Has Anyone Gone To ITT Tech or Devry?

coreyb80

I'm currently considering these as options for school. Has anyone gone and if so how was the experience?

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JockVSJock

coreyb80 wrote: »

It will either be back to the community college or WGU for me this fall. I refuse to rack up anymore student loans than I have to.

Watch the video in my sig to get more of an understanding on how colleges scam people in the United States.

Also, make sure the school you go to is teaching/training you in real skills that you can use in the real world. Not a bunch of dumb, power-point driven nonsense based in theory.

GoodBishop

I'm going to Keller for the MBA... the classes are very good. I would also like to note that their MBA program was recently accredited by the ACBSP. w00t!

olaHalo

JockVSJock wrote: »

Watch the video in my sig to get more of an understanding on how colleges scam people in the United States.

Also, make sure the school you go to is teaching/training you in real skills that you can use in the real world. Not a bunch of dumb, power-point driven nonsense based in theory.

I have seen that video.
I agree with a lot of its points. Especially how we are trained to believe we need college and that a degree guarantees us a job.
I would never get into any debt for school but thats just me I suppose.
But the video seems to be pushing a lot of its own ideas and is basing most of its information off of that NIA website (which I have never heard of before the video)

Anyway I have only heard negative things from students who I know that attended ITT. I dont know anyone who has attended Devry however.

NetworkVeteran

Yeah, I don't agree with much of that video's intro.

> "The entire purpose of elementary school is to prepare students for high school."

As someone who has taught in elementary shcools, I strongly disagree. Consider that K-5 typically takes a student who knows only their ABCs to the point that they can read fluently. Can anyone seriously argue, with a straight face, that the only benefit of teaching kids to read is so to prepare them for high school?! Also note that elementary schools teach counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, decimals, and fractions. Anyway, I remain excited to invest in the elementary education of those in my neighborhood. I believe the skills they learn there have wide applicability to these students' futures.

olaHalo

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

Yeah, I don't agree with much of that video's intro.

> "The entire purpose of elementary school is to prepare students for high school."

As someone who has taught in elementary shcools, I strongly disagree. Consider that K-5 typically takes a student who knows only their ABCs to the point that they can read fluently. Can anyone seriously argue, with a straight face, that the only benefit of teaching kids to read is so to prepare them for high school?! Also note that elementary schools teach counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, decimals, and fractions. Anyway, I remain excited to invest in the elementary education of those in my neighborhood. I believe the skills they learn there have wide applicability to these students' futures.

Agreed
College or High School was hardly mentioned in elementary school. If anything I was continually being prepped for the next grade, not college.

eansdad

I can honestly say i know 1 person who went to DeVry and 1 person who went to Strayer that actually know what they are doing. They are both over $50k in debt but they do know their stuff. Of course I think they are the exception and not the typical students found at for-profit schools.

Working in a school district, I'll say that elementary school should be preparing students for the essentials of life. You need to be able to read, write and understand math. You should have a concept of science and even know some history. The biggest thing, which a lot of schools are missing, is these kids need to be taught critical thinking and rationalizing. If you can't do those then all you did was memorize a bunch of facts.

SteveLord

It's too bad. A line of reputable schools focusing on IT, sponsored by big names in technology and didn't **** you on tuition sure would be nice.

jm0202

GoodBishop wrote: »

I'm going to Keller for the MBA... the classes are very good. I would also like to note that their MBA program was recently accredited by the ACBSP. w00t!

Nice to have a ACBSP acreditation .. but the gold standard for MBA programs is the AASCB acreditation

Sirbloody

A old Army buddy of mine is going to ITT to learn "computers/programming". He seems to enjoy it but I cringe to see how much he is going to owe for his loans.

srabiee

For gods sakes man, don't do it! I went to NIT/Everest in 1999 and it was the biggest mistake of my life. I owed them over $18,000 after 1 year and learned NOTHING.

Learn from our mistakes!

