Okay, so today's listing is all about an educational institution I need to gripe about.
I won't name any names but it's an online university that comes from the capital of Arizona. Wink, wink, nudge nudge. I can't say who it is because they are the BIGGEST client for the company I work for. Who am I kidding? They'd be ANYONE's biggest client that deals with education. The organization, as a whole, appears to be reputable and offers a lot of service to their students/clients/customers... whatever. The material they are studying is valid, granted. But when I find out that they're demanding that we take course material that we designed for a twenty to twenty-two week course at a "regular" higher learning facility and cram it into one of their five week courses I cringe. When I learn that they want their students to accelerate through the curriculum by allowing them to complete topics by answering one question correctly instead of five I'm aghast. When I get calls from these very students and they don't have the basic computer skills of a five year old child with severe learning disabilities I get very upset. Upset, hell, I'm pissed. These neophytes are getting a sub-level education, paying way too much and waving their pseudo-diplomas around like they've really accomplished something. I've got news for these knuckleheads. I've met people that got one of their "certified graduate" certificates and I've met people with bona fide diplomas in the exact same subjects. My money's on the ones that went to accredited higher learning facilities. Sure, it took them five times as long, they had to put up with underpaid, overworked professors who may not actually have "real world" experience in their chosen fields, but they seem to have a brain, common sense and the ability to avoid pissing on their own shoes. The business class students I've talked to from some schools are sometimes pushy but rarely outright rude. The students from the online circus tend to be so rude their ego needs it's own freakin' atmosphere.
Well, I could go on, and I will eventually, but it's my lunch hour and I should probably actually eat something.
One of their "diplomas" is currently being used as a trivot on my desk.
