★☆☆☆☆
1 out of 5
9 months ago
TL:DR If you’re considering MSU Denver for Computer Science or IT, don’t. Go somewhere else. Save your time, your money, and your sanity.
-----------------------
This school is an absolute joke. I transferred from Community College of Denver with an associate degree in IT and Computer Science, and somehow my credits still didn’t transfer correctly. Their “prior learning credit” system is a complete scam. They don’t even recognize basic, industry-standard certifications like CompTIA. These are foundational in the tech field, and the fact that MSU Denver ignores them shows how disconnected the program is from reality.
I’ve had to challenge multiple classes I’ve already taken elsewhere, and I’m still being forced to take 101-level courses despite already holding an IT and Computer Science degree. The entire transfer and advising process feels deliberately confusing and obstructive. Honestly, I’m starting to suspect MSU Denver is intentionally forcing students to retake classes and stack unnecessary credits just to milk more tuition money. Nothing else explains how broken and inconsistent their transfer system is.
The curriculum looks fine on paper, but once you’re in the classes, it’s all outdated material, redundant topics, and a complete lack of connection to modern technology.
SW Dev Methods and Tools (CS 3250) with Jody Paul was utterly worthless. We did absolutely nothing all semester. The class was nothing but circular talk and confusing “management theory” with zero practical work. No one knew what was going on. When I asked him directly, he said he was “being a bad manager on purpose” to show us what that’s like. That’s not teaching, that’s laziness pretending to be pedagogy. He just seems burned out and coasting for a paycheck.
Networking & Distributed Computing (CS 3700) with Thien Ngo Le is less bad. It’s painfully obvious he’s a lifetime academic with no industry experience. We’ve spent half the semester talking about TCP and UDP, over 30 hours on something that should take one lecture. At the 3000 level, we should be hands-on with AWS, distributed systems, or something modern. Instead, it’s like being trapped in a 2005 intro course.
Assembly Lang Prog & HPC Intro (CS 2400) with Diane Rhodes has been another absolute slog. I took the same class at CCD, one of the ones that failed to transfer and that I’m currently fighting to get fixed, yet I’m being forced to take it again here. The class is disorganized, and she constantly goes off on tangents, rambling half on-topic but never getting to the real, difficult parts that actually need explanation. And the midterm? On paper. She literally had us write assembly code by hand. What is this, 1970? Completely absurd for a modern computer science program.
Academic advising is a joke. Every time I’ve gone, it’s been pointless. They don’t care, they can’t do anything, and they don’t help with planning or problem-solving. They seem powerless and uninterested, which pretty much sums up the entire administrative side of this school.
The one bright spot has been CS 1030 (Computer Science Principles) with Klaus Streicher. He’s the only one actually teaching something useful and current. He tried using Cengage, realized it was a dumpster fire, and dropped it almost immediately. Since then, he’s been teaching relevant, hands-on material that’s actually better than what’s being taught in 2000 and 3000-level classes. He’s proof that it’s not the students, it’s the system. Honestly, he should be running the department.
I can’t overstate how disappointed and frustrated I am with MSU Denver. The curriculum is outdated, the professors (with a few exceptions) are unmotivated, and the advising process is a bureaucratic nightmare. Even though it’s relatively cheap, it’s still not worth it. Between the broken transfer system, useless advising, irrelevant coursework, and professors who seem stuck decades behind, there’s a 0% chance of getting any real return on investment here.
Cove Pontin
