The University of Massachusetts - Boston

Date: Dec 31 1969
Major: Linguistics (This Major's Salary over time)
One of the greatest mistakes of my life was to enroll as a graduate student in the Applied Linguistics MA Online program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Two weeks after receiving a mass welcome e-mail, I inquired about transferring credits from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County(end of May 2008). For over six months of continuous inquiry neither the program coordinator or the director supplied me an answer. I only received an answer four weeks before the fall semester ended, in which I was chided and insulted by the Program Director, Dr. Panagiota Gounari (mid November 2008). I was informed that my inquiry

had fallen between the cracks

due to her upcoming pretenure sabbatical. Bear in mind, this was after the program coordinator had changed my fall semester schedule for potential transfer credits which should have been reviewed prior to the semester start. I took my grievance to the highest level in the university system but received only apologies, not the the reimbursement of tuition. If I continued with the program, ironically I would be behind my cohort for inquiring about transfer credits.

Please do not be bamboozled by the program's homepage.

The program makes little effort to contact you. They will dismiss your questions either by ignoring your questions or sending you outdated links.

If you are overseas (I was working in South Korea at the time), your materials (handbook, information, etc) will not be sent but magically your bills will. Fancy that.

There was mass disorganization. The program was frequently late in enrolling and registering students for classes. Luckily, they did manage to make sure late fees did not apply. This also applies to courses—one course was two weeks late in commencing (students were not informed of this until after the first day of classes.)

Most of my actual professors were approachable but were largely ignorant of the actual machinations of the program. Many of the online professors do not teach at UMAB. I strongly suspect they view this online program as a way to supplement their income in this current economic climate. One professor did not even read our discussion posts. The other two were clearly intelligent professionals but overwhelmed with their offline academic responsibilties to devote sufficient guidance to online students.

I recommend this program only if you are a philanthropist in the position to "donate" money for pre-tenure sabbaticals.