Metropolitan State University of Denver — Attraction in Denver

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The curriculum looks fine on paper, but once you’re in the classes, it’s all outdated material, redundant topics, and a complete lack of connection to modern technology.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...

UPDATE: after graduating I’m left with the worst college experience. This school didn’t help me at all with starting a career in any way. I feel like I’ve been robbed for the last six years and now have 14k in student debt loans that I somehow have to pay back when most places won’t even hire me even with a degree. No one told me that after turning 24 I would be eligible for financial aid otherwise I would have waited to finish school instead of taking out more loans. This school has upset me so much in every way, I couldn’t even afford to go to my graduation ceremony because they wanted me to pay $90 to rent a cap and gown. My feelings towards this school have grown stronger as I’m getting closer to graduating. It is clear as day how little they actually care about the students as well as the teachers at this school. It is completely asinine to make student AND teachers pay $7.50 a day to park on campus there is no reasoning for it, when everyone is paying so much already to attend this school everyone should have a parking spot they can register for. I’m an art student and the art department hasn’t gotten any upgrades in years for the students that pay thousand of dollars a semester. We all have to sit on stools for hours and attempt to make art. We should never have to pay to take the RTD in the first place with how extremely unsafe it is especially at 6p.m. when a lot of classes end. I am worried about my safety every single time I get on the light rail especially since there are never any cops around when you actually need them there at those times.

The school cuts corners in every way possible from sand paper for toilet paper in all of the bathrooms to creating every little fee possible to add to students tuitions. This school has been an absolute joke and a scam. They can’t even keep teachers around because of how little benefits the teachers get, causing there to be the smallest amount of classes available every semester. This school has made my college experience the largest inconvenience possible. They change the setup of everything we need to access online every year practically and it is way more trouble than it is worth. I applied for work study at the beginning of the semester and now that it is close to the end of the semester they finally gave me the job I applied for so I only have a month to work after being unemployed and struggling with money since summer. Yet they expect me to pay the rest of my tuition out of pocket that my financial aid couldn’t cover just because I didn’t have an extra credit added on this semester that I wouldn’t have even had the chance to apply to because no one explained this to me till the middle of the semester at the student success building. The sad part is that every other work study student I have talked to about this went through the same exact process, they truly don’t care about us, especially those that are struggling...

Final Update: To all those considering going into Cyber or Computer Information Systems: proceed with caution. Janos Fustos is the most garbage professor I have ever come across. Stressed out all of us this last semester. Multiple students had 4.0s and he ruined everyone's GPAs. Forced him to curve the final because everyone failed. We even had a meeting with him and his boss - extremely dismissive and defensive. Fustos is a tenured professor so he is virtually untouchable and can do no wrong. The man is coasting into retirement with absolutely zero passion for teaching. His tests consist entirely out of questions from back of the book and he believes memorizing is the best way to learn. His classes sit at the very end of the degree and he serves as a gatekeeper for the CIS and Cyber degree's and the programs do not allow any other alternative choices for professors. Unfortunately I'm too deep into my degree to switch schools. Yet another reason I WOULD NEVER AGAIN ATTEND THIS SCHOOL.

Most professors have teaching as their second job. What does this mean? Perpetually 5+ weeks behind on grading, so you never have a solid idea of where you stand. Nowhere else is this acceptable, but here it's a valid excuse. No other job allows you to underperform because you have 2 jobs, at MSU however it is used to justify.

Seriously the most incompetent administrative staff I have every had the displeasure of dealing with.

Financial aid glitches: every semester. Updates to degree progress report: only when you call and ask. I have class I completed over a week ago that still show pending. I have classes that I dropped that still show as pending. Every time you call for help, you find yourself talking to uncaring and incompetent student employees that gatekeep actual staff that can actually affect change - and this is only if you are lucky enough to get you call answered. Timely answers to emails within even 2x the quoted timeframe: forget about it. I am so incredibly fed up with this sorry excuse of an institution. If I were not 7 classes away from graduating, I would be long gone.

Am I going for a master's program after this? Yes. Does metro offer it? Yes. Will I attend metro again for graduate degree: not an ice cube's chance in heII.

To MSU's response: if our feedback were actually important to you, you would have done something about these issues after years of others feeling the same way and your institution having a bad reputation. Please don't serve up template responses because it just makes you look even worse. Better off just...