Review of LSHTM Distance

[Gib1]

I wasn’t sure where else to post this but felt I had to warn others. I enrolled in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Distance MSc in Epidemiology program and had a bad experience.


The good:

The course material was challenging. The first Epidemiology module was quite good. The exams were challenging so afterwards I felt confident in my knowledge of the topics. Plus, the program is about a fourth of the cost of American programs.


The bad:

I spent at least a third of my time either dealing with technical issues on their end, managing their bureaucracy, navigating their archaic websites, and waiting, waiting, waiting... I had enrolled in the LSHTM program because I heard it was good and wanted the convenience of working at my own pace. But I found the convenience regularly interrupted by downed sites and very slow response times to questions. In fact, they make it incredibly difficult to ask a question. To ask a question, you either post in a discussion group and the course attendant will respond in a couple of days (sometimes over a week later). Or, often times course attendants will make a comment/announcement that is closed for comments, which means you have to enter one of a number of different system (it takes a while to figure out the appropriate systems to ask different types of questions), open an enquiry, and then wait for it to run through the bureaucracy to get to the person who can answer. I had to do this many times; response times ranges from 5 days to 2 months!

Because they are so understaffed, they have to make it difficult to answer questions. I got the sense that they were underpaid as well. There was a strike at the beginning of my second year.

There are no professors involved. Your interactions are solely with other course assistants. They were reasonably knowledgeable but there are only two of them per class size of hundreds. They also have other jobs, which means that you are not first priority.


All in all, I strongly recommend anyone experienced with the American university system to reconsider. The price is certainly enticing. But you may be sorely disappointed about the quality of the experience. I hate to say this because I think American university prices have gotten completely out of control. At the $100K price tag on an American MPH program, one might reconsider getting a degree at all. I definitely lose sleep over all the student loans I have to manage. Can anyone recommend another inexpensive, MPH program?


About me: I have degrees from a UC and an ivy

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[Stories]

my time either dealing with technical issues on their end, managing their bureaucracy, navigating their archaic websites, and waiting, waiting, waiting... I had enrolled in the LSHTM program because I heard it was good and wanted the convenience of working at my own pace. But I found the convenience regularly interrupted by downed sites and very slow response times to questions. In fact, they make it incredibly difficult to ask a question. To ask a question, you either post in a discussion group and the course attendant will respond in a couple of days (sometimes over a week later). Or, often times course attendants will make a comment/announcement that is closed for comments, which means you have to enter one of a number of different system (it takes a while to figure out the appropriate systems to ask different types of questions), open an enquiry, and then wait for it to run through the bureaucracy to get to the person who can answer. I had to do this many times; response times ranges from 5 days to 2 months!

I'm sorry you had such a poor experience.

I don't think poor service is isolated to the online program--my spouse attended another very prestigious institution in London for graduate work and experienced similar levels of apathy for helping students, lack of attentiveness to issues, and poor/long response times. This goes for not just the university-related stuff, but even things like signing up for internet access through the local telecom. My cousin has reported similar things from Ireland, as well. Americans will definitely have to get used to the different pace and attitude towards service is much worse outside the US.

That said, aside from the bureaucracy and slow pace of administration, the education was great and the quality of instruction was great according to my spouse (she was local, not distance/online).

 

[Adelanne]

I wasn’t sure where else to post this but felt I had to warn others. I enrolled in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Distance MSc in Epidemiology program and had a bad experience.


The good:

The course material was challenging. The first Epidemiology module was quite good. The exams were challenging so afterwards I felt confident in my knowledge of the topics. Plus, the program is about a fourth of the cost of American programs.


The bad:

I spent at least a third of my time either dealing with technical issues on their end, managing their bureaucracy, navigating their archaic websites, and waiting, waiting, waiting... I had enrolled in the LSHTM program because I heard it was good and wanted the convenience of working at my own pace. But I found the convenience regularly interrupted by downed sites and very slow response times to questions. In fact, they make it incredibly difficult to ask a question. To ask a question, you either post in a discussion group and the course attendant will respond in a couple of days (sometimes over a week later). Or, often times course attendants will make a comment/announcement that is closed for comments, which means you have to enter one of a number of different system (it takes a while to figure out the appropriate systems to ask different types of questions), open an enquiry, and then wait for it to run through the bureaucracy to get to the person who can answer. I had to do this many times; response times ranges from 5 days to 2 months!

Because they are so understaffed, they have to make it difficult to answer questions. I got the sense that they were underpaid as well. There was a strike at the beginning of my second year.

There are no professors involved. Your interactions are solely with other course assistants. They were reasonably knowledgeable but there are only two of them per class size of hundreds. They also have other jobs, which means that you are not first priority.


All in all, I strongly recommend anyone experienced with the American university system to reconsider. The price is certainly enticing. But you may be sorely disappointed about the quality of the experience. I hate to say this because I think American university prices have gotten completely out of control. At the $100K price tag on an American MPH program, one might reconsider getting a degree at all. I definitely lose sleep over all the student loans I have to manage. Can anyone recommend another inexpensive, MPH program?


About me: I have degrees from a UC and an ivy

Thank you for your review, Gib1! I'm revitalizing this thread in hopes of eliciting other reviews. I'm considering studying for an MSc in Epidemiology through their distance program.