Assignments are often graded with requirements that aren't
Finish early
Good educative courses
Great affordable courses for learning and getting credit at your pace. My son took Math 116 to get ready for his calculus course. Son-in-law took an upper division History course and really enjoyed the readings and assignments.
Bad administration
Being able to work at my own pace has been so beneficial. The courses are well organized. The pay is straightforward. The only con I can say would be that I wish there were more courses offered. That being said, I know they do offer more courses than other independent study programs. Well done. :)
Unnecessary processes
provided to you
It's a decent alternative to earn BYU credits outside of the classroom or as a non-day-continuing student. My wife finished her major and minor requirements but was still shy of the university-imposed 120 credit requirement so she took several classes through here. There's not really any professor interaction and resources are limited as far as where to get help, but most of it is just read and take a quiz, lather, rinse, repeat. It isn't the most effective method of learning for many, but it gets the credits. Course material is rarely updated which can make the living prophets class really hard because you have to memorize a quorum that's half passed on and use that for all the "Which apostle {insert specific factoid here}" questions. Professors can take some time to grade things so trying to race through a class before a graduation deadline can lead to some serious frustration. You can typically work ahead of the grades but it can be tricky going forward without initial feedback. The student employee customer service team can put in urgent requests and things for assignments but in the end the professor will get to it when they get to it. Professors are busy -- that's understandable. The customer service seems to be pretty helpful with logistics and housekeeping items related to the courses. However, they just recently changed their on-site (Morris Center nestled in the new Heritage buildings) test taking system from walk-ins to an appointment-based system. You can schedule a time online but you can't change that time if something comes up. We were on the phone with them trying to change it and they were tripping over themselves talking to supervisors trying to figure out how the new system worked. In the end the appointment was not rescheduled but they let her take her exam when she walked in the next day. I'm sure this is a short-term issue that will be ironed out shortly, but it was kind of frustrating that it was deployed before having the student employees thoroughly trained on it. All in all, it's a feasible alternative for many. It has its pros and cons but they appear to be trying to make it better as they go. As the Pathway program keeps growing I'm sure Independent Study will see additional attention and resources in the future.
(There is more. I can't remember all of it right now.)
Test ordering process is tedious
Tests include information not provided
Not interactive at all (unless TL, but still minimal)
TL is not worth the extra 100
Cons: Expensive
Pros: You could take classes on your level
Many errors in the quizzes and on the most important lessons, they dont feature a lab for a teacher to walk through it.
Byu Independent Study is a US University based in Provo, Utah. Byu Independent Study is located at Morris Center, 120 Morris Center, Provo, UT 84602, USA.
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