Illinois Center for Broadcasting Ohio-Illinois Centers for Broadcasting Worthless Waste of Time and Especially Money Chicago Illinois

Where does one start when describing the ICB experience.  Well let's start at the beginning when you first inquire about the program and are asked to come in to the school.  You are given a verbal description of the schools programs, classes, instructors, etc.- with much emphasis on their seemingly impressive 90% plus "placement rate. Then you tour the radio and TV broadcasting studios, and are given a "test" of your ability to do a 30 second commercial read.  No one ever fails this "test" regardless of how poorly one performs.

The real eye-opening starts with the commencement classes.  At first all appears in order. However in MY class, our first instrcutor was fired only a few weeks into the start of class.  He was replaced by another instructor who immediately told us to forget everything we'd previously learned and re-taught us the same material in his own method.  The curriculum then turned towards audio/radio production.  It was then we experienced the frustration of having to use equiptment which often eithr did not function properly or was totally unusable. Often there was the problem of poor planning and far too many students/classes scheduled at the same time who all needed to use the studios and a project which should take 45 minutes suddenly required hours because you could not get access to an open studio.  The effort to teach to the lowest common denominator becomes apparent when suddenly you find yourself in "Reading and Speaking" class wherein they have the unmitigated gall to teach a THIRD GRADE LEVEL reading and language class, which was SO insulting to any normal adult student.

Classes are FREQUENTLY interrupted by an impromptu "speaker" whom every class was put off task to go and hear speak. Typically the speaker was some unknown behind the scenes person working in the industry who basically gave a "it's a great industry to work in and don't shy away from taking low paying entry level jobs to get a foothold in the industry" speech. The radio portion of the program progresses fairly uneventfully for awhile.  You stilll have to endure the shoddy equiptment and poorly planned studio time. Organization and planning appear to be especially difficult for the staff there, as often we went to the building noted on our class schedule only to be told on arrival or soon thereafter that our class had been "re-scheduled" to the other building.  The school makes a huge issue out of attendance and tardiness.  However the instructors themselves were often late to class.  Our class was especially disheartened by the fact that all of the senior level staff who had seemed to be very honest and frank with the students were let go one by one until there were 8 staff members who we had worked closely with who were then gone without explanation only to be replaced by obviously less qualified individuals who could do nothing but toe the company/corporate line.  They constantly continue to "sell" the program to students even after we're already enrolled and attending classes.

Towards the end of the first portion of radio class, you've made countless 15, 30, and 45 second radio ads.  It is quite thorough in that regard.  However Radio 1 is followed by TV and that Is almost a complete joke.  Our TV class began with a typical re-scheduling of our classroom and we had to have TV class in the Radio building.  As a result the first two days of class consisted of reading definitions of "TV terms" and passing around a camera so everyone could look at it!  The entire class was basically camera nomenclature and TV studipo terms and directions.  Oh and we got to sit in the TV studio control room and play with a tri-caster for a bit.  After that whiff of TV to keep the carrot in front our eyes, we went back to radio to work on radio news reporting.  One thing that is quite apparent to most students who have an IQ over 100 is that there is FAR toomuch time allotted for the work assigned.  Instructions for the assignments are artificially dragged out to an annoying degree by having the students read aloud all the instructions round robin style rather than let everyone read to themselves and get to work.  Once you do get to work and, for instance, you finish the days assignment of "find 3 local stories and write, record, and produce a 4 minute News update"  When you finish in 45 minutes and complete the assignment correctly.  The instructor looks dumbfounded and excuses himself, then returns and says "okay NOW you're going to find 3 NATIONAL stories and do ANOTHER 4 Minute News Update.  What a bloody complete waste of time!  What is The bloody difference between the two?  Soon those issues are alleviated because my class had the "privilege" of being the first to take the NEW "Web" portion of ICB curriculum.  This nonsense is nothing more than attempting to "teach" people social media like facebook, etc. you know the stuff most 13 year olds have been doing since they were 8.  You make your own web page and then every day come to class and post stuff on you webpage.  Then you learn it all again and do the same thing with your "blog"...this continues ad nauseum as they keep having you write the same kinds of stories and with every web task they tack on a caveat of .."..then make a 30 second radio commercial promoting your (blog, web page, link, site, etc.)"  They also have the nerve to hold 3 days of classes in "sales and marketing" and promote that line of work as an entree into the industry...("well yeah your a salesman, BUT your a salesman in the BROADCAST INDUSTRY.") Does anyone need to pay $16K to go to ICB just to get a job in sales?  I think not.

The general attitude of the staff at ICB is one of pedantic condesencion, treating students as if it were a public school with no paid tuition and we should be grateful just to be there.  They constantly tout their 90+ % placement rate, however, it appears that they interpret "placement" very literally and if graduates print up business cards and try to get freelance work, they count and shamelessly tout THAT as "getting a placement".  I have met several ICB grad's working in service jobs around the school area.  I am very grateful to have had the chance to find this site with some posts from other unsatisfied ICB students, (or should I say customers).  I can only hope that some people are lucky enough to read and heed these reports about ICB before they lay down their hard earned cash.-by the way, I am a veteran and was using VA funds to attend this mockery of a fraud of a scam.  However, I withdrew/transferred out after 6 months when it became obvious what a joke this place is.