"At first, I was a little hesitant to be taking all of my classes online, but I found very quickly that the instructors were deeply engaged in the classroom. The discussions in our weekly forums were invigorating, and the feedback on my assignments were so individualized that it actually exceeded anything that I experienced in a traditional classroom.
More importantly, what UCLA did for me was help to think about being a private college consultant from a holistic perspective. We tackled issues such as counseling the college-bound, financial aid fundamentals, and testing for career assessment. We did interviews and field research. One class requirement was to create a college counseling manual; my instructor’s feedback led to my manual being used as a model for many high schools where I do consulting work. It was a challenging program – instructors demanded a lot from the students, and without exception students responded very positively to the high expectations.
All of my instructors, by the way, were actual working professionals in the field and they frequently highlighted what they were teaching in the classroom based upon experiences occurring in their professional lives. That was a key part of the program: it was directly relevant to the daily life of a private college consultant."
- Jason Lum, Private College Consultant
