Brandman University? Masters talk

[Rake47]

Hey gang. Finally decided to check the Masters box after my dream of getting my MBA at a brick and mortar school while still flying the line was dashed by COVID. Doing some research I came across Brandman university, particularly their MA in Organizational Leadership. LSS I was surprised to see they give you 15 credit hours upfront just for being an E7 or above, taking your military leadership training/exp to account. Which boils down to only needing to take 21 credit hours (7 classes) to complete the MAOL program. Does anyone have any experience with Brandman? Their MOAL program? Or know of any other similar programs that give credit for military leadership training/service? Cheers!

[FlyingWolf]

I did Brandman’s MAOL program and think it was solid. It will cost you some out of pocket and each class is a bit more challenging than other min-run options, but the 15 hrs credit is great. Good quality education IMO.

[nunya]

I can't help you with Brandman, but here's some unsolicited advice from a has-been finding himself in a potentially tough spot.  Get a degree employers will recognize and one that will be useful to you if/when you need it. I did like everyone else and wasted my time and money on an ERAU/Touro/Phoenix masters.

Now I'm in a position where I would love to show an employer I can do stuff and I don't have a degree worth putting on a resume. I'd love to go back and tell my Capt self to spend a little extra time and get an MBA from a school everyone's heard of. ASU, Nebraska, FSU, Oklahoma State, CSU all have online MBAs. So you can't get a brick and mortar Harvard MBA.  At least get something from a school an employer won't have to google (because they won't).

[FLEA]

47 minutes ago, nunya said:

I can't help you with Brandman, but here's some unsolicited advice from a has-been finding himself in a potentially tough spot.  Get a degree employers will recognize and one that will be useful to you if/when you need it. I did like everyone else and wasted my time and money on an ERAU/Touro/Phoenix masters.

Now I'm in a position where I would love to show an employer I can do stuff and I don't have a degree worth putting on a resume. I'd love to go back and tell my Capt self to spend a little extra time and get an MBA from a school everyone's heard of. ASU, Nebraska, FSU, Oklahoma State, CSU all have online MBAs. So you can't get a brick and mortar Harvard MBA.  At least get something from a school an employer won't have to google (because they won't).

For what it's worth my wife did her master's at ASU while I did mine through AMU and her coursework was actually much easier. I was a bit pissed about that. 

[Rake47]

1 hour ago, FlyingWolf said:

I did Brandman’s MAOL program and think it was solid. It will cost you some out of pocket and each class is a bit more challenging than other min-run options, but the 15 hrs credit is great. Good quality education IMO.

Did you do it %100 online? How long did it take you? Any big pros or cons?

[Sua Sponte]

As a former Enlisted guy who got out, went to state school for undergrad, a prestigious private school for my masters, and just applied to a state school for a doctorates program, and have been through a few job interviews post-military, I would say where you go to school does matter somewhat. Your mileage my vary based on the industry you’re trying to go in. If it’s Civil Service or defense contractor (what I’m currently), I’d say it doesn’t matter. The government treats a JD from Yale and a JD from Texas Tech as the same, just check the box. My sister’s a recruiter and has told me that recruiters usually give applicants a pass if they have a “degree mill” school on their resume as long as they have a legitimate school for their other degree e.g USAFA for undergrad, Touro for grad school. At the last two jobs I’ve worked, where I went to college was brought up in the interview due to either the interviewer being alumni at the same college, or they were impressed by me going to a prestigious school in a competitive program.

Like nunya said, plenty of legitimate state and private schools offer good graduate programs that are fully online or a hybrid (have to go in-residence for a few days on campus). You’ll have some people here post that they got a great job with their box checking degrees at degree mills and that’s great. But that’s obviously not the norm and just like what we’ve seen with the recent airline industry, especially as of yesterday, life can throw you a curveball and you’re polishing up your resume for something else.

Edited October 2, 2020 by Sua Sponte

[propflux]

I'm about to finish the Brandman MAOL.   7 classes go by pretty quickly, and I genuinely enjoyed the material.  Brandman just announced that they will become UMass Global at the end of this year, so the degree will carry (at least a little) more name recognition.  I'd recommend it , if for nothing else, becuase it's quick and easy.

Edited October 3, 2020 by propflux

[Khruangbin33]

I recommend against Brandman.  A close friend picked this school for convenience sake, though in fairness, it was for a different program than MAOL.  There are some real pieces of work that are employed by Brandman and long story short they made it very difficult for my friend to remain enrolled and maintain steady progress through the program while handling several family emergencies.  Ended up filing a couple formal complaints with both Brandman and the professional organization that accredited the particular school.

I do recommend looking in to Washington State University's MBA program, which is available 100% online.  I almost enrolled a few years ago but I got picked up for UPT and life took some other interesting turns.   The program isn't fast or easy, but they will waive the GMAT requirement under certain circumstances, and it carries the credibility that nunya and Sua Sponte talk about.

 

[Sua Sponte]

A lot of colleges are waiving GMAT/GRE scores due to the pandemic, FYI.

