Is Arizona State's Online Electrical Engineering Degree Legitimate/Marketable?

I don't think a distinction between how you obtained a degree exists, but rather where....

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/arizona-state-university-104151/overall-rankings

Can't help you there, they had just invented electricity when I got my degree.

A degree is just a piece of paper, what counts is what you learn throughout the course and the common sense to put that knowledge to use.

I think your question should be, "I'm wondering how credible/legitimate/marketable on-line degrees are to the engineering community.

Then the next step would be to interview several schools who offer on-line degrees and then choose one.

They should all have information on employment of students with on-line degrees.

There are probably statistics somewhere on-line regarding employment success of on-line degree holders.

Both my grown children attended ASU and have degrees, and jobs.

It's about as good as any western schools.

Most of the members here are older. There was no "line" except the telephone line when we went to school.

Good luck.

Did you have telephones back then? Your not farting dust are you? LMAO, just joking my friend!

Dan

Look sonny, we got a phone in 1956, when I was 9YO. There were 8 people on our "party" line. It was pretty obvious when someone was listening in to your conversations.

We had no idea how disadvantaged we were.

We had a Gramma Anderson that listened in for a geriatric past-time. She was the local news hound.

Yes, many of us know how to use a slide rule better than a computer. Still have mine.

Remember when telephones had no touch tone pads or rotary dial and the center was just your telephone number on it. No area codes, just the town the exchange was in followed by a two or three digit number. You asked the operator for the number. Party lines. When we went to my grandmother's we had to crank it.

No pollution crap on cars, just an engine. Points were set with a feeler gauge. Spark plugs all used a 13/16" socket wrench to remove/tighten.

Airplanes had propeller engines. (Constellation had round windows and the Super Constellation had square/rectangular windows).

Cigarettes were a quarter, gasoline was 25 cents a gallon. Bazooka gun was one cent and 5 cents apiece.

Christopher Columbus was my mentor in navigation.

Loved it all!

Good Luck, Old Salt

One very important item to consider is the cost of both the on line education, the local community college and the live away from home college/university/trade school. You will be astonished how much either one of these costs. This is shocking for some of us old flatulents such as myself and many who participate here.

The cost of one semester currently at the school where I got my BS is equal to more than the cost of my whole 4 years of education there!

Good Luck, Old Salt

$513.00 USD per credit hour.

And it (on-line) does have ABET certification.

A while ago, I looked what it the cost were to get my first degree over 25 years ago. all were student loans, about $7,500.00. of which was paid off in about 16 months, I could not stand owing people money.

I obtain a project management degree back in 2012. (had enough credit that transfers to knock off over two years) at first it was 500.00/credit, but Later it turned out to be about 475.00/credit, the onlione courses I took I did not care for, and was quite a bit more difficult that I expected. I do not think I gained as much then if I took it in the class room. But they were general ed credits.

I have a hard time believing one would gain as much if that was a technical degree in inline because of lack of labs.

The University of Wisconsin system, at one time, you had to spend at least one semester on campus.

Man, didn't mean to stir up the dust I too learned on a slide rule and wished I still had mine, but many years have gone by. And I sure don't miss Gladis listening in and spreading the BS. You talk about social media, Face Book can't even come close to the shit she stirred up.

I had taken varied online courses all of which General ed Credit. Frankly, I think you gain more in a class room environment.

Depends on how you place value on it. I went to NDSU Fargo ND for EE degree some years ago and spent a pile of money and 3 and a half years of my life to basically be taught nothing that related to electrical engineering.

For me now a online degree would have been far faster cheaper and likely at least would have gotten me out of 2 years of general nothing classes.

As of now I work in the oil fields as a electrical tech for a fraccing company where I spend 90% of my time sleeping or hanging out and the other 10% is split between actually fixing things and arguing with the equipment operators as to why operator error and mechanical breakdowns are not electrically related issues I deal with.

Oh yea I make around $100K a year and I am just starting out.

If you think your degree will take you places go for it but be aware that where you end up may not have anything to do with what you invested your time and money into to begin with.

For some people, on-line would be great. Frankly, for most, I don't beleive the majority would have the disabling or capability to handily it effectively.

It not charging through classes, like a bull. It what you get out of it. At time, what you get out of it, you have to do it yourself, and for the most part, not follow the class syllabus.

No wonder gas is so overpriced.

Add yours, and another 100,000 non-productive worker's salaries to the millions of dollars worth of good gas they are flaring per month and sooner or later it adds up to overpriced gasoline.

gas is dropping to a point that maybe that it's may be more fiscally feasible to divert their resources to develop the gas they are now flaring off.

"Fiscally feasible". That statement is the biggest crock you've come out with in a long time.

"Fiscally feasible" means there's more immediate profit to be made by bringing in the wells now so the leases don't cost big oil more money.

Sure it's CHEAPER FOR BIG OIL to burn the gas off. They don't have to build the infrastructure and they don't have to pay anybody for the gas they burn off.

