To answer your question, Gustavo, I didn't dislike it. Well, at least some of it. There were parts of it I liked and parts that really disappointed me. At this point I don't think it was worth the price, but I haven't turned in any of the assignments or asked for much help from the advisers so I could be wrong.
On the plus side (in no particular order):
- it covers a lot of different topics (some better than others),
- the newer booklets were easy to read and well illustrated
- the "free gifts" were of better quality than I thought they would be,
- the one question I've asked of the student advisers was answered promptly and the answer was helpful,
- I liked the instructors - never met them but they seemed nice when talking with each other on the audio CDs and DVDs,
- the DVDs were informative, and
- the audio CDs were interesting.
- some of the booklets were too old - a few were WAY too old. I think over 20 years old is too old for a textbook This was the biggest disappointment for me,
- some of the topics weren't covered in enough detail so I had to do a lot of additional research,
- there should have been more DVDs on more topics, They updated the videos from VHS to DVD but they were the same old videos - mostly pertinent, but they could have added at least one new one,
- I didn't find the audio CDs as instructive as I thought they should have been, They were mostly interesting, but .....,
- I thought each lesson should have its own CD - sometimes there were several lessons on one CD and sometimes a lesson was split over 2 CDs, and
- I didn't find the comprehensive exams very helpful.
- The school claims that you can continue to ask questions of them after you graduate which would be a plus, but of course I'm not there yet so don't really know.
- I noticed in the older booklets that they had a page of "homework" - pictures you should take to reinforce the lessons - I don't know why they left those out of the new books. I think it would have been very helpful.
- I finished the reading, audio, and DVDs in under 4 months, but one of those months I hardly touched it and the time includes a lot of additional researching. I mostly did the course on weekends. (What I'm saying is that it didn't seem to be a lot of content for the money.)
- I learned a lot from the course which to me is more important than liking the course, but I think I could have learned the same information for less money and possibly learned it better. I did a lot of research before I took the course and I couldn't find one self-study course that offered the structured learning that NYIP offered and I needed that to get started. I should have looked harder because there are some out there. Some for more money and some for less. Update 09/20/2012: for two examples see my posts Fundamentals of Digital Photography 2012 and Karl Taylor's Free Photography Mini-Course.
