University of Nevada at Las Vegas

I decided to continue my education with University of Nevada Las Vegas for a master's degree in Education. I am currently a teacher and was hoping for a raise and needed a master's to renew my license. Many other educators suggested that I consider a for profit school or one that was entirely online. However, I felt as though I wanted to have a true educational experience with a public university, as I did with my undergraduate. What a mistake. I certainly cannot speak for the other departments at... Read More UNLV, but for education, my experience was a complete waste of time, money, and resources I could have spent elsewhere. The advising department for education is atrocious. My personal adviser was so bad I'm pretty sure they fired her. At one point in a meeting she told me that if I wasn't able to finish my master's on time, I could just become a substitute teacher instead. (To compare, substitutes get $100 a day, no benefits, no health insurance, no sick days, no stability vs. $41,000 starting pay for a teacher in CCSD with free health insurance for a single person like me. I have been teaching for multiple years now as well, so she was basically telling me to quit my job to do something I was less qualified for and to be paid less). She also had me taking over 20 credits for one semester while I was working as a full time teacher because she was unable to figure out that I needed to take a certain amount of classes before my license expired. I was able to catch the mistake and asked her about it, in to which she went into a complete panic and told me I had to take 21 credits the next semester or I would lose my license. In addition, for a master's degree in education, everyone must have two semesters of either student teaching or, if already a teacher, have a certified person come and watch and review said teacher in their classroom. Being a teacher of record, I had the latter. Overall, the classes were so disorganized. All of my fellow peers were consistently frustrated at how no one seemed to be able to answer questions, even the administrators. Assignments made no sense, often were busy work. Each person who watched me teach said something different as to what was due, there was zero consistency. My first semester for my "student teaching," the woman was atrocious, consistently late, disorganized, and just unpleasant. She would show up half way through my classes and then mark points off my grade because she was late and didn't see the start of class. My in person professors were better, I enjoyed their teaching styles. However, maybe because I'm already a teacher, I felt as though most of the time I spent in class was wasted or was not furthering my education. I didn't really learn any helpful teaching strategies or methods to become a better teacher. To be honest, the most helpful thing I did for the entire two years was read a young adult novel which I could give to my students to read. Finally, the cost. I was okay with spending more money initially with UNLV because I believed I would be receiving a superior educational experience than an all online or for profit school. However, after completing my degree, I realize I basically wasted my money. If you are a teacher and planning on getting a master's, a cheaper option like University of Phoenix is actually better than UNLV. You will learn just as much, if not more, and you will save a ton of money. Overall, my UNLV experience is not one I would suggest to other students.

My university (UNLV) is overall fairly excellent. The cost is reasonable, and the program is well structured. However, the support is somewhat lacking, and the program takes too long. There are very few financial support resources. The university has superior instructors, but the support from most of the faculty is not really there. There are a few members of faculty who were very supportive, but left. There are a few new members of faculty who are supportive. There is a great deal of turnover in... Read More my department, so that is not very beneficial to students. It is often difficult to take classes, because they are not offered when needed. However, the faculty tries to work with students to get them the classes they need, so that is super! There are many time constraints that could be addressed using technology, but I feel that UNLV has not fully embraced technological resources. Finding the right course at the right time in the right format is a challenge, but the professors do try to help. Finding a professor to work with on research is a real challenge. It would be nice if there were more opportunities to work with the professors on research to learn more research skills in the "field". I have had the opportunity to work with some of the professors on their research. However, it has been difficult, and I was not able to continue to publication with them. Publication is very important, yet there are no classes that one can take to help learn how to get published. It is one of those requirements that are not supported, and I feel the school could do a better job in this area. It would be nice if UNLV provided structured assistance for publication.