4 years ago
My husband is a senior transfer student at DePaul ...
My husband is a senior transfer student at DePaul in CDM, and I can say with all sincerity, this has been a terrible academic experience for him. He's an immigrant whose first language is not English, and the lack of support on all fronts is staggering. 90% of the professors he's had in the past two years are entirely devoid of passion and caring, both in their course material and in the welfare of their students. Lectures are routinely abbreviated (especially in the current covid paradigm). He has a professor currently whose average recorded lecture time is under 10 minutes. Don't be fooled by the low faculty to student ratio and all the hype DePaul tries to build around "large university resources with small, intimate classes" - at least in CDM, faculty are cold, unavailable, and seemingly disinterested in the classes they teach. One CDM professor announced on day 1 of Spring Term 2020 that his son "is a doctor, and he really doesn't need to be doing this sort of work."
Tutoring and academic advising are two more areas where this school fails miserably. From my husband's experience, I'd say it's a flip of the coin each time he books a DePaul tutor whether that individual will actually have even a rudimentary knowledge of the programming language he's seeking help with. The CDM advising office is even WORSE, as they are understaffed and totally inept when it comes to helping students plan out their education. Total lack of empathy, as they try to rush you out the door each time. Also, they're grossly understaffed, which may contribute to the churn and burn mood at the advising office. Online systems for course registration and degree mapping are frequently down or display erroneous information. Good luck getting anyone at advising to care. I helped my husband navigate a wild goose chase of a scheduling issue where the course did not align with degree requirements as the professor had clearly stated via email (and as was easily viewable online).
This term, in an app development class my husband needs, they require a Macbook in order to complete the assignments. My husband has a PC, so needed to rent one from the CDM loaner program. This has also been a total joke, as he's received conflicting approval emails, then told he was being lent a Windows 10 machine, which is NOT what he requested or requires. And once again, abysmal customer service. But hey, at least they're consistent in their total and utter disgruntled ineptitude!
If we had to do this over again, we would've chosen a different school. This is not the undergraduate experience my husband was promised, and it sure isn't in line with the cost. XYZ State University would be a solid improvement on this place.
Posting this here, as internal complaints the past two years have gone NOWHERE. I hope others will speak out about this sham of an institution pretending to espouse "Vincentian Values". Give me a break.