The University of Arizona Global Campus

Taking classes online is very manageable for me. I don't feel pressured to take classes there and I'm on a schedule. I work two jobs and I'm able to get my assignment stuff done. I love the school. I even sometimes encourage some of my friends to try it. It's a great learning experience for me. This is one of the schools I first started off with and I'm completely satisfied.

I completed my degree with a bachelor's in Behavioral Science. I'm still now going there now to get my master's degree and will in December. It was a struggle for me at first because I started off when I was younger. Now, I was able to maintain my schedule and raise my child. At the time I was doing it, I was able to be successful. I was able to maintain my grades and finish it at Ashford. I also messed up and I had to pay $1,500 to get back in and it was telling me that I had to keep my grades manageable. I was able to do that and pay out of my pocket and get right back off on financial aid.

To be able to be a student there, just stay focused. Ashford is not a hard school to attend. Read and follow your schedule. Look at the announcements. There are announcements reminding you that your assignments are due. Make sure you do your assignments on your due date. There were times I even tried to turn my assignments in late. I suffered a few points but I had no complaints really.

Being a student was really exhausting. I really never thought that I would go back to school, especially after having two kids. I had to deal with my work full time, being a full-time mom, and going to school. When I went to other schools before, I didn't have any kind of motivation. But now, my two kids were my motivation. I have to keep going and show them that whatever age you are, you can still do whatever you dreamed of, follow your dreams, and not give up. It's gonna be really hard at the beginning and you will have sleepless nights but it's all worth it in the end.

The only thing that really helped me get through was the pandemic. I was working from home so I was able to get things done, even though I had to do my Zoom meetings with my students. I would do it around 10:00 in the morning and be done by 2:00. Even though I would have to clock out at 3:00, I was still able to finish with work. I was able to focus also on schoolwork. It didn't matter if I had to go to sleep at 3:00 in the morning. That was for a year and a half that I was working from home. I then had to go back to in-person classes and I had to deal with me going to sleep at 3:00, 4:00 in the morning. There were times that I didn't want to do an assignment but I still did in the end.

My commencement day was the most memorable. The auditorium was humongous and there were a lot of graduates. It was amazing. I was shaking the whole time because this was the first time I was going up on stage to get my degree. When I went to the other college, I didn't go. I didn't feel like I did something good in school. But with this one, I worked so hard for it. It was so surprising because when I was in school, I always got Cs and Bs. But at the University of Arizona, I got all As probably two Bs in the class. They gave me my magna cum laude and I was surprised when I got that.

A lot of the professors were magnificent. Most of the coursework was extremely challenging. But I liked that, because it felt like I was getting my money's worth. The University's library was heaven sent to me. I would take whatever was expected for a paper that I had to write or whatever work I had to do and go, "Well, that's interesting. But let's see what the library's got." I dive in and I would crank out above and beyond what the professor would want from me in that particular assignment. So I got way more out of it. I enjoyed all of that part.

Most of my peers in the class were really great. When we would turn in our assignments that were submitted for the entire class, and everybody could comment on it, it was collegiate for the most part. There were very good conversations back and forth so that we could each learn. One of the things that I truly enjoyed about the classroom experiences was that because of my age, I would have all this information plus experiences that some of the stuff that we were learning in the classroom. I was there when the space shuttle launched for the first time ever, and explained when the Challenger exploded and how that affected me. That was such a cool experience to be able to share that with younger generations who were with me. I loved my experience.

I had a wonderful experience with the university. They changed my life. I focused hard on applying myself academically. During the time when it was scary because they lost the funding from the VA, the univeristy was still helpful. I was one class away from graduating and that was stressing me out. They said, "You'll finish out your semester here. And then once you're done, what you're obligated, the classes, you won't pay a dime. We already have funding ready to go.” They were very willing to work with me.

I earned my bachelor's degree recently and I was very happy about it. I'm really excited about it. This university has done right by me. Some of the academic advisors told me that it looks good to say master's degree in progress versus not having it on your resume at all. They wanted me to consider pursuing my master's in psychology because I was very interested in that. They wanted me to try to get as far as I could, pause then come back when I could.

The professors were very good. I liked the survey at the end of the class that they would not read until after I got all my grades. There were a few that were a little annoying but there was one, in particular, that was very worldly. He spent his summers in Switzerland with his three kids and he would go on and on about this when he could have just said he was going to be running a little late grading papers. All of us can't go and do all of these wonderfully worldly things. He was very knowledgeable but he was not professional. The other thing about him is he's too busy to give feedback on anything. There were a lot of papers and most of the professors gave very good feedback.

