National UniversityReviews of nu.edu

It is so sad that the tuition is was so expensive to complete my degree. I will be paying for it for the rest of my life

Computer Science courses (my field) are ABET-certified (like MIT and Harvard) and the majority of the professors within this department know what they are doing and care about your progress and understanding of the material. However, the general education courses are a joke (with the exception of Prof. Zukas' history class and Prof. Oh's math class). The majority are so filled with social justice clap-trap it's difficult to find the so-called "education" anywhere. If you are transferring credits from another college and have all your general education completed, good. Enjoy the university. If not, you'll be wasting your money on Marxist dogma instead of education. It's up to you.

I have been happy with National University as the program and teachers are great. I am disappointed how the school addressed Commencement due to the pandemic. I was not able to walk last year when I graduated because the # was limited. This year, there was information and a form that I was able to fill out for a Northern CA Commencement, only to be told the information and form were published on the internet by mistake. There is no Commencement for Northern CA and the reason I was given was that there is not enough interest to have one, yet as a student and resident of Northern CA, my input was not considered (I was not asked). The Southern CA Commencement was a great experience, but was difficult financially to drive/fly family members and to obtain hotel accommodations. The event was chaotic. We were in line for registration for hours and many of us graduates were still checking in by the time the event started. Most of us sat under the heat for hours and when we walked our names were not called in sync when we were on the screen, so another graduate's name was shown when my family took my picture.

National's 100% online program is a very good fit for those who truly wish to learn and have the maturity to keep on track. The program is in large part an exercise in autodidacticism. Some of the textbooks I've been assigned are obsolete and present, as legitimate, subjects which are considered pseudoscience (polygraphs and neurolinguistic programming, just to name two). Numerous quizzes have poorly written and confusing questions, have questions addressing topics not covered in the week pertaining to the quiz, or topics which are not addressed at all in any of the study material. Some quizzes mark as wrong answers that are correct. The staff is extraordinarily responsive and organized. All of my instructors but one have been experts in their field with impressive credentials. I encountered one anti-vaxxer teacher who exposed students to numerous debunked claims, such as the alleged dangers of fluoride in water. National's library is wonderful; you'll have at your fingertips thousands of academic papers and information. I would recommend National, and I'm grateful to have found the program I'm enrolled in.

I love the fact that I can quickly move through my courses. Many of my professors have been great. However, I do believe that the workload in some classes has been Too much. One way to deal with that would be to assign heavy assignments to groups to work on together. Making this a part NU classes would be so helpful. The last thing I struggle with is that my advisors are not available after hours nor for phone conversations. This is inconvenient when I really need human help and not just an email. Also, my advisors often act as if the don’t have time to ‘really’ help because they are just too busy. NU, continuing to use Covid as a reason to not be as available for their students is incredibly discouraging. Bring back on campus classes!

National is so so. I believe that systematically it can do better. The teachers did a good job overall and I benefited from my program but definitely would have liked more real life scenarios as it feels the curriculum is dated and school counseling is only seen through a theories and readings and does not give a real life perspective of what true school counseling entails. Overall, a program that gets the job done and gets you a diploma that you pay for.

The instructors are knowledgeable, but dated concerning current state of the practice in engineering management. There is a serious focus on retaining accreditation through the use of tough, administrivia tests that students using digital texts can search for/find the answer to the questions. However, there is a disconnect between the nonsense quizzes/exams and applied knowledge needed for passing the capstone classes. Moreover, I experienced no tie-in between individual classes and what was needed for the capstone courses - if not for knowledge gained from a PhD spouse plus decades of professional work, I would have been completely lost in how to prepare a decent capstone project (received honors for my capstone). National has promise for being a go-to institution for advanced degrees. Once they evolve to the point we're industry already operates, National can be a trend setter vs. a wanna be.