Chubb Institute Ripoff, Scamming, Con Artists, Lie to Your Face Cherry Hill New Jersey

I am in my second week of Cisco at Chubb Institute's Cherry Hill "campus". We have only gotten about one month and a half of actual quality education.

The first class was welcoming. Our teacher, who only held a certification from the Cittone Institute, knew enough to teach us what he taught us, A+. Although there were ten people in our class, we had to pair up to work on four computers and one legacy computer that looked like it had been used by Bill Gates's grandfather. Our teacher tried to teach us the "advanced" concept of subnetting, and although he was the one who was supposed to teach us, he didn't really know how to do it. The majority of us left with little if any knowledge on how to properly subnet.

Our first inclination that Chubb might not be all its cracked up to be was the first day of our second week when a kid straight from the ghetto came into our class and tried to sell pot to anyone who wanted some. Since he wasn't getting anywhere with that, he turned to calling out another kid in the class, threatening to fight him, although the yelled-at victim did nothing but keep his mouth shut and look down at the desk.

All of us passed (which I found out later they allow you to do regardless of how horribly you perform grade-wise) A+ and moved to software where we were told we were going to learn about antiquated systems like DOS and 98. Great, now I can go back in time and work on systems that were developed in the last century.

At this point, I first went through the process of futilely buying a discounted voucher through Chubb. As multiple Chubb employees had told me, the "school" sells vouchers at discount to students. These vouchers include A+, Net+, Security+, Linux+, and others. However, what you have to find out by yourself is that it is really just a hit-or-miss whether the one person who is in charge of voucher selling is hardly ever at the school when the students are available to purchase vouchers. Should you be lucky to actually track her down and talk to her, chances are she doesn't have any or the ones she has have expired. Then comes waiting for the corporate office to ship the school some. I waited on Lisa (the voucher person) to receive a Linux voucher for two weeks. Then, before our weeklong Thanksgiving vacation, I try to track her down again, only to be told by someone else, Lisa decided to take an early vacation and leave me hanging. I paid more for the voucher than I had to - the same voucher Chubb told me I would be able to buy at discount.

Forensics was next. The book we received contained a supplemental lab manual concentrating on teaching the students a command-line/DOS-based antiquated forensics program called DriveSpy. The book, rather than teach us real forensics, was basically a subliminal advertisement for DriveSpy. Furthermore, approximately 80% (not an exaggeration) of the labs did not work. Our teacher, who would never admit to it but undoubtedly and obviously is a coke jockey, had to make up his own labs so we could learn even an iota of forensics. But, as the book and our teacher would state, we would need years more of training to enter a career in forensics. So, why did we even waste a month on this class? I got a 102 as a final grade. How that's even a reasonable possibility is beyond me.

Next was Network+ with the same teacher who taught us the A+ Core and OS classes. This class is 99% theoretical and 1% application. It's a complete waste. I was lucky enough to track Lisa down to get the voucher for this. Also, our second or third week, the director of education for Chubb, another Lisa, promised us a pizza party if everyone in class got an A on the weekly exam. Eric, the teacher, gave each of us a review sheet to ensure each of us got an A. However, what he failed to do was include on the review sheet the other half of what was going to be on the exam. More than half the class failed, we retook the test, and Lisa changed the pizza party requirement to everyone getting an A as a final grade for the class. The kid who sat next to me actually failed this class miserably, but Eric juked the numbers to bump the kid's grade all the way up to get a pizza party. That alone was enough for me to completely debunk the school as a legitimate educational facility. It was more important for the school to award a class with a pizza party than leave back a failing student who apparently had no idea how to do anything.

Another point to note about the Network+ class was the toolkit we were promised as part of the materials we receive for the course. Although we had been at the school for three months by now, apparently the toolkits were not ordered until the last minute, and on the day we were to receive these kits, our class sat on our thumbs for almost 3 hours doing absolutely nothing waiting for the toolkits to come. We could have done a lab or review material or anything related to computer training. Instead, we did nothing for 3 hours waiting for a toolkit that should have been ordered well ahead of time. Ultimately, we used the toolkits all but one time. Time management here is a joke.

The two Windows Server 2003 classes I actually looked forward to started out well until Brad, our teacher (the alleged cokehead), became the interim program director for the computer classes and took on multiple classes at the same time. These two classes went like this:
- Receive a lab that took five minutes to complete
- Brad leaves to spend an equal amount of time (which was really more time to the other classes than ours) with the other classes
- We sit around for about an hour before Brad comes back
- Cycle repeats

One of the welcoming things (however minute) to the Windows classes was Brad's promise to order better cable testers than the ones we received in our toolkits. As every other promise Chubb has made, this one fell through as well when Brad was passed up for appointment as the permanent program director when a corporate guy was chosen from the Springfield "campus".

Next was the class that broke the straw on the camel's back. After the two Windows classes in which our teacher presence in the actual room amounted to maybe ten hours for two months. This was the Exchange Server 2003 classes.

Our teacher was Daniel Cha, a Korean man, whose ethnicity I would not mention if not for the fact that he was on a low level biased toward Koreans. We were told on the first day that this was the first time Cha had taught Exchange in over six months. He then proceeded to tell us for the next three hours how he liked to teach and his approach to teaching than actually teaching us.

As this was the first time he taught Exchange in over half a year, Cha barely knew anything. He simply read from the text without comprehending what he was reading. He could have been reading a Stephen King novel, and it would have been the same thing.