There were only five-week classes so in the second week, you would make a small paper and the professors would give you feedback on it. This was all building up to your final paper for that entire class. I could still use some of these same references and that was great. I ended up with a 3.97. My other issue was with the ethics and moral reasoning class. I am a conservative Christian and I was forced to disregard anything that I was thinking and pretend to write good papers. I quoted a simple proverb from the Bible and I had it referenced. It came back with, "Don't be quoting the Bible. Don't use the Bible. It's not a scholarly reference." I had a problem after that and that was really early on.

There was one thing that was really annoying and it took me hours up because it was always during work time that I had to deal with it. When I first started with this university, it was the end of April. I had to submit payments for each class until it added up to 5,250. When the next year started, you had to add it up to 5,250, do your reimbursements and then the rest of it would kick in. I did this three years in a row. On the second year, I found out in April that there was an overpayment.

First, they sent this big whoop dee doo thing saying I made it to the Dean's list. Two weeks later, all of my classes that had been scheduled for me disappeared. I was told it was because I haven't paid. I told them that I sent in reimbursements for last year and I started in January of the year. They said that January was still the previous academic year. They said, "Your academic year was from April through March of the next year." So first, I was overpaid then it took hours and lots of emails and more hours. It took more than a year of fighting.

When I finally got done towards the end, they said, "You need to make sure you have a zero balance or you can't graduate." They said I still owed $1,530. But I didn't. I was reprimanded. They said, "You're not supposed to do it that way. You were supposed to pay this and this and this. Now, we have to go through and itemize it." Nobody explained that the academic year started the month that you started. That was the worst.

In the end, I said, "Fine. Here's the $1,530. I just want to graduate. I'm sick and tired of this. I don't want to spend hours." They had somebody review it and eventually, they came back and said, "You're overpaid by 1,530." Most of the financial people were very nice but they were just sorting through things manually. At this age, I was keeping it on a spreadsheet and I knew what I had paid.

I completed the program on April 18. I finished three years. When I was 18, I joined the Navy because I wanted to get my education. Little by little, I did. It's taken 40 years. On the whole, there are things that can be improved upon. But I would recommend the University of AZ Global because that was the way that I finally got this goal accomplished. I told other people here at work, "Go there. But let me tell you, your academic years start whenever you started."

The professors are pretty good. I had a incident where I was leaving to deploy. According to the school rules, first thing is to get in contact with your professor and make sure they're in the know and understanding of the situation. We also contact our military affiliate, who gives us our tuition assistance, and we let them know that we're in a situation where we will be deploying. They straighten everything out and make sure that either the class can be completed or that we can retake the class upon return.

I got with my professor and we made sure that I was able to still turn in my work in a timely manner. I still was able to complete the class and continue on to eventually graduate. A highlight of this experience is the overall sense of completing the engagement with the professors for multiple classes. I haven't had a class where I didn't have a professor that wasn't very welcoming to the experience or engaging and helpful with getting the class accomplished in a timely manner. It's just that overall feel and that experience of being able to complete the course work over the period of time as military members. It's hard to go to school but this school makes it very easy to do so. I have promoted the University of Arizona with my military members saying, "Hey, if you wanna do your bachelor's, I know this school. You choose your program, you get started enrolled, and it should be a seamless process."

The learning experience was awesome because any time there was an issue, there was always somebody that was willing to help or it was easy to find somebody. The resources were really easy to find. That was huge because that hasn't been my experience, even in the bigger schools. Their ability to answer questions and get me to the right department was one of the main reasons that I stayed there and went there. Also, every professor I worked with was knowledgeable. If you ever reached out directly, it was never a problem getting back, even for little things -- touching base before the class started. I would recommend it to anybody. It was pretty challenging but rewarding. It was worth doing.

I completed this one course where it was a scientific lab. I thought it was dope because I did not expect to experience that with an online school. I received all of the soil and liquids. Everything I needed for my science project was mailed out to me prior to the class even starting. I thought I would have to go to some type of facility to complete that portion. The cost is within a feasible amount. It's very convenient for a single parent, for anyone who works full-time to complete their degree, someone who may be similar to myself just needed something that was a more fast-paced, I would recommend that University of Arizona to them because it was a good option for me.