Special Segment regarding Colleges and Universities

I want to thank those who have contributed to the roundtable discussion regarding local colleges and universities.

Although the number of posts was few, there were numerous non-blogging discussions regarding the current issues.

I think we need to keep the discussion about the quality of our college universities alive.

I also believe that we should start making them accountable for failure to provide the services advertised, which I think it's called fraud.

However, the problem is not solely the college's fault. State requirements come into play as the institutions try their best to balance state requirements for PE, health and the colleges requirement for courses directed at the major itself.

This forces the institutions to cram more information into shorter classes, which in turn forces a student to cut corners in their studies to try and keep up with a multitude of assignments.

One of my classes in the CIT program is doing just that.

CS 288, network monitoring, is normally a 10 week course. This term for the first time, they've decided to split the course into two 5-week sessions. Network monitoring & network security.

The reasoning for doing this is the excuse I hear all the time, " this is what the business community is asking for."

Suddenly, the students are asking, "what happened?"

We were just getting into the good stuff with networking and now suddenly it's over, and we find ourselves scrambling to fit a 10 week course into the remaining five weeks, with a completely new teacher, new teaching methods, and a ton of work to do which forces us to scramble to get the assignments done without having the time to really get to own the knowledge.

And they wonder why I complain.
I've always taken school very seriously especially since I'm spending a lot of money for my education[$21,000 to date], and when I make inquiries about these changes, I am treated like a student that complains too much.

Whether they like or not, I don't care, I am a consumer who contracted to them for service that is not being fulfilled. And currently, there is no accountability.

While there are rumors of a class-action lawsuit in the works by the students, I think the solution can be a lot simpler than going to court.

I will post a link to the round table discussions within a couple of days.

* the security class will be offered next year as a full 10 week course.