You answer it yourself, Good for you.

You can call it what you want, but with limited resources, a choice between two profitable commodities, they will always choose the most profitable commodity.

In other words, they'll pick the low hanging fruit.

Which at one point was oil, now it may be NG.

And with that said, I see a fiscal pinch in the oil producing states. Their profits now have to be earned.

Your question is a very good one. It would be interesting to do a survey among the industries Employee Resource managers and see what the thinking really is out in the real world. Schools and such have a way of teaching what they think industry needs not what industry really needs. Ran into this many times with tech schools and such through the years.

Fixit

Just read and compile all the information on CR4. This will be worth more a degree than anything you can pay online for.

It is not the idea to have an enginering degree without also becoming an engineer.

So pick and chose but make sure you become what the paper says.

The wisdom of the ages is on these pages......

Is it an accredited institution? If not, then it probably does not have much value.

More specifically, many will look for the ABET accreditation. Once you have an ABET accredited degree, the only purpose the prestige of the school will help you is getting an interview. The rest will be up to you.

Quite frankly, once a person has had their 'first' job, the school is of little interest to me. I want to see what they did on the job and almost as important, what do they do when they are not working, but playing. I'd rather see my prospective electrical engineering candidates working on their cars in their spare time versus playing around with oscilloscopes. Breadth of engineering experience is very useful where I work.

I had interview with a potential employee. On his resume it stated he was a graduated from MIT. Of which he brought up a number of times.

What he did know was that I was familiar with the campus and I asked him questions where I received some very odd responses, I wont go into details, but it basically went like this.

P911: So you went to MIT, Correct?"

Potential Employee: "Yes sir."

P911: "MIT, that would be Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Correct?"

Potential Employee: "No, That's Minnesota Institute of Technology."

I wouldn't go over with my disappointment of being mislead. as much as it could have been, that was not even the reason why he wasn't hired, the reason was, he had no interest on what he could do for the company, his only interest was what the company could do for him.

I wished him 'Good Luck'

OMG!! Mean to tell me it isn't all about me me .... me??

Well, maybe they should drop sports from all ABET colleges, but they never would because it's a cash generator.

We knew stuff like this was going on but not to this extent.

how is this going to effect their ABET accreditation.

It probably won't affect their accreditation.

It might affect their athletic program, if student athletes have to actually make passing grades.

IMO, it hard to say, I don't know about NC but a few years back Northwestern was doing pretty good in the Big Ten, there were a number of engineering student on the team.

I have to say it may if any team members are in the engineering program. If for anything, ethics.

I just don't know.

At my alma mater, sports are probably a cash drain.

There is the opposite side of the spectrum. And that probably is what keeps them honest.

I think we were Division 3 or recreational league or something. Small engineering schools don't have much emphasis on the sports. It was something that attracted me to the school because academics were actually more important than win-loss records. I liked that sports wasn't a distraction but complementary to the academic programs. Also, they didn't waste a lot of money trying to attract 'top-talent' to the school with scholarships so money could be spent on more important things. We had a pretty damn good rifle team if I don't say so myself. Our range was in the bottom floor of the gymnasium. I wonder if they still fire there or the lead issues have probably squashed that activity.

Most learning institutions are high priced milking machines. (ask the learned graduates how they are going to pay off $120,000 student loans with $7.50/hr jobs while they wait to be hired based on the prestigious degree they were handed after 4 years) Diligent self study nets the most economical solution. A lineman friend of mine passed the California Bar 3 1/2 years after deciding to become an attorney. State licenses are NOT handed out by universities and will get you further faster.

A lot of that burden has to be put on the students to bare. They should have done more solid personal research on their field of study. (And more than just asking CR4 on what we think.)

And its more than just economics, it the value you get out of the degree.

http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/ is a federal government list of accreditation. I suggest talking to others that have been through the program you are interested in a few years earlier to see if they are happy with practical uses of the material in the program. The school should have a list of alumni willing to talk, if not walk away. Secondly, do not expect any/every EE program to match their material to any job that comes along. Expect that you will need to attend subject specific classes and vendor seminars to understand the changing pieces of the field for many years after graduation. Lastly, don't let any of this selection process discourage you. it is not very different than as an engineer creating a solution and selecting components to be used.

What about lab work, is there no longer any practical content? For example I guess most students don't have large 3 phase motor/generator sets to play with at home.

good answer, some people are not thinking this through.

There are some things that on-line courses can not provide ..... like "hands on" experience.

Are you sure that the school you graduated from still has the MG sets? Mine got rid of them. Labs are now just computer simulations, which would work fine on the internet.

I have no idea if they have the MG sets but they certainly still have labs. As an audio engineer I never expected to work with MG sets but I found myself having to fit 1980s soft start and exciter control circuitry to a largish prewar MG set used for frequency conversion so it actually came in useful.