University of Arizona

My son was a 2020 high school graduate who went to a four year college. With Covid, that meant fully online for the first year from home. By the second year he was used to this and wanted to continue to go online for the flexibility it offered. Midway through his sophomore year he transferred out of state to UofA online as the four year college couldn't see him through to graduation online. UofA was great at first, very helpful with the application process and the first semester of counseling. And... Read More then the great advisor switched positions and he was left to a new advisor who was terrible. After 2 months of back and forth with her via email (and looping in the previous advisor after a month of this craziness) he still didn't have answers to very basic questions (which class to take to satisfy a particular requirement needed - she told him it changes each semester but not what it was for the current semester!- and being told spots were added for a class he needed but weren't there when he looked. She told him to go take it at a Phoenix community college instead!). Certain classes are only offered in the first or 2nd half of the semester (they run two 7 week sessions of classes per semester), which left him with a gap where he could only find 1 class to take for the first 7 weeks. They claimed he would get through just as fast as a 4 year school, but he lost almost 2 semesters worth of work when he transferred, and was only allowed to take a total of 4 classes each semester vs. 5 at a university. By our calculations it would take him 6 years (not going summers) to graduate after being in school already for 2.5 years. When faced with a $6K tuition to take only Spanish 101 the first 7 weeks, then Spanish 201 and another class the 2nd 7 weeks, we decided to go the community college route. That Spanish 101 class was not going to be worth $3K! We felt like it was more about stringing him along to get the tuition than helping him find his way. As a parent I am VERY disappointed. While this may be fine for working adults, they are not set up to help younger students looking for an online option. I would think twice about throwing your money away on this program.

I'm currently enrolled in the online Digital Marketing Science Program, which upon academic success and completion awards you a Certificate from the U of AZ for the Program, as well as 3 additional Leading Industry Certifications (2 Google, and 1 HubSpot.) You do have to take each certification test and pass it. So this course technically falls under the U of AZ professional series programs, but it's part of the overall academic umbrella of U of AZ. The Instructor for this April-June Cohort, is Steph.... Read More She is an amazing instructor. I've had programs before at other facilities where the instructors aren't up to speed on current thoughts in the industry, but she really is highly-qualified to teach this program. We will have 2 more instructors - I believe a new one each month, and for that I'm a little apprehensive, but for now, the experience with her has been amazing. She is able to answer and communicate to the class technical information, and you know she is just not winging it. I'm submitting this review anonymously as well.

I began my undergraduate career as an on-campus student. I found living in on-campus in Tucson wasn't really my sort of scene, so after I semester I moved back home. After becoming an online student, I did better academically than I had when I lived on-campus. Resources such as the ThinkTank can be very beneficial. I personally found advisers to be very wishy-washy. When I transitioned from on-campus to online, I met two amazing advisers who I only spoke with briefly. After I finished my transition... Read More my first adviser was fine, but during my third semester, my adviser changed and I there was absolutely no reciprocation in contact whatsoever. I tried multiple ways of contacting her, but ended up graduating with no contact at all. I am grateful, because it allowed me to find out a lot of information for myself. I do think it would be greatly disappointing if this happened for someone who needed more help than I did. As for my program, I found all of the classes to be very engaging. There are teachers who will bother you, but my biggest piece of advice would simply be to figure out what each teacher is looking for. Don't mind the low grades, you can still have a bad day, get a bad grade on a test or quiz, and pass the class with flying colors. I had a teacher who could not spell and tried to be viewed as cool by appealing to things that are popular today, such as memes or fortnite, and unfortunately many of the classes in my program were taught by this person. In this situation, I recommend looking for 7 week classes, or keeping in mind you are only in these classes for a while.