hours without warning. Two UNO classes were taught by airline pilots, they took their laptops with them and responded from some pretty interesting locations.
2. Large classes. About 15 students is enough. More than that and you don't get much attention, which feeds into #1 and means your questions go unanswered. There are no writing labs or teaching assistants for online students.
3. Instructors that refuse to use office hours time with their online students. Run away. Run away now.
4. Instructors that don't understand being stranded in a sleazy pilot lounge somewhere without any method of connecting to the internet to turn in an assignment and a broken airplane. Those web phones at MCO, LAS, and LAX do NOT access certain college websites.
5. Instructors that only assign term papers for the entire class. Gee, why get the textbook? There are exceptions, UNO’s “Writing in Aviation” is term papers, but the goal is to write a better one, not spew out words for the sake of spewing them out.
6. Instructors that grade assignments without any feedback. How can you improve if you don’t know what is wrong?
7. Flight instructors that yell. If you’d rather wipe your posterior with broken glass than fly with your CFI, it’s time to change instructors.
8. Instructors that feel a need to humiliate students in public. We’re in the course because we DON’T know everything.
9. Instructors that say the book is wrong, but can’t prove why. Caution, the aeronautical engineers are still arguing about many things in this field.
10. Courses that are the same content as the previous years with zero regard to the current state of the industry. This will appear over time, not just one item buried deep in a textbook. Key words to watch for: Pilot Shortage, Industry Profits, Omega (unless in a history course), references to obsolete documents, information that glosses over or hypes regulatory agency contacts, and quiz questions that list all wrong answers based on current regulations.
If you need any more information on UNO or ERAU's online programs, please email me (eagle3354@yahoo.com). I'll send you to the class websites where you'll be able to determine if you can handle the workload with your free time.
Hope this helps.
Fly SAFE!
Jedi Nein
[ QUOTE ]
For Chunk only: You are typing without your brain engaged again. Why don't you take a look at the changes in ERAU's programs before exposing your ignorance to the world? If you're gonna flame someone, at least have your facts straight.
[/ QUOTE ]
