I have had friends and colleagues attend Masters programs in Bioinformatics at Georgetown, JHU, and UMB. UMUC is hands down the best deal out of any of these schools. The program has a course dedicated to each of the following topics: analysis tools, PERL, JAVA, relational databases, biostat, and microarray analysis. This is far more thorough than both UMB, which crams most of these topics into one course, and Georgetown, which teaches python and leaves out PERL (??). JHU most likely has a more thorough comp sci program but I was told that the classes are not geared towards biological applications./p>

I'm sure each program will change over time, but as of right now UMUC offers a lot for a low price. I received an industry job 6 classes before I obtained my masters.

I studied on campus at Louisiana State U, and University of Texas San Antonio, then completed my BS in Business Administration online at UMUC. I would say the reading, research, and assignments were as difficult if not more so than the previous big public universities I attended. The main difference was I didn't have to go to classes 3 times a week and listen to professors read slides to me and fall asleep in class.

If you are looking for a flexible education that is challenging and mostly self taught than you will find UMUC a good fit. It is not by any means an easy A for a diploma mill. For instance I took a 1 hr elective personal finance course which I tought would be a fluff easy A course. I had to write three 6 page papers on topics like the new credit card act that was passed in congress. I was actually shocked at how hard it was to get an A in that elective. Which is a good thing in my opinion. I was thinking it would just be about balancing your checkbook and investing in stocks etc..

So if you can learn on your own and don't need a professor to hold your hand, I think UMUC's BSBAdmin degree is a solid program.

The professors were surprisingly qualified and most of them took the time to actually reach out and talk to each student, individually. Of course, all of them were willing to work with students 1 v 1, but most were actually proactive in this aspect.

From my experience at a relatively prestigious undergrad school (Villanova), the coursework was every bit as challenging, courses more straightforward (less confusion), and professors every bit as knowledgeable (and actually more accessible). The material given to us was as good as it gets, many of them being multimedia sources of actual Harvard lectures. I was disappointed to see the negative reviews until I realized they all appear to be from those who failed to complete or even try the courses anyway. I definitely recommend UMUC.

There was an issue with a payment when I requested some transcripts a few months back and now I have a large bill that must be payed before they will release my transcripts to the new school. On top of this everytime I call to talk to someone just to pay the damn thing and I keep getting different numbers to call and no-one ever answers.

I was even given a fax number to call once. I'm getting the run-around, plain and simple. I can't say the teachers are bad, class work mediocre, but their student services and account assistance is beyond a joke. I would NOT recommend this school.

I attended UMUC for 4 semesters and witnessed how poorly trained and unprepared the professors are and the staff. And when I was looking for a job I realized that no one respects a BA from UMUC!