When we would do a lab (again, more than half of the labs would not work) and a student would ask Cha for help, his response would be "Google It". Although this has become funny in class, this was demeaning and insulting. If he was the teacher, he should have the knowledge to teach and especially to troubleshoot properly the labs we were supposed to do. "Google It" is what we associate with Cha.

Finally, after all the frustrations we had with Cha and the "school", we had a sit-down with Lisa, the director of education, and Bill, our new program director. The talk happened after a Friday test when Cha was not there. Bill was extremely confrontational, telling us (this is almost verbatum) "I am the one who is going to decide what to do with personnel". That basically told us we were talking to a wall. Regardless of how we, the students, the ones who are paying over $17,000 to go to school here and pay the salaries of the "school" employees, were not going to be heard and our opinions taken into account. Lisa's only inclusion in the conversation was to crack random, unnecessary jokes, which none of us were in the mood for.

Although we all expected it, Cha came back to teach us for our final week of Exchange. It was a slap in the face and a blatant statement by Chubb that the students meant nothing. We are only dollar bills and numbers to them. Nothing more.

Our next class was introductory Linux, which was taught by Reggie, another first time teacher. He found out that Monday morning that he was going to teach Linux. Without warning, a man who was a Windows specialist and had no experience teaching or even using Linux, was going to teach us introductory Linux, the basis for our next class, advanced Linux. On top of this, we found out Cha was still teaching. He was teaching A+ Core, not Exchange, so we thought maybe they actually listened to us. However, not a week went by that some of us heard those in Cha's class complaining about him. After intro Linux was done, he was back to teaching Exchange. So much for student input.

As Reggie, who is a nice guy, so I don't want to lambast him, did not know anything about Linux, labs were pointless. Any problem that arose remained unfixed because the person in the room who was supposed to understand the interworkings of the OS knew absolutely nothing regarding it.

At this point, Bill, the program director, had apparently been insulted and threatened by our so-called uprising and protest against Cha. His response was to force the students in our class to stay in class until the very last minute that class time ended.

Our allotted class time is 12:30pm to 5:30pm. Up until this Linux class, we had left as soon as the lesson for the day had ended. We are all adults with lives outside of class. As Chubb is a school that is founded on providing a continued education to people who cannot go back to school full-time, we need to have Chubb work around our lives, not vice versa. Bill mandated that we stay in class until 5:30 everyday regardless of whether or not there was something to learn. That means no part-time jobs that we had started during the earlier months, no being at home for kids during the afternoon, no anything that had to be done before 5:30pm, because now, we had to stay in class until that time, no question. And if we did not stay until 5:30pm, Bill would dock us for the time we missed. Since this mandate was made and lecture/lab would end about 3:00 to 3:30, much of our time was spent watching downloaded South Park and Jackass and playing Nintendo DS. Basically, I paid all that money to do something that I could do recreationally at home.

The next class was advanced Linux and we finally got a teacher who knew what he was doing. Chernor's specialty is Linux, so it was helpful having someone teach us who knew what he was teaching; however, since we barely learned anything in intro Linux, half of our time was spent reviewing intro Linux. We were forced to skim through the advanced Linux book and in the end, skipped about half the text.

Cisco, the class we are in now, was what most of us were anticipating, but in typical Chubb fashion, we did not actually receive the Cisco book until Thursday in our first week. Similar to the idiocy Chubb displayed regarding our toolkits in Network+, Chubb did not order our Cisco books until the last second, when the book was on months-long backorder. Wouldn't it have been even mildly intelligent to order our Cisco books months in advance when the "school" knew we were going to be in the Cisco class at this time.

We do not graduate (although that's a misnomer because they will pass anyone regardless of scholastic performance) until February so I do not have any other instances of stupidity and ripoff to report, but here are some various summarizations:

1. The Chubb reps told most in our class we were going to have multiple certifications when we left here. That's a lie. We have to buy the vouchers (if we're lucky to find Lisa) and take the test somewhere else. There's no guarantee of actual certification.

2. The curriculum is a joke. We are taught by highly incompetent people and are taught on numerous outdated legacy systems.

3. The business attire atmosphere is laughable. One kid tried to sell pot in class and students from other classes huddle outside the front doors talking about drugs.

4. The computer equipment is laughable. The systems we work on are seriously lacking in resources, and the Internet connection is as slow as 1980s dial-up.

5. The staff, save a very, very, very few, do not care about how the students will actually learn. Look at Bill, Lisa, Cha, etc.

6. The dress code is not enforced. The code says shorts and hats will not be permitted with no exception. I wore shorts and a hat every day of every summer month, alongside the staff who did the same.

7. You will not be able to buy a voucher. Except for the A+ voucher, I had to purchase every voucher myself, at a substantial difference than the price of the discounted voucher Chubb was supposed to sell.

8. The admissions staff is paid on commission, like car salesmen and real estate, so their interest is merely getting in quantity rather than quality (which is seriously lacking).

9. You are punished for having an opinion opposite than those "school" officials in charge. We were punished with staying in the farthest room in the "school" for six months, four straight.

10. There seems to be no concept of climate control. Yesterday was sweatingly hot, and today is freezing cold.

11. The Anthem College the admissions rep will advertise to you is too good to be true. The greater majority of accredited colleges will not accept Anthem credit, and the only college that will accept Chubb credit is Anthem. It's a pointless loop. You will not be able to apply the classes you took here to legitimate, accredited colleges.

12. The only way to get something out of Chubb is to not go. You could save thousands of dollars, buy the books, the test vouchers, and get certified yourself. It is a waste of gas, money, and a year of your time.

Please rebuttal this with other problems you have had with Chubb because I know I have not covered every one here.

Matt
Toms river, New Jersey
U.S.A.