Michigan State University

Date: Dec 31 1969
Major: Nursing (This Major's Salary over time)
I took the online nurse educator program and received an MSN in nursing education.

I did well at this school. I had very few actual problems with faculty but I believe that is because I can play politics and communicate online well. Several faculty members left me screaming and pulling my hair out though. My poor husband was sick of hearing me screaming at my laptop.

For example, having a TA repeat over and over the word "parsimonious". I had to wonder if she had a word a day calendar, as the word "concise" is far more parsimonious.

My complaints were primarily with the core MSN faculty. I was actually accused of plagiarism once with no grounding and was told that my APA format was "unacceptable". I write well and I think that that was a little threatening to some of the faculty members.

They torture you with minute details of APA format and often your grades are dependent on your ability to capitalize your references appropriately, proper spacing after periods, and how you use numbers in text as opposed to the content.

Once I was taking the courses for my major, faculty greatly improved, but there was not a lot of flexibility in the curriculum to meet my personal education goals.

For students at a distance from campus, there are no opportunities for teaching assistant positions despite having many online classes.

I'll never forget how many times I kicked myself for choosing this program based on convenience factors and price. Given all of the negatives about the program, I found that I did learn a great deal in courses related to my major and teaching cognates. The cognates were some of the best classes that I took at MSU.

Pros include the ability to take these cognates and great resources for students at a distance. The library was easily accessible, articles were mailed quickly if they were not available online. There was 24/7 technical assistance. It was convenient to attend online.

Cons: Some of the faculty were remarkably condescending and were very inconsistent across the curriculum on APA formatting (which was given far too great a significance). Classes were generally not very challenging in content. I was very disappointed in the quality of the core content including pathophysiology.

If you are not good at playing the game and jumping through the flaming hoops, you will wind up being referred to as too "blue collar" for the program. This last comment is hearsay, but it is reliable information. I had to remind my friend to roll onto her back and piss all over herself to survive in the program. If you are relatively tech savvy and communicate well, you will do fine but will be disappointed in the challenge.