A few days ago I got a letter from Park that really pissed me off... so I waited a few days to write this.
First off -- Park University, a school that originally provided education for people associated with the military, is a poor choice of a school. Use it only if you have to.
Here is why.
My experience with Park is that they are inflexible, rule-bound, and not open to working with their students to achieve their education. Bureaucracy is the order of the day and education is just a side effect of that.
So if you want to actually learn something, or if you desire some cooperation from your institution of learning, do NOT go to Park.
At the start, they were pretty anal about how they wanted to get my transcripts. A sealed envelope from the school, delivered by me, was not good enough. I balked and they took 'em anyway, but it caused them unhappiness.
Taking my class (speech), the teacher was okay but the class was not all that enlightening. However, the teacher lived in fear (okay, concern) about the class schedule and how the bean counting administration would view any early class dismissals. Twice, I think, during the class one of the admins would sit in to make sure things were going okay. I didn't think much of this at the time, but it does seem a bit excessive in the larger context of my experience.
Then I wanted to move on and take a math course. The prereq class was something I had in High School, so it didn't show on my transcript, and I've been using similar math for, oh, twenty years in my job. The teacher was fine with me taking the class.
When I asked the teacher, we CC'ed the admin as well. Normally, she never answers her e-mail when I have questions, but this one she snapped up within minutes. Motivated, apparently, by the horror of my actually asking a teacher if I could take his class. Apparently, the correct (and undocumented, as far as I can tell) process is to grovel before the administration and get their blessing.
Needless to say, they didn't. Have to jump through the prereq hoops to get in. Their thinking was that they are trying to ensure my success in the class. My thinking is that they can't cope with anything out of the ordinary. It's on MY head if I fail the class, and I am the one, as an ADULT STUDENT with EXPERIENCE, who can make that assessment best.
So onward.
I enrolled in Park early -- because I had a tidal wave of deadlines and work coming in (the book, Haunted Trails) and I wanted to get the paperwork done and out of the way. It turns out, my enrollment occured in the last week of the term. This, apparently, started a clock ticking. Then the next term I didn't take a class. THEN I took a class...
During my enrollment, I was told there was an August 1 deadline to get some validate learning experience credits in (prior learning). My thought was that schools are cyclic and school deadlines are equally cyclic. If I missed this deadline, I would have to submit to a later evaluation deadline... no big deal.
Turns out that was a drop-dead date, beyond which I forfit my VLE hopes.
I don't know what the purpose of that deadline was (they never explained that part), but those "two terms" where I was enrolled but not active in the school were ridiculous. I asked for an exception. I was refused.
At no point in my interaction with Park was there any flexibility, proper explanation of their inflexibility, or any support for me, the student and client, towards getting my degree.
So. Park Sucks. Don't go there. Tell your friends.
Posted by Edwin at November 10, 2004 09:09 AM