Edited October 3, 2020 by Sua Sponte

[Rake47]

On 10/2/2020 at 10:32 PM, wazzuPIC said:

I recommend against Brandman.  A close friend picked this school for convenience sake, though in fairness, it was for a different program than MAOL.  There are some real pieces of work that are employed by Brandman and long story short they made it very difficult for my friend to remain enrolled and maintain steady progress through the program while handling several family emergencies.  Ended up filing a couple formal complaints with both Brandman and the professional organization that accredited the particular school.

I do recommend looking in to Washington State University's MBA program, which is available 100% online.  I almost enrolled a few years ago but I got picked up for UPT and life took some other interesting turns.   The program isn't fast or easy, but they will waive the GMAT requirement under certain circumstances, and it carries the credibility that nunya and Sua Sponte talk about.

 

Thanks for the advice. Care to explain a little more on what went wrong? We’re they not Mil friendly?

[Rake47]

On 10/2/2020 at 9:08 PM, propflux said:

I'm about to finish the Brandman MAOL.   7 classes go by pretty quickly, and I genuinely enjoyed the material.  Brandman just announced that they will become UMass Global at the end of this year, so the degree will carry (at least a little) more name recognition.  I'd recommend it , if for nothing else, becuase it's quick and easy.

So your degree says Brandman or UMass on it now? How long did it take you to finish the 7 classes? Thanks!

[propflux]

7 hours ago, Rake47 said:

So your degree says Brandman or UMass on it now? How long did it take you to finish the 7 classes? Thanks!

I started in Jan '19 and am about to finish in 2 weeks.  I took a few terms off for reasons like deployment and surgery.  If you push through, it's about 14 months (8 weeks per class).  I've heard of other people having trouble with Brandman admin, but it's been fine for me.   YMMV, but I've found everyone I've dealt with pretty helpful and responsive,especially with adding/dropping classes and getting the mil tuition discount ($1200/class). 

I'll get a Brandman diploma since I'll finish before the merger at the end of the year, but they've already announced that alums have the option to replace the Brandman diploma with a UMass one.  I'm pretty sure I'll take them up on that.  

There are definitely people in the program who have no business getting an "advanced" degree -- making responses to discussion posts pretty maddening -- but you get out of it what you put in, and I definitely learned a lot of concepts that are very applicable to a military career an beyond.  And while I agree with Wazzu about getting a reputable degree if you want to use it after the military, I think we all know what we're getting into when we're deciding on the path of least resistance.  Full disclosure -- my undergrad was a top 20-ish school and this is my second (non PME) masters, so I wasn't all that concerned about the reputation of the school.  At least Brandman is not for-profit and part of an actual respectable university system (Chapman U in CA) -- though no one is confusing it for an actual degree from Chapman.   I think the UMass name will make it even (a little) more worthwhile.

Best of luck.

[Khruangbin33]

8 hours ago, Rake47 said:

Thanks for the advice. Care to explain a little more on what went wrong? We’re they not Mil friendly?

The admission/enrollment side was friendly initially; the discipline-specific staff (dean, instructor) less so.  Generally inflexible and hostile towards reasonable requests to maneuver within the bounds of a particular course's syllabus while still accomplishing course objectives.  Much as propflux encountered students with no business being in the program, there are occasional instructors with no business holding that position or title.  However, if you assess Brandman to be a good fit, my animosity towards them and their non-MBA-related program should not be a factor for you.

1 hour ago, propflux said:

I think we all know what we're getting into when we're deciding on the path of least resistance.

Three caveats up front:  1) I haven't seen the following COA run to completion, so it is speculative and spears for me are welcome; 2) Attending WIC solely for the purpose of executing the following COA is the absolute wrong answer; and 3) AFIT NWEPP could be tough to get into if you don't work in the nuke world.  All that said, if you go WIC/AFIT NWEPP-->Air University Online Master's in Operational Warfare or Nuke Weapons-->O-4 Select-->ACSC, this would allow you to min run IDE/PME and still get something out of it.  Completing WIC/AFIT NWEPP reduces your Air University Master's course requirements to 6x8-week core courses, and then you are Master's complete.  The AU Master's gets you credit for several ACSC courses, and then you do the rest of ACSC.  Alternately, complete the AU Masters without WIC or AFIT, get credit for some ACSC courses, then finish the rest of ACSC. This keeps you flying the line, and saves your own money, TA, or GI Bill for a brick and mortar program later on if you want it.

Edited October 5, 2020 by wazzuPIC
COA sequence change and addition OLMP focus

[filthy_liar]

On 10/2/2020 at 1:00 PM, Sua Sponte said:

 If it’s Civil Service or defense contractor (what I’m currently), I’d say it doesn’t matter. 

That checks.  I'd say a couple of exceptions are 1) highly technical fields, like cyber defense and some engineering gigs, and 2) civil service employees who are aspiring to one day be an SES.

[Lord Ratner]

I did the AU ACSC masters course. It was actually pretty good, focuses on leadership, costs nothing, and had very good instructors with 100% flexibility for the travails of military life.