u/kikinuts

I found some upsetting news today that i took unnecessary courses at a online university this summer when i didn’t have to and spent over $2000 out of pocket for these classes.

Some background information: I’m currently a first year grad student and before i started this semester I needed two classes (Aural Rehab and 25 guided hour lab). I took a separate local leveling program but these credits were not offered so I was referred to this online university in a different state from my grad program that I have already been accepted into.

I only really needed to take 3 classes total (AR, 25 guided observations lab + the lecture class) but the director of the program said I didn’t have the prerequisites for those classes so if i wanted to take these classes i needed to take Articulation and Phonology, and Language Science and Disorders as well. I advocated several times through email that i’ve taken similar courses in my leveling program including sending transcripts of those courses and even showing that I was enrolled in similar courses in my grad program that I was starting in fall, but they insisted I signed up for those courses. The program director also had to request approval from the Dean for this workload request because I was being asked to be enrolled in 12 credits, which is a significantly higher workload for the 8-week summer semester. The Dean described it as the equivalent of taking 24 credits across a 16-week semester. I also sent her my transcripts too in attempt to dismiss these prerequisite.

I feel like it’s important to mention that this was the day before the summer classes started and I was feeling very desperate as I needed to take AR and get my 25 hours of guided observations for me to start in my graduate program in the fall.

I eventually got approved for the workload and I think it is safe to say that I was in the trenches this past summer. I think I cried almost every sunday thinking I wasn’t going to have enough time to finish all my assignments. I had no such thing of a personal life. Everyday I woke up to do my classes until it was time to fall asleep. Fortunately, I got all A’s in my classes.

Flash forward to the present. I am in my grad program and I am talking to someone that was in my leveling program (online as well so I never interacted with her until now), who also enrolled to the same online university this summer to get the prerequisite credits we needed for our grad program. She told me that she only took those credits we needed and that they never required her to take the other prerequisites. I was absolutely livid!!! I went through absolute hell this summer only to hear that someone with the exact same educational background as me did not need to take the same workload. I would’ve saved so much money and tears this summer if they would’ve just let me take the classes I needed 😭

Personally I’m not planning on taking action or sharing the university information. I really am trying to find the light out of this situation because I have much bigger fish to fry. I just overall feel like I was taken advantage of because I was very desperate to get enrolled into these courses I needed for my grad program last minute.

Hello 👋🏽

I’m very excited and also anxious to start my first semester in grad school for SLP. During my advising session to register for classes, she was asking me if I wanted to register for XYZ classes and that if I had interest in these topics I should take them now cause she can’t promise that they will be offered again in the next semesters. I ended up with 7 classes (17 credit hours) at the end of my advising session. I’m starting to feel anxious and thinking I bit off more than I can chew, especially for it being my first time in grad school. 4 of those classes are online and 3 of them are asynchronous. Is taking 7 classes doable for SLP students? or did I just screw my self over taking on all these classes?