I moved from Texas to Oklahoma City last summer. I was only going to be there temporarily because my Father was going through chimotherapy treatments. I was enrolled in college in Texas and could not afford to pay the Out-of-State tuition in Oklahoma. So I investigated Tech Skills.
I was only interested in working towards obtaining my Cisco certifications but somehow got talked into enrolling in a program that would allow me to obtain as many computer certifications as I could within a year. I told John Herring (the program facilitator) I did not have a strong background in Information Technology but he assured me it would be no problem as 90 percent of all students who took certification exams through Tech Skills passed. He said he would assign me to my own personal instructor.
I signed up for the package for 8,000 dollars and within the first week I encountered problems. I was drawing veterans education benefits for this course and was required to physically be in the Tech Skills center for 17 hours a week. The education plan they had set up required me to read 800 pages of information in a Technical manual a week, perform online labs and listen to interactive lectures. It was a very unrealistic curriculum.
I confronted my instructor about this problem and was indirectly told that nobody seriously followed the curriculum guide and really only took practice exams over and over until they knew the questions well enough to pass the test. He also indirectly related to me that the labs were unnecessary as well. And that everything I needed to know would come later on when I got my first IT job and aquired hands on experience.
This upset me a great deal because I did not have a strong IT background and needed to learn the material in the ways in which John Herring had described them to me. However, I chose to do my best to learn the material on my own. I would independently perform the labs and even did my best to fulfill the weekly reading requirements. I ran into many problems doing this though.
I was constantly having to ask my instructor (Bill Mauroff) questions and after a while it became obvious that I was annoying him. He did not want me to bother him and only wanted me to perform the practice tests and memorize the answers to all the questions so I could pass the exam.
My intention in enrolling in this progam was to learn the material that I was studying. However, I soon discovered that this school is only designed to get you to pass certification tests. They will not let you take an exam unless you take 4 of their practice exams and score a 90 percent on each one. Most people can pull it off with A or N exams but unless you have a strong backgrond in IT you won't get much further than that.
Anyway, this became so much of a problem that I went to Randy (the head supervisor of the Oklahoma City Tech Skills department) and told him I wanted to withdraw from the courses and be refunded my money as much as I could. (I had only been enrolled about a month up to this time.) He told me I would have to set up an appointment with John Herring for the following Tuesday. I made my appointment with John and found out that even if I was to drop the entire course after only being enrolled a month I would still be responsible for well over half of the balance owed.
So, instead of dropping the course I figured the best thing to do was to try and get as many certifications as I could until my time ran out. After that I started taking the practice examinations over and over until I felt comfortable enough to pass all of the exams. I never actually learned much but I was breezing through the lesson plans quickly enough.
Soon it became time to take my first A exam and when I set up an appoinitment the instructors told me that someone had just taken the A exam and failed it. They had investigated it and found that there were new questions added to the exams that they had previously not known about. So Bill Mauroff advised me to skip the first test and keep working on my second A exam lesson guide. This way I could take both exams at the same time later on.
I proceeded to do that and then my Father passed away shortly thereafter. I wound up having to move back to Texas and I tried contacting the Oklahoma City Tech Skills chapter for a couple weeks until I could get ahold of Randy. I asked him to transfer all of my records to the San Antonio Tech Skills office so I could finish my A exams. He told me he couldn't do anything and that I would have to contact the center in San Antonio and coordinate everything through them. I explained my situation to the people in San Antonio and they told me they would get back with me within the next day or two.
Almost a week went by and I called. I could not get ahold of anybody that could help me. So I called Randy in Oklahoma City again and he did not even remember me the week prior. He immediately tried to be pleasant with me by asking me the same questions he had asked the last time I talked to him. It was obvious the guy had no genuine concern over my well-being, as did any of the other people that work for Tech Skills. Tech Skills is not an educational institution that cares about its students. The people here are only concerned with making money. They make money when they sign you up and will tell you anything to get you to sign the paperwork. After that they only care about you passing the exams as quickly as possible because it makes them look good.
Don't expect to learn anything at all. Their tech labs are a joke. The take a bunch of old computers, bust them down into individual parts and throw them on a table for your viewing pleasure. You are pretty much on your own as well when you sign up for this school as the instructors are not much help.
Anyway, I finally pestered them enough that they got my records transferred to San Antonio and now I am trying to finish up on my A exams and later N. After that I will be completely through with Tech Skills and I will still be paying them 176 dollars a month for the next 6 years and 4 months of my life.
BEWARE of this place or anything that says Tech Skills!!! It is a scam from the start. All you are really paying for when you sign up for this school is the software to learn the material on your own. The prices are outrageous! Instead of paying 1,500$ testing fees for your A examination you can go to Oklahoma City Community College and pay about 100 $ for a six-month course in an A preparation class.
I would reccomend anyone do that before ever signing up for this school.
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