If you want to get your degree in IT and want to do it fairly quickly and inexpensively (and want the degree to be worth a damn), go to WGU.

GoodBishop

jm0202 wrote: »

Nice to have a ACBSP acreditation .. but the gold standard for MBA programs is the AASCB acreditation

Of course, the gold standard is going to a tier 1 business school... but for what I want to do, that massive investment is not required.

I am thinking DePaul or Johns Hopkins for their M.S. in Infosec once I'm done the MBA.

instant000

SteveLord wrote: »

It's too bad. A line of reputable schools focusing on IT, sponsored by big names in technology and didn't **** you on tuition sure would be nice.

You mean like this?

About WGU: National Advisory Board

Affordable Accredited Online University | WGU Tuition and Fees | Western Governors University

SteveLord

I meant something like ITT, where you had many physical locations throughout the US, all had high quality instructors and all had the latest technology to get your hands dirty with. Of course, I wouldn't mind if WGU became that way while holding to their standards.

jm0202

You don't need to go to a tier 1 business school for a AASCB accreditation. There are many state universities that are AASCB accredited

GoodBishop wrote: »

Of course, the gold standard is going to a tier 1 business school... but for what I want to do, that massive investment is not required.

I am thinking DePaul or Johns Hopkins for their M.S. in Infosec once I'm done the MBA.

WafflesAndRootbeer

aaron0011 wrote: »

I attended ECPI back in 2004. It cost me around $20,000 for an Associate's Degree. Yes, it was expensive but no major University in my area was offering a networking degree back then. I was set up with a job right out of school making 40K a year at 20 years old thanks to attending ECPI. The classes were good and we had extensive Cisco labs to use every day.

Just wanted to vouch for ECPI here. Expensive, yes...but crappy school with commercials trying to sell you something? Not exactly. The CIA recruits ECPI students btw or at least they did a few years ago.

ECPI was the place to go back in the day but they have become a joke since the for-profit school boom. It cost me 15K for half a year of school, the teachers were fakes with no technical background and the administration was a revolving door with people coming and going every few weeks, the money I was paying for my tuition didn't go into the tech program but got put towards the nursing/med school they run which has several times the number of students, the campus was tucked away in the back-end of an industrial building area that takes a LOT of work to get in and out of, and all the equipment upgrades that they said we were supposed to have - they were using stuff from the y2K days - was going to other campuses to improve their programs.

SlayerX

I have 3 friends who went to ITT and they all walked out with a 40k debt. Only 1 of them landed a job in IT and the other 2 ended up working jobs at Walmart for 2 years. Because of that I stayed away from ITT and went to another IT college and picked up my degree and my A+ certification included in the price for far less then what ITT charges. No slam to those working at Walmart, I am just stating what happened.

But yeah stay away from ITT!

coreyb80

I actually was leaning towards Devry, but I did some soul searching today. I have 15-20 credits left to finish my associates plus me being in school allows me to take certifications at a discounted rate as well. Win-win situation to get my associates and certs w/o accruing crazy student loans. I just registered for Fall classes. I'll have my associates at the end of Spring 2014 and hopefully sitting on at least 3 certs by then as well starting with my A+ in August. Thank everyone for the words of wisdom I definitely appreciate it.

Panzer919

OK I will throw myself out for scrutiny. I graduated from ITT back in 2004. The reason why I decided ITT was because all the courses were focused on my degree. I did not want to waste my time and money on BS underwater basket weaving classes. I did not want to have to sign up for classes each quarter/semesters only to find out one was only available in the middle of my work day. When I was deciding on where to go, the only background I had was in computer repair and troubleshooting.

ITT worked for me when it came to a hands on approach to learning and having teachers who actually worked in the area's they were teaching. Not all, but most.

The downside to how things were? We had to have 1 teacher removed because he was a dumbass and was making us go to a website to learn SQL programming. Like everyone has previously stated, its VERY expensive (i still owe 19K). You get to touch a little of everything which teaches you how to do things, but not how they work.

