I had a good experience at Calhoun back when. I attended Calhoun when they had satellite campuses all over the place. The main campus was (and I guess still is) in Decatur, and yes you had to attend a lot of classes there; however, they also had satellite classrooms on Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville High School and in "THE Mall" - yes where Barnes and Noble is now, only further down the mall - you had to hang a left at the western themed bar and it was on the east side of The Mall where Picadilly used to be. We always joked that if you leaned in closely enough to the cinder walls you could still hear the servers saying "Serve you, Serve you please?!?!?!" :D
Because high school was such a breeze for me and really did not prepare me for college, I started UAH with a whopping 1.0 and yes, academic probation my first semester. I had no idea you could drop a class and really did *not* think the professors meant what they said when they assigned voluminous amounts of reading/coursework with only a day or so to accomplish it, and I paid for it with terrible grades my first semester.
Enter Calhoun! Calhoun to the rescue! I took classes all over north Alabama or at least it felt like it with part time college professors and full time ones, too. Anyway, it was still hard work; however the staff were friendlier than UAH, more accommodating to those of us who worked, and had more of a smaller, diverse group of students. I still learned and I learned a LOT at Calhoun!
I managed to pull my grades up to graduate with two associates at cum laude and transfer back to UAH to do the same with 1 BA cum laude.
The tip for anyone planning to do a similar approach to getting a degree is to stay in touch with UAH and ensure each class and associated credit *will* transfer from Calhoun to UAH. To me, and I'm sure to any college student, these hours are pretty much worth gold and you don't want to lose them! Also, don't be afraid to take any issues where a credit is denied to the Dean (or higher if necessary) to argue your case. Pay attention to the handbooks (if that's a thing anymore) and ensure the classes align in terms of course content.
Oh, and another good thing about Calhoun is you don't rack up 1000s of parking tickets by attending there. read more