Full Sail University

Date: Apr 22 2019
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
I can only speak for my degree program (Game Design - Online) but I have heard positive things about some of the other programs, even the Campus version of mine. As for my program, it's quite a list.

Some courses were being created as we took them resulting in being a week behind on all assignments and next class overlapping. That's just the beginning. Most instructors are horrendous at responding to you, some never do. It took the school a week to reach one of my instructors after I had already exhausted all means of reaching them. Much of the feedback you get on assignments is copied and pasted from the previous students feedback. In group classes we got a kick from looking at previous classes we had taken to see if everyone got the same responses. Usually they did. Most of the courses say they will follow a rubric although you usually won't see it shown when you receive your grade and many cited a non existing rubric. Assignments are consistently out of date and outright wrong on the requirements meaning you constantly are in need to reach out to the instructor. For our final class the assignment stated we needed to log 50 hours a week for a perfect grade. We reached out to the instructor because this went against what the website had said. He let us know that it was only 35. Sadly he didn't tell other groups who ended up just taking it at face value and logging 50. The instructors are almost always polite, but in a political forced way. They are very unhelpful and many are recent graduates without any experience.

I finished with an A average but felt a learned very little from the assignments. Most of the learning was from books you could read on your own and searching Google. The tests are a joke and the instructors remind you they are open book. To make matters worse, the first 5 or so classes you take at the University are very well polished with a lot of interaction from the instructors. They are a model for what a class should be like. Later on they mock the beginning. One teacher even told us that he would pass on our feedback to the next instructor to give to us. The next instructor knew nothing of this. The program is very inconsistent with its requirements and instructions. In one class you are working on something that is going to be used later, only to never hear about it again. When one teacher incorrectly counted our hours all four of us in a group contacted him but he only responded to one of us and changed only one grade, ignoring the rest. You definitely feel like a number and given the disparity between the beginning classes (which are generic and not course specific) and the final classes it makes you feel like you were suckered. I know there are those who argue for Full Sail, but I can say I was a model student who made good grades and did well, but no thanks to the school. Just look at how they rank on lists on this site like the Perceptual Rankings Most Laughed at Diplomas.

I would never recommend the program I took and am sad to see that, at least in my degree, they show a very polished front that ends at a very bitter tail end. I'm just glad I went on the GI Bill instead of my own money or loans.