What do you know about the American Military University? (accreditations, religious studies, environmental science)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Interesting perspective. GS-14 is high. How long did it take you to get there?
The problem is I see people who go there for undergrad and think they're going to end up with a high GS job like you (where you have a legit undergrad from a good school).
I can't count the number of Navy guys I knew that thought they were going to the CIA/State Department/GS position/Whatever high paying job with their AMU undergrad.
An undergrad degree from AMU will not get you squat... try to get into a real masters program when you are done. Anyone out there get into a top rated MBA program with your 4.doh form AMU??? Even top 100?
I'm an employer in the Information Technology field. Don't come to me looking a job with your on-line degree. I hire people with HANDS ON learning, like you get from a B&M lab setting. I don't hire "on-line" students for one reason.
You can read a book for 12 weeks on how to play the piano.
But until you actually put your hands on a piano and tap the keys, you won't be able to play the piano no matter how long you study "on-line" about how to do it.
You people have been convinced you can spend 3 or 4 hours per day surfing the internat and posting to chat rooms and earn a credible degree. I'd just as soon hire some ****** who paif $79 bucks for a diploma-mill degree. At east his "education" is worth $79 bucks.
As for the guy who said "it must be good because service members go to AMU, so if you have respect for the military you'll have respect for AMU".....BULL****.
When I was in the military...service members write bad checks and smoke dope and binge drink also. Does that mean because they do it it must be worthy of my praise?
I am about to graduate from AMU. I read this entire forum and decided to post my view. I love AMU, not because it is easy (it is), but because of the flexibility it allows me. While AMU is relatively easy (for me), it is significantly harder than any B&M school I have attended. I went to Kent State University for 3 years, The University of Akron for 1, and Cleveland State University for 1. My time spent at these universities was split up because of my time in the Marine Corps. What I will say is that I pulled a 3.8 at Kent State, a 3.8 at Cleveland State, and a 4.0 at Akron. I attended Akron's Business School (AACSB) for 1 year. While at Akron, I never opened a book my first semester. After that I never bought them. Nothing in this world is easier than passing a test, as long as you attend class and pay attention. I left to attend AMU because I took a job that had a 1.5 hour commute and did not have the time. While at AMU, I have to work 2-3 times as hard to pull the same grades. My classes are writing intensive, graded with strict adherence to APA guidelines, and research is a must. Tests are open book, but they are given in a tighter time frame than other schools, and questions are worded so that you cannot simply search for the answer (which you do not have time to do).
While my degree at AMU may not mean much in the "real world", the education I recieved there was far superior than the education I received at various B&M schools. As far as graduate programs accepting my degree, I have already been assured of my acceptance to Cleveland State Universities Mobile Accelerated MBA program (which has the AACSB accreditation and is 100% online).
Lastly, I have many friends who are HR hiring managers, and their view mirrors mine. College is easy, no matter where you go. College does not make you smart, or even knowledgeable for that matter. The reason college is required for hiring purposes is for weeding out the crowd, and completing a degree shows that you have the dedication to complete something. That is it.
It's taken me a while but I finally understand why I still have mixed feelings about AMU's Intelligence Studies programs. After a BA and most of an MA in Intelligence Studies think I've finally got it.
One problem is that the Intelligence Studies courses, like any civilian intelligence program, are taught without the benefit of classified materials. So you're necessarily left with shallow reading materials for a few of the classes. And this also means a general inability to simulate real world training for students. Additionally, almost everything you'll study focuses on intelligence failures because, broadly speaking, "success is the best kept secret of US intelligence". You'll have a difficult time understanding IC successes relative to failures.
The second problem with the Intelligence Studies program is that intelligence studies is an cross disciplinary field covering virtually every field of academic interest. This results in an inability to really cover anything other than administrative issues within the the IC in any significant depth. The analyst's job is more akin to that of a librarian than anything else. More than anything the analyst needs to learn how to conduct in depth research and find existing information in large data sets. Secondly, he needs to be able to write clearly to make sure his points are not misconstrued. Lastly, he needs to be able to creatively "connect the dots" of disparate information into a coherent picture. This results in a grading structure that is essentially one long test of IQ and search engine querying skill. While it's not a bad education, it doesn't fit most of our concepts of what academia should be assessing us on.
Simply stated, the program is hard to teach with unclassified materials. The program is also made difficult to teach by the broadness of intelligence operations. The broadness of intelligence operations means that being a generalist, in other words, knowing everything or at least convincingly pretending to is a highly desirable trait. Knowing everything or feigning knowledge with creative interpretations of ambiguous facts is rewarded with high academic grades in the Intelligence Studies program. Real world analysis probably isn't much different than this given that one must always be weary of enemy deception efforts and the various perceptual and cognitive distortions that alter the "facts". What you get at AMU in the Intelligence Studies program is still an education but because of the structure of the program sometimes it still doesn't feel like a legitimate one.
I wouldn't recommend a degree in intelligence studies/analysis in general, but AMU didn't just make it up. I'm sure it wasn't the first school to offer the degree. Most of the non-technical intelligence openings I've seen have a preference for political science, international relations, and national security majors. They want people with a general knowledge of world politics or a certain region. The intelligence analysis part can be taught on the job.
Most of the intelligence communities in the military want/prefer people who have advanced degrees and experience conducting research.
It's very very tough to get into the Navy Intel ranks. All of the Intel guys I know have degrees in Poli Sci or International Relations. There's a few engineers too. The general consensus from them is that intelligence studies is a joke.
APUS/AMU is a properly accredited university (regional accreditation). Their MPA program is also seeking programmatic accreditation through NASPAA. APUS/AMU sent representatives to the last NASPAA annual conference: Click here to see the list of attendees.
Online degrees are the wave of the future -- and the future is now -- which helps to explain why all the state universities are hopping on-board the online platform. Many state universities now offer degrees that are 100% online. However, if a person is embarrassed about getting an online degree from a 100% online school, then simply go to a state university and get one of their 100% online degrees -- and then don't tell anyone that you got it 100% online.
A B&M Bachelors degree (or an online Bachelors degree) isn't the answer to all your prayers. It simply opens opportunities to be interviewed for jobs -- the rest is up to the interviewee.
Heck even traditionally brick and mortar schools like Penn State now offer (and have been offering for some time) completely online degrees: [url]http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/degrees-and-certificates[/url])
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
