As I was researching schools for a graduate degree in Information Systems Security I came across CTU online.
I was told by the recruiter at CTU that I would receive credit for prior learning, and experience. The classes looked interesting and the online school was tied to a brick and mortar school.in addition it was an NSA Center of Excellence. So I believed the recruiter and came on board with CTU.
I had my graduate transcripts from George Washington University sent to CTU only to learn they could not give me any credit fo them because they were 5 years old. Then they told me to write up descriptions for my certifications. If the descriptions matched to some of the course material, I could get credit for those courses. Since I knew several of my certifications would map to the course material, I gladly wrote up the descriptions. I have the following certifications:
CISM
OCSP
CNSS 4015
CNSS 4012
CNSS 4011
NSA IAM
FQ Navy Validator
After I pulled together those descriptions and sent them, I was told they can't give me credit for any of them because I am at the Graduate level and they only give credit for professional certifications at the undergraduate level (funny how Western Governors seems to have no problem with this)!
Then they told me to send my resume and a write up of my experience and references. Determined to get credit for the many years of work and study I have in the field of information security, I put that package together only to then hear again, I can't get credit for any of that at the graduate level - they only do that at the undergraduate level!
For CTU, it was clearly about the money. Had I known CTU would give me no credit for anything I'd done, I would not have gone to CTU. So, to make a long story short, they lied.
In the mean time, I took the Operating Systems security class, which was taught by someone who barely had an understanding of information security. Since he had no clue about OS security all he taught was security policy and management.
Next came network security, and that was taught by an instructor I had for systems engineering. He knew systems engineering but was out of his element with network security. It was painful to watch him stumble through it!
Then there was an instructor who's slides and English looked like it came from a 12th grader. Obviously
I was too far in to get out. So, I stuck it out.in my very last class, they tortured us again with these ridiculous group assignments (have you ever tried to work in a group with people who are all full time employed, living in different time zones? It doesn't work out too well). There were four of us in the group. One person dropped out.
The instructor then told the rest of us in an email that we had to make up the missing student's work! So, not only do I not get credit for work and experience and certifications, but I also get to now do work that some other student was supposed to do! That was jut adding insult to injury! I called student advising and complained and I was told it is the instructor's discretion.
How can this be? If CTU is going to play money hard ball with students, then we are definitely customers and need to be treated equally. To me that means if someone in another group writes one paper and has a shot at the same grade, I should not be asked to write two for the same grade! In addition, given that I am a Navy Veteran and have been working and leading teams for the pat 13 years, I think I've had my fair share of experience in terms of picking up the slack for someone else. CTU does not need to try to teach me that lesson either.
So, in all if this ends up being the case that the only way I can maintain my GPA is by taking on another student's work, then the complaint may end up being a bit more than just a complaint. It is bad enough that I was lied to during the recruiting effort. But to not get credit for prior learning as promised only to then be saddled with doing another student's work is really adding insult to injury.
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