I enrolled at Aveda Institute eager to learn and gain the skills I needed to be a great hairstylist! The first five weeks of school my class colored on big sheets of white poster paper with crayola markers. The class size was so big that there was not enough room to comfortable and one instructor for over 30 students. I was told that my class would be no more than 10 to 15 students. This was the first big noticable lie Aveda told me. After five weeks of coloring my class went to the second five weeks with another instructor. The room was so smaller than the first room, not to mention Aveda made some students share a half sized locker with another student.
This is what I was paying over $18,000.00 for! After ten weeks of poor instruction and lack of training, my class was put onto the clinic floor. I practiced on my mannequin and followed the instructions from the book in order to figure out how to cut hair. Not missing a single day of class the first ten weeks, I was not prepared to be on the clinic floor. As several weeks went by, I was never given live model services, as I noticed that certain students were given four to six live model services a day. I went to all the Aveda staff that worked at the insititute, and asked them to give me services. I was denied services for training continuously. I had a 93 gpa, good attendance, no written writeups, an overall good student. Why was I being skipped over?
On a Friday, I was becoming sick with a bad cold after lunch. I was assigned a live model around 3:30 pm. Feeling very sick from my bad cold, I was afraid to turn down the service, since I rarely got them. Aveda also has a rule that after a student clocks in for an hour, the student can't leave no matter what, and students were told if they turned down a service, they would be written up or sent home. I started the service but continued to sneeze, cough and blow my nose. Another student offered to take over the service to help me out. I gladly let her and went to the ladies room. As I returned to the clinic floor after blowing my nose and stopped coughing, I decided to ask to go home.
I was confronted by two instructors as if they were going to jump me. The instructors continued to brow beat me and accused me of being rude to the customer, walking off mad, and throwing my stuff onto the floor. I was very nice to the customer and did not throw anything onto the floor, and walked off with sneezing and coughing. They would not let me say much at all! As I was being treated like a guantanamo bay prisonor, I asked the instructors if I could go home, as I was feeling weak from my cold. They continued to browbeat me, so I stood up in tears and turned away from them, reached for the door and tossed my bruch into the air.
With my face covered in tears, I walked outside and sat at the picnic table as one of the directors of the school came by, I asked him if he had time to listen to what had just happened. He understood my frustrations, from not having live model servcies and everything else that sucks about Aveda. Within two minutes of talking to him, I was surrounded by six Aveda staff memebers. I couldn't believe that I was being intimidated by the staff over something that I didn't do in the first place. I was told to take the week off and start classes the next week.
I took the week off to recuperate from the trauma. The AVeda human resource director called me the day before I was to return to school, to tell me to arrived one hour early the next day. I arrived early the next day, and was called into the director of the school's director and two other Aveda staff members. They continued to intimidate me and ask me questions about my ex boyfriends. I refused to answer my personal business. I was told that I was not a good fit for the school and was terminated. I broke into tears and asked for a second chance to complete my training. The director of the school wento on to tellme that I was a great student and would have no trouble transferring to another cosmetology school. I left the school in tears!
I drove over one hour to another cosmetology school the same day I was terminated from Aveda. The new school could not accept my hours earned at AVeda because I was 51% completed hours and very little live model services completed. It would be impossibel to complete my services with less than half the hours left that I had. I would have to start over. I was willing to start over, but when I called the financial aid department, Aveda had already taken over $8,000.00 of my government student loans and over $4,500.00 of my pell grant money. Plus, Aveda billed me an additional $6,500.00 because the financial aid does not cover hours that I won't even be at the school. I did not have enough money left to pay for another school. I was screwed!
I called Aveda to try to get back into the school, but my emails and phone messages went ignored. I got an attorney and AVeda offered to drop the $6,500.00 that they billed me for the remaining hours that I was not even at the school anymore. I refused to settle for partial return of tuition. Aveda never trained me properly and my hours are no good! I am asking for full tuition due to the wrongful termination. I was told that a class action lawsuit would be my best bet at a successful lawsuit against AVeda. All I need is a few students, previous employees etc... That AVeda wronged.
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