I am currently a student at The Chubb Institute in Parsippany enrolled in the Computer Networking and Security course (CNS). Below is my two cents:
I took the tour and as we passed Chubb's server room I was in awe, but sure enough Tony Williamson (my Admissions Representative) said 'Oh yes those servers right there, you'll be working with those.' I said that was great and I can't wait! Since then I've found out that we DO NOT work with those servers or anything remotely close to them.
Chubb has an amazingly easy
entrance exam. - The same day I took the campus tour I was pressured into taking the entrance exam. Upon completion (left half of it blank due to time limit) I handed it to the woman and within 10 seconds she says "you aced it!" I thought that was bull because I did not see her do anything with the test... But I did not argue, after all I was interested in the school.
The Orientation was a joke. I came to school dressed in a shirt / tie / dress pants / nice shoes, expecting Chubb to be a professional environment. "Business Attire": I was the only one dressed even remotely close to professional. Most people wore black shirts, ripped pants, the works. The guy that spoke the most during Orientation apparently left the following day, after telling us all the stuff he's planning on doing. I haven't seen the man since.
The first course taught was A Hardware. My first rude awakening was when we found out that there are only 5 working computers for the class of slightly over 25 (?) WHAT? I thought this was a tech school - and they don't have enough computers for students to practice on? Hmm... Groups of 3-5 worked on each computer, removing the parts and putting it back together. That's as hard as the class got.
So the next course was A Software and we had the same teacher. Hmm ok whatever, Fred Cruz taught us well in A Hardware so that's cool... Well Fred, (who is now the Manager because the other clown Rich was fired), doesn't know too much besides the basics. The main thing that stood out to me is that he attempted to teach us how to do an unattended install. Well, he could not figure it out and assigned us "homework" to print out information on unattended installs. Only about 5 of the students completed the assignment (myself included) but everyone was given an A - why? Anyways, Fred still could not get it working and obviously we the students cannot figure it out. So Fred gave up. Nice.
Every time I sat down at my desk - my computer, or a certain component was gone. After complaining to the Manager (Rick Harley) a few times, I just called it quits. They say that they keep up to date with the latest technology, but, they don't. Period.
Now we're at Computer Forensics. I'm outraged over how lame this class was. It was a complete joke! A complete waste of 4 weeks, a complete waste of gas, a complete waste of money... A complete waste. James Howard taught us, well sort of. Our book was half "computer forensics" and half "law and order" ha-ha. I don't even remember what we were taught besides Drive Spy and a few other nifty programs, all of which you have to pay big bucks to license these programs. Anyways, the first week and a half went well, I suppose we learned a little bit those weeks. But then suddenly James stopped teaching. We would review for Friday's exam the first hour, then the next 3 1/2 hours we played Starcraft, Sim City, Warcraft, Delta Force, Emulated Games online... The list goes on and on. I have a picture on my cell phone of our teacher playing SIM CITY.in SCHOOL?!?!?! You have to be kidding me.
Networking Concepts was our next course and it went fairly well. Much better than forensics for sure. Guess who our teacher was? FRED CRUZ, yes, the same guy who taught us both A classes. Well this time around Fred tried to teach us IP Subnetting, but pretty much failed. I went privately to James Howard and he was actually able to teach it to me much better. I'm grateful to James for his extra help.
—My only other concern with this course is that Fred was considerably late to class about 7 times in the 25 day course. I'm talking 30-45 minutes late. One guy in my class wrote down in log form all the times Fred was late, it's pretty gross. The same guy wrote a letter and gave it to AJ, the Big Cheese at Chubb. I don't know his exact position but he's a step below the campus president. About 10 students signed the letter. We'll AJ's famous words which we've heard a lot is "I'll address the issue". Of course nothing gets done. To credit him where credit is due, he and the Campus President did come into class one day and apologize because it turns out Fred was at staff meetings PLANNED DURING CLASS TIME. Outrageous.incredible. But thanks for the apology; I learned a lot from it. Really. Ha-ha.
