The administrative staff seemed open, helpful and friendly initially. I was made to believe they would provide an internship and job placement assistance. I was told I would be taught by people who worked in the industry and that all their graduates are able to find jobs in the industry they have chosen.
My Medical Billing and Coding class of 5 was started off in classes out of order, being taught a virtual office class by a Medical Assistant who in her own words "hated billing and coding". We were expected to and graded on coding diagnoses' and procedures with NO PRIOR CLASS TO INTRODUCE US TO THE USE OF AN ICD-9 OR CPT MANUAL. When in the 3rd week of this class, myself and 2 other students complained about the lack of proper order of instruction, we were lied to and told there weren't enough of us for them to schedule the instructional class first (why was 5 enough to schedule one class and not another?). We later learned they had no instructor on site for the introductory class that particular module (a slip of the tongue directly from the instructor herself)
We were taught a class of medical office billing software by, once again, a Medical Assistant, who had never taught the class before and in her own words would "learn it right along with us". This same instrustor also told us she "didn't know why they taught this program" because it was "not what the offices are using nowadays"
Other modules were taught by an instructor who gave us class assignments and homework but was too lazy to check these assignments, tests and exams in a timely manner. Our final exam in her anatomy class was to label 12 bones on a skeleton figure (less work for her to have to check) The day before the last day of different module, she returned our books to us saying she "doesn't know what is wrong with us, none of us got it right". We had to hurriedly correct 4 weeks of work and return it to her by the end of the next night because she was taking the rest of the week off for her birthday and had to have the grades turned in before she could go out of town.
Further complaints only incited more and more lies, side-stepping, "I'll have to check with Ms. So-and-so, disagreeable attitudes from the administrative staff and offers to "walk out the door if we weren't happy" but that we couldn't get any money back. We reached the point where our only objective became getting out with the highest GPA we could because the loans and monies were already committed.
The staff behaved worse than elementary school students, disrupting classes with loud chatter and laughter in the hallways, gossiping-always with the he said, she said game. We watched with dismay as the competent teachers who truly knew how and what to teach resigned left and right.
I graduated, with a 4.0 GPA and passed the national certification exam that Centura College arranged. I have now learned that the registry that Centura College has chosen for it's students to test through is NOT RECOGNIZED BY EMPLOYERS, potential employers can't even reach the registry by phone to question them about credentialing!
Do I feel ripped-off? You bet! I would just love to go sit in their parking lot and warn every potential future student of their mismanagement, idiocy and deception... Hopefully, their future prey is more computer savvy than I was and will read mine and others reports and RUN THE OTHER WAY!
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