Walden University

Date: Dec 31 1969
Major: Education (This Major's Salary over time)
I enrolled thinking this would be a great alternative to a traditional PhD. You know the drill; make your own schedule, set your own hours. That was appealing to someone working about 60 hours a week. I picked the program because it aligned well with my goals. The admissions process was simple. The cost was kind of high, but like I said, I was impressed with the flexibility. I completed one class and it was more challenging than I expected. I learned quite a bit and felt like I had gotten my money's worth. The instructor was approachable, responded to email quickly and was offering insights within discussions and on papers. Well that all changed with my second course. The instructor was incredibly condescending. She was very critical of my writing - which is fine, I expect that at this level - but she would constantly change expectations and her feedback didn't jive with the other instructor in the course I'd already completed. I felt like she was changing the rules and being overly critical. But the kicker was this - I scored a low B on a paper and I asked if I could rewrite it to correct the mistakes she had listed. She agreed. She agreed that she would review it and change the grade based on the resubmission. So I rewrote the paper and wrote another at the same time and submitted both on the same day. I added the comment "here's the rewrite for paper x, thank you for allowing me this opportunity". Four days later she emailed me and said "I never said you could submit a rewrite for a higher grade". So I forwarded the original email where she agreed and she responded "that's not what I meant". It went on like this for a couple of weeks and my grades were suffering. I even got the sense that she was grading capriciously at one point and I raised it to the dean of the school. Nothing happened. The instructor denied any wrong doing and the dean sided with her in the end. So I withdrew. I'm happy I did. I found out later that others had similar experiences with that instructor. It was a shame really because the first course went so well.