I attended the Chubb Institute for Computer programming approximately 4 years ago. This program has been discontinued by the Institute since I attended classes there. I took a two year evening program which cost me about 17000.00. The program was supposed to teach web design and computer programming. They had very strict regulations governing their approach to teaching and the course materials which included a different teacher for each class and extensive tutoring options if needed.
Towards the middle of this program, the beginning of year two the Chubb Institute decided that they would no longer continue this specific curriculum. And proceeded to cut more than half the teachers from the program. This left three specific teachers - who were very poor teachers - for the remainder of the year. I had complained a number of times about the quality of the teaching and we even had one teacher removed by a class petition because she was so poor. Each student signed a petition indicating that she was horrible and was not actually teaching us anything. Since the entire class signed she was reassigned to another group. However, this just narrowed our options to the other two. Several students dropped out because of the substandard teaching.
I stayed because I had paid the money and wanted to graduate. There was still supposed to be portfolio development, in depth resume guidance, and job placement in addition to several more classes on programming.
I realized quickly that anything I learned I was teaching myself. My questions went unanswered and any concepts I did not understand simply went unresolved because the teachers could not assist me, or anyone else to "get it". I do not even think that they had any experience teaching at all. They were just individuals in the field who had been recruited to teach at the school.
Finally the job prep began. This included a single woman who came into the room and asked for a show of hands who needed help with a resume. She then walked to each of our desks in turn to explain what a resume was and why we needed one and that there was an application pre-installed on each computer to help us write one. I went myself to the career center to talk about job placement and was told that only the top students from each class were selected for job placement and that someone would be coming around to help with our resume in class.
I again complained to the management and got nods and "heartfelt apologies" that i obviously had the wrong impression of what the school was about - as if i had never been to one before and did not understand how they worked. Nothing ever came of any of my complaints or the job placement or even graduation. We all passed in the end, even though many of use did not actually pass the course tests or understand the material. I never received a "diploma" or certificate or any job offers.in fact the company I worked for at the time removed the Institute from their accepted list of schools for Educational Reimbursement.
I did receive a call two years later from someone working in the quality department or some such group - wanting to talk to me about the positive influence that the Institute had on my career and if I was still working for the company they placed me in. I had a severe laugh and told her the only thing that I was still doing because of Chubb was paying the bill. I explained that I had not even received my diploma. She gave me several phone numbers, which I had already contacted several times in the past about the certificate, and finally said she would take care of it herself.
I did in the end almost 2 years after attending the classes receive a certificate saying I had graduated from the program. I have had no further communications from them of any kind. I still have about 8,000.00 dollars worth of debit with Sallie Mae because of them and no one who looks at my resume has had anything positive to say about the Chubb experience.
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