Hello all,

I'm currently 20 years old and ready to go into my degree (after quite some time working on personal projects and building up some experience). However, I'm in a bit of a spot here.

I want to go and get my computer science degree and work my way up from there, but due to some circumstances I must study remotely. I've decided to have a hard look at University Of The People. It would fit most of my criteria, minus the fact that it might not be reputable; which is why I'm posting this.

I would like to know how reputable and accepted a Comp Sci degree at UOPeople in the game development and general IT world would be? Would HR look at this and throw my resume in the trash? Would I be looked down upon? Or is it what I put into the degree that really matters in the end?

Thanks,

UN

In general, while your application might not be discarded out of hand, online degrees are seen today (it could change in the future) as a notch below a degree from a brick and mortar degree. You'll be ahead of people with no degree, and ahead of people with only an Associates degree. (All else being equal.)

Thank you for the response!

That's understandable, I'm glad that it isn't as low as I thought, a bit saddened that it's considered a notch lower than a normal degree. Would getting an honours degree from a long standing university help in this regard?

As far as I can tell, even ignoring the online only nature of the degree, University of the People has two minor strikes against it. One, while it is accredited, it's only nationally accredited by the DEAC. Due to a quirk of how the US accreditation system was developed, national accreditation is less useful than regional accreditation. If your institution is only nationally accredited then you're less likely to be able to do things like transfer credits to another university, qualify for a graduate degree at another university and so on. In some places, a degree from a US nationally accredited school will not count for employment purposes. The other problem is that it's only been accredited since 2014, which is a warning sign for some people considering a degree from a place they've never heard about before.

As far as I can tell, even ignoring the online only nature of the degree, University of the People has two minor strikes against it. One, while it is accredited, it's only nationally accredited by the DEAC. Due to a quirk of how the US accreditation system was developed, national accreditation is less useful than regional accreditation. If your institution is only nationally accredited then you're less likely to be able to do things like transfer credits to another university, qualify for a graduate degree at another university and so on. In some places, a degree from a US nationally accredited school will not count for employment purposes. The other problem is that it's only been accredited since 2014, which is a warning sign for some people considering a degree from a place they've never heard about before.

Thank you,

These are things I did not consider. I'm actually from South Africa, so I don't quite know how this would effect me exactly; I wonder where I could figure this one out. The fact the university has only been accredited for a year causes warning signs? I can understand that. I'm wondering if my alternative would be to just to do courses (on coursera for example) and get a degree somewhere else?

I appreciate this response very much, thank you!

I'm wondering if my alternative would be to just to do courses (on coursera for example) and get a degree somewhere else?

It depends on many factors. It depends on who looks at your job application, what they know (or don't know) about uopeople, and who else is applying.

You originally wrote that you needed to study remotely for various reasons. That's understandable, everyone has their own life circumstances.

The others wrote it perfectly. To many (but not all) employers, an online school's degree is considered slightly inferior to a brick-and-mortar school's degree. A traditional school means you actually sat through classes similar to regular business meetings, you turned in assignments in the methods employers are familiar with, and likely collaborated with others on projects by being with them physically. You learn not only the content, but you also learn social dynamics. An online school you may or may not have picked up all the other social elements. Online-only schools are still quite new, and there is not much social acceptance, in large part because there is so little history about how rigorous the program is.

Coursera will suffer from that same problem.

Every other online-only degrees these days will suffer from the same problem.

These are things I did not consider. I'm actually from South Africa, so I don't quite know how this would effect me exactly; I wonder where I could figure this one out.

From what I've heard and seen from the school so far looks pretty good. Has a lot of Teachers from highly sought after schools from around the world. If you want a better understanding of why and how they offer their courses so cheap there is a great ted talk on them.

It is definitely better than having no degree and they were created to allow people who didn't have access to education and or cant afford it to get a degree. If you look at the people they are partnered with and get funding from I don't see a lot of large software companies not accepting it as an actual degree. You might have a hard time finding work in the US but I see this being less of a problem in the rest of the world.

Hi there! Thank you for considering UoPeople. My name is Jess and I work at the university. I would like to answer some of your questions.

Studying online at UoPeople is an excellent option for someone in your circumstance – someone wanting to study remotely as well as earn a high quality, accredited degree.

Online degrees are the way of the future – there aren't many people who can afford the high tuition fees of brick and mortar universities these days, and they are searching for an alternative that won't have them paying off debt for years to come.

Companies are beginning to value the skills taught at online universities (especially University of the People who have partnerships as well as academic leadership from New York University, Yale, University of Oxford and Columbia University amongst many others) such as being independent (and not having to be micro managed), bringing an international perspective to the workplace (thanks to peer-to-peer learning with people from all over the world), cultural understanding etc.

As mentioned above, UoPeople did gain national accreditation in 2014 from the DEAC and with the support of our academic partners and leadership – we feel certain that UoPeople students will be able to go far with their degree. If you have any more questions you can email me a jessica.cammerman@uopeople.edu. Whichever path you choose - good luck!