As a wife and mother of 3 kids (at the time) I thought FTC was a great choice. Granted I have attended traditional college FTC promises of being "family oriented, focus on adult learning" was what caught my attention; plus the fact that I want to pursue a BA in degree and transfering to University of Illinois would be no problem, (I will be honest the admin rep did tell me some coursework will or will not be accepted). After meeting with an admission rep who was kind I thought this school is what I need to get ahead in life.
The first day of classes May 9 it was a sociology class taught by Professor Fierro (hope I spelled that right). This professor is amazing and passionate about the classes he teaches. What threw me off is his exams/assignments were simple yet students complained about it being hard. I thought maybe this is because I have taken such coursework before. The following class was a criminal justice course which I was very excited about. The coursework was simple, students participated on a good days, and the professor was knowledgeable on certain days. But what upset me was the books for the courses they were outdated. Do not get me wrong some splash of color and pictures would be nice but not necessary, but when the reference for graphs and statistics are dated in 1999 was a NO NO!
I mean as consumers we have the right to learn with the proper tools. Being a textbook that the school assigns is published in 1999 was a red flag for me. I don't know about you but from my point of view crimes have sky rocketed after 9/11 due to the economy. Laws have been created, abolished, or even revised.
So with this concern I asked many peers of what they thought, and the typical answers were "Oh well what can we do?" & "The m/a (medical assistants) students have all the updated books." At first no I doubt that but further along into the CJ program I have noticed the favoritisim to m/a students.
Anyways the final straw was one day I spoke to a OPD officer and asked with my training and hopefully degree I could one day be a cop, do you know what the cop and his partners over the radio said..."Haha your going to ftc? Your just wasting your time and money. The departments does not hire graduates from their." Let me tell you I was offended and pissed off because I am paying over 25K and this guy says that to me.
So I spoke those who have completed FTC and long behold the cop was right! There were students who cannot find a job and resorted to baby sitting for work or working a mall job with their so called CJ degree. So this is when I called U of I and you know what I found out some regional college such as U of I do take national acccreditation but just my luck she said that FTC accreditation and coursework for the program was insufficient to transfer.
Yup, that's when I had enough and decided to drop. Now I realzie that if I want to continue private instiutions I would have to look for one that has the right accreditation and is a BBB member. For example m/a students who are wanting to be nurses eventually just go to herzing university and cj students don't waste your money on FTC simply go to Penn Foster (full online).
So please learn from mistake, research the school more. If you're like me and planning to continue your education research if FTC credits will be accpeted into that school even if it is a year from now. Save yourself money, and issues.
Best of luck!
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