So the next two classes we took were Windows Administration and Advanced Windows Administration. I'm actually satisfied with those classes, not because I was taught well, but because I taught myself well. FRED CRUZ was again my teacher for BOTH of these classes. (For those of you counting, Fred has been my teacher 5/6 classes, in college...)
Up next was Exchange Server 2003. James Howard was again my teacher. (Now its 2 teachers - 7 classes). James taught us a thing or two about Exchange but he began to admit himself that A) he doesn't know a whole lot about exchange and B) the course materials weren't too great. Whatever. He basically did his own made up drills which were challenging I'll admit. Month 7 into tech school I finally had actually understood DNS for the first time (keep in mind I have a 4.0 GPA I'm not clowning around...)
-After this course James left Chubb for a better job - Good move James, I wish you luck.
Linux was next - Finally a new teacher. Going into the class I had never used Linux before - so I learned a lot when the class was taught, the first 3 weeks. Then our teacher gave up on us. I've failed to mention until now that the entire class is VERY Immature with a few exceptions. A bunch of punks who curse 300x a day IN CLASS, smoke Pot in the parking lot during breaks, or drink on breaks. No one cares, and they're not hurting anyone so who would I be to say anything more of the matter. Basically I'm just saying the Drug Policy is Non-Existent. And trust me, each and every teacher is well aware of the situation.
The teacher was racist too, he always picked on the Korean kid, gave him a 3 day out of school for honestly doing nothing (I don't like the kid, but I'll admit he wasn't doing anything), and he was always yelling at the black guy also. Yes, YOU - Mike O'Shea, did do all of that. Dave, (the Korean kid), called Mike out on it one day, and Mike denied it, but then from that point on - Mike treated them fairly, probably out of fear. Good Job Dave, that was great, I enjoyed it.
Advanced Linux started out VERY ROUGH. Mike was out a week because of his knee so we did nothing and left 3 hours early each day. The next week Mike did nothing, because he was catching up on stuff. So more of the same. Then we had 2 weeks of education! Yay. Mike screwed up my report card though, and it's been 3 weeks now that I've been asking for it to be adjusted and he keeps telling me tomorrow. I've gone to Fred (the new manager) and to AJ (the big cheese, head manager?) and both have said they'll get on top of it. Of course I still don't have my report card.
Now I'm in week three of CISCO as I write this. I still have two more courses left at Chubb (to this day, 10 more weeks before I graduate). We have a new FIRST TIME teacher, Rich something, I don't know. I won't write his name on here anyways because he seems like he's trying really hard and is meeting the students' needs. I don't know how he got scammed into teaching at Chubb, especially since on his resume he has experience working for Novell and NASA...
I just can't wait to see what the next two courses have to offer...
I should also mention that Chubb never gave us Student ID's, but rather door key-cards with out names typed up on a sticker. LAME.
Summary:
The programs are taught by computer techs, not real teachers. I absolutely hate this school. Of the original
25 people in my class, more than half have dropped out. We've merged with another class now. The tuition is outrageous, considering the poor and out-dated equipment at the facility. When I went to enroll, I was told that Chubb is a difficult school, with an enrollment board, and entrance exam. It was a joke. A monkey could take and pass the entrance exam. I've seen complete and utterly incompetent people do well on that exam, which "qualifies" them to take any course at the school. It's scary.
Chubb claims to be able to help with job placement, and that they have high placement percentages. I'm beginning to hear horror stories of the placement. Such as CompUSA jobs and such.
I also need to bring up that Chubb does not enforce many rules - if any. I mentioned the drugs, the classroom gaming and clowning around... There is no business environment.
Chubb is falling extremely short of my expectations, and falling short of the many promises and guidelines promised by the school itself. I'm afraid for my future. I don't know what to do at this point.
I should have saved $17,000.00 and gone to my local book store for an education.
Suggestion:
-If you're serious about learning, stay FAR away from Chubb.
-If you barely made it through high school (or not at all and acquired a GED) and are very young, immature and are not very serious about success then Chubb is for you.
(I think I'll just leave Chubb off my resume)
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