I ultimately ended up going back to school (University of Cincinnati) for the Cisco Network Academy course. I was the only person who was there strictly for the CCNA/CCNP courses. I had a friend who was taking a course titled "Server OS Administration". I asked him what server he was learning, MS2000/2003, Redhat, Novell? He told me that they never touch a server or its OS. I asked how the F**K can you learn to administer a server and its functions without touching it???!!?? He went on to describe his other "tech" classes and they were more of the same. The exception, was the Cisco Academy.

So is ITT/Devry for everyone, NO. Is Community/Public college for everyone, NO. You need to figure out what works for you. If you do not want to be drowning in student loans, stay away from the private institutions. If you don't care about that, add them to the list but still see which one you would benefit from the most.

Me personally, I would not be able to do ITT tech now. They now have half of their courses online and I will not pay attention without someone standing in front of me.

The biggest thing you should realize also is that no matter what you pick, you will still have to pick up things on your own. I loved the Cisco material at ITT but it was not enough to make me very valuable. I had to go on my own and find other materials to further my Cisco education. Same thing goes for programming, Server OS, CAD, doesnt matter. You will always have to fill in the gaps that schools create to make yourself stand out from the other "IT Professionals" that come off the assembly line each graduation.

I will get off my soapbox now

alan2308

My company had an ITT instructor fail miserably in a phone interview. How do you think his students do?

Community college, WGU, or even self study. Just stay away from ITT.

jargavet

TLDR: RUN AWAY

I have a professor at ITT who is an architect for [h=3]JHU and he is amazing... The curriculum itself is absolute crap.[/h]
I am leaps and bounds ahead of the courses taught and am glad I had some transfer credits to shorten my stay.

A lot of it does have to do with where you live since they try and source professionals that work in the field.

Mishra

I went to ITT as well. I think this is nearly the same post I would have written. I too went to this school because the courses looked more aligned to you teach you real skills instead of pointless general ED classes.

Panzer919 wrote: »

OK I will throw myself out for scrutiny. I graduated from ITT back in 2004. The reason why I decided ITT was because all the courses were focused on my degree. I did not want to waste my time and money on BS underwater basket weaving classes. ...

bobloblaw

Average costs of ITT is insanity and it has a well deserved garbage reputation for easy pass. You'd be better off getting an associates from a community college, and your bank account would thank you.

I'm not saying those who have gone there are dummies. That's CLEARLY not the case (ie - Mishra). I'm just saying there's a reason 3rd down on google search when you type "itt degree" is "itt degree worthless."

Tooms

I received a degree from ITT. I wouldn't recommend them since they are expensive and not regionally accredited.

Hypntick

My previous job had a couple of guys from ITT there. One of them knew his stuff, the other clearly did not. Now I can't speak to how much of this was related to the school itself, or to the individual capabilities of these people. However, my lone personal experience with ITT was attending a job fair as we were hiring and having issues filling the spots. If that was any indication of what they showed students, I could never suggest it as a viable schooling option. Then again, that's just from the two hours I spent there talking to job seekers.

Obsquacious

I haven't done either of the school listed in your post, but I went to a similar type of school. I went to be an electronic technician, and when my company needed a new IT guy, they opted to promote me to IT rather than go through the resumes from the tech schools. I found that the techschool I went to was a poor learning environment, with very few students actually taking it seriously. It did me well (not in IT, but for electronics repair), but it was expensive and I feel like I got very lucky to end up with the company that I did.

krj118

I went to a community college for the first two years and then transferred to DeVry. It was a cheaper alternative as mentioned above. Although, the community college I went to offered online options too. I attended classes in person and online through them. This was good as it put me in the mindset for online classes. So I was already acclimated to online learning.
I think if I had it to do over, and it was now when so many more colleges and universities are offering online classes and degrees, I would have picked a "brick and mortar" college for the second half of my education. I've heard during some interviews that my DeVry degree is somehow... "less" than if I had obtained it from a traditional college or university.

