Alternative Education at the University of Management and Technology

ROSSLYN, Va., March 3, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On 24 July, UMT held its 2016 Commencement in Rosslyn, VA.  There are 1,132 graduates in the class of 2016. The great majority are working professionals.

Since 1998 when UMT began to offer degree programs, it has built a strong global learning community through its online and distance education.  Geographical boundaries do not limit UMT and its students.  As of February 2017, UMT has provided various levels of education programs to 22,153 students, who reside in 50 states, district and territories in the US, and in 78 countries worldwide. Of these, 11,272 have earned their degrees from UMT.

Back in the old days, getting a college degree entailed shipping a trunk full of goodies to your college of choice the week before your Freshman year began, then sticking it out at the college for four years. Anyone who took longer than four years to complete a degree was viewed as some kind of weak-minded plodder. Today, students who make it through college in four years are a minority. A recent Department of Education fact sheet indicates that only 23.4% of students who enter a four year college actually graduate from that college within four years.

This is the new reality that the University of Management and Technology addresses in its degree programs. Most of its students are adults who have been working toward their degrees in bits and pieces as they earn a living, serve in the military, start a family, and squeeze in time to write term papers and prepare for exams. Many have attended several schools before settling down at UMT. Over the years they have accumulated quite a lot of transfer credit, so by the time they come to us, they are in a position to earn a degree in a year or two. UMT accepts up to 75% transfer credit for their undergrad degree programs.

Today's alternative students are looking to get a degree to help them move forward in their careers. What's interesting about them is that many have already developed valuable skills that make them employable and give them a toe-hold in a life career. Their principal goal in getting the degree is partially to pick up a few more skills; but chiefly, it's to get a degree that validates the expertise they have been developing over the past few years. For example, students who serve in the military are drawn to UMT's undergraduate criminal justice or homeland security programs. They are comfortable doing police and security work, because they have experience in these areas through their military service. Another example: adult students who honed technical skills in business or in the military see a track management by enrolling in BS in Engineering Management degree.  They are qualified to manage engineering work efforts thanks to the advanced technical skills they have acquired at work or in the military, coupled with the engineering management knowledge they have gained through the University of Management and Technology BS in Engineering Management.

Because UMT online courses allows students to self-paced, highly motivated students can complete their programs faster than at traditional semester-driven schools. If through hard work a student can complete a course in six weeks, then let him finish it and move on to the next course. The workload for self-paced courses is the same whether a student completes the course in six or a dozen weeks. Everyone must carry out the same load of work. But those who work harder, get through faster.

The University of Management and Technology's academic counseling service enables students to customize their programs to address their specific desires, skills and achievements. Whenever students enroll in the programs at UMT, they are assigned a counselor who provides them an Individual Learning Plan that meets their best interests. No two students have the identical learning plan, because each plan is tweaked to account for the student's past learning as well as current learning interests.

The option of heading off to a residential college program at a four year school is not real one for the great majority of adult, working students today. These students are looking for an affordable school that accepts the coursework they have completed and applies it to a degree; enables them to work flexibly toward the degree; and provides counseling that lets them put together a program that will serve them best in pursuing their careers. The University of Management and Technology serves them well in meeting these needs.

SOURCE University of Management and Technology