Better off on my own than with ITT Tech. (Albuquerque, NM)

[FraxAtax]

I enrolled @ ITT Tech in August of 2006. There were various reasons as to why I considered ITT instead of a community college, some reasons which were later to be obvious lies. The first problem was the community college itself, after painstaking attempts to get situated with computer science courses, my entry interviewer kept telling me that, it would be in my best interest to take liberal arts instead, even going so far as to enroll me in some Liberal Arts classes. That gave me no reason to go to the local community college, so I decided to check out ITT Tech.

I think I was enrolled at ITT Tech in a matter of a few hours. The first thing they did was GUARANTEE me a high paying job “Straight out of school”. They showed me some charts, and a large book of names with all the people who employed ITT Tech students (Not a lot in New Mexico I noticed).

Computer Science was not offered, and any sort of programming major wasn't either, so I decided to take CNS. 3 weeks later I started my first classes. At first it seemed humorous that the students knew more about computers than the computer introduction teacher did, but we figured what was there to really know about turning on and off a computer and occasional opening it. (It never dawned on me at the time that we were PAYING to learn that)

It wasn't until I took my first programming class that I realized that I made a major mistake. For 6 months (and anyone who took the programming class should know) all we learned how to do, was make a variation of a (poorly made) calculator using VB.NET. The teacher wasn't much of an assistance, and the part that really pissed me off was when there was an assignment, that the book didn't cover, the teacher didn't understand, and the only ones who did understand and finish it, were my friend and I. The teacher printed out OUR CODE, made copies, and passed it out to the other students.

Since programming was my interest, this was a joke. Making calculators with VB.NET is not important for any of the degrees offered. I would have to learn a more low level language like C, especially since we would later learn Linux (something you won't see using MICROSOFT proprietary VB.NET). And for the people in electronics, OOP is not going to get you far when you should be learning something like assembly.

Anyway, around this time, I also realized I was getting away with downright cheating in all my classes. I didn't cheat because of the difficulty (I don't understand how anyone could fail such an easy curriculum that included no homework and no real monitoring). I cheated because there was no incentive to sit there and study something that we would never use. I had highest honers, 4.0, name on the large framed poster in the front multiple times. Multiple “certificates”, and had my large share of honers pizza parties.

How could I not get a 4.0, I could cheat by writing workarounds to my programming, copying answers out of the book, I was even able to find numerous CNS teacher guides in PDF format with a simple google search. And most of the time I didn't need to cheat, the teacher would give us the answers anyway in order to “check our work”. But it was a no brainier as to why they would make it so easy to get highest honers. The higher the GPA of a student, the greater chance that student will get more financial aide.

It was the beginning of my 7th quarter, and the first time I actually read one of the letters Sallie Mae sent me in the mail. I realized now that there was going to be absolutely no way I could pay for this without getting a high paying job. So I decided to talk with the career services people, and found out what career services ACTUALLY get paid to do.

The job of a career services person, is to go on monster.com. Search a keyword (usually entry level) and print out everything that came up and threw it into their little tree killing booklets. The thing is though, they never actually look at the listing. They don't notice that it's usually fake posts used to secure green cards for H-1b workers (google Cohen & Grigsby) or a listing that uses entry level as a keyword, but is looking for 5 years minimum engineering experience.

The funniest and most ironic incident that happened, and one that was the catylist for me leaving ITT Tech, was in our portfolio class. We had an assignment in which we had to contact employers in the field we were interested in, and report on various aspect, such as what we need to know, how to land a job there, and for them to review our resume we made.

Well, I found out, that for one, these employers would NEVER employ a fresh graduate from any school to the high level jobs that ITT Tech PROMISED us we would get “Straight out of school”. He also told me, they normally avoid employing ITT Tech students for their lack of knowledge in the field. One guy telling me the last ITT Tech grad he hired, spent his 3 week employment, pestering his supervisor with questions like “How do I do this”. This is when I dropped out.

I decided to take it upon myself to teach myself, which resulted in me learning things CORRECTLY. Over the last year or so, I've been teaching myself C, C++ and eventually working towards Ruby. I've received my A+ and Network+ Certification on my own, which has already made me more qualified than having a A.A.S from ITT Tech. And now that I found this place, I plan on helping inform others NOT to join this scam of a school.

[sevenalive]

Employers do not respect "technical" colleges, ITT UoP, Devry, etc. They are money sucking pits that scam. The sad part is most people have beer goggles on for about 6-9 months in, then they start to realize the same shit isn't changing. There was a guy here that posted saying he started and didn't like the Strategies for the technical professional and thought it was basic (learning MS word, excel and powerpoint!) and was going to stick it out hope it will be better. When i warned it wouldn't he still stayed. Like WTF seriously, don't waste your time and money.

Anyway if the job market does not like the "degree" or the "school", then there is obviously something wrong with the institution and their "education".

[aka name]

The teacher printed out OUR CODE, made copies, and passed it out to the other students.

One of my former classmates actually placed a copyright notice at the bottom of his completed typed homework so the "teacher" couldn't use it.

these employers would NEVER employ a fresh graduate from any school to the high level jobs that ITT Tech PROMISED us we would get “Straight out of school”.

It's hard enough for real college graduates to find good jobs...