Frostbite

There's only one program I'd consider at DeVry, and that's the "offline" BSEET. It's accredited through ABET. Even then, I'd look for a cheaper program.

Doyen

aaron0011 wrote: »

I attended ECPI back in 2004. It cost me around $20,000 for an Associate's Degree. Yes, it was expensive but no major University in my area was offering a networking degree back then. I was set up with a job right out of school making 40K a year at 20 years old thanks to attending ECPI. The classes were good and we had extensive Cisco labs to use every day.

Just wanted to vouch for ECPI here. Expensive, yes...but crappy school with commercials trying to sell you something? Not exactly. The CIA recruits ECPI students btw or at least they did a few years ago.

I also would like to vouch about ECPI. I am having a very good experience there at their Raleigh campus. They offer great and practical labs with the topic and are willing to offer help IF you put the initiative to ask (I love to take advantage of). Most of our tech labs are up to date with Office 2013, Server 2012, Workstation 10, Netlabs, etc. Yes, I admit that it is a costly school that I will be paying back $60k for my undergrad when I am done, but the insight and focus I gained is something that I could not grasp at a community college. My experience with community college was mainly trying to get a class scheduled when it was available, but the environment there seemed more like I was just some "number" to them- I guess in a way since I got the impression they did not care about me I don't really should care about the course. The instructors that I've had at ECPI encourage certifications and the school offers vouchers for $15 for Cisco, Comptia, Microsoft, EC-Council, etc. that we can take advantage of.

I made use of the money that I was paying them by taking advantage of equipment that they offered after classes. If I didn't have to work that evening, I enjoyed staying after class playing around with Cisco routers/switches or EXSi and Vsphere. It may sound silly, but I did not really wanted to "do the labs" but really gaining some sort of understanding of why it actually worked that way. I have found that such curiosity and enthusiasm can be contagious that other students would stay after to create various network environments. I also found that a good portion of the instructors there love to teach extra things to those that enjoy the topic (using the laughable tactic of "peeking" in the room asking what we were doing as they were "passing by"). The point I guess I am getting at is that for me, experiences such as those motivates me to love learning. I even bought my own CCIE lab to play around with at the house as a geeky hobby.

Unfortunately, a lot of my classmates do enough to "get by" and leave 2 hours before the class ends when we focus on labs. I will admit, the instructors there will fail you without remorse if you put little effort in the class...however, those same instructors are also the ones who willing to take their time with you if you are willing to learn. I suppose all colleges are like that, but I wonder why those type of students even bother going to college in the first place. I mainly figure because someone (maybe their parents) are giving them that need of attaining a piece of paper to succeed or they don't take such studies seriously because some else is paying their bill (GI bill, work, parents, etc.)...

EDIT:
Of course there is some general education courses, but such is the life of any regionally accredited undergraduate degree. However, I do feel that the skills that I am learning there are "real world" or maybe practical for employment after graduation. A few times, I have wondered if I knew about WGU earlier, would I have gone there instead? Would the way they teach their courses instilled the same enthusiasm that I have now about IT? Just something that I will admit to since I saw a lot of posts in this forum about WGU towards this topic. The truth is I never will really know other than I do plan on applying at WGU for my graduate degree after I finish with ECPI. I did take a tour of ITT while considering my undergraduate schooling and wasn't really impressed. They led me there under the false information that the campus offered undergraduate degrees, but then tried to sell me an associates- one that I already had! I chose to go to ECPI because I gained my associates 6 years prior and was satisfied then how the courses were taught. They greatly improved in the last 6 years to where I would recommend them to anyone who learns through hands on application and is willing to ask for help when needed.

rowelld

I graduated from ITT back in 2008. At the time I didn't know any better with no one to talk to about school and technology. My experience was okay. I did know more than some teachers. Other teachers were great. The cost of going there is terrible.

My recommendation is to look at different threads here on the forum. Many have gone to WGU. I know someone who goes to WGU now and he loves it. With the market now I probably would go the traditional route and take Computer Science.