ITT-Tech SUCKS

The Return of the Window Lickers
Another Saturday morning of time well spent.  This week for capstone was chalk full of fun, and as an added bonus if you make it to the end of this posting there is an EPIC tale which I can hopefully find the words to describe accurately. But first, ranting! 

So it's week 2 and the class consists of a lot of make believe project management focused nonsense. We had to make up silly questions to ask the teacher about the make believe RFP, which he then answered in the most generic way possible; you know, since it's all fake anyway. 

After that came the lab, and being a technical school and the final course of a technical degree we did some really technical hands on stuff that really added value to my education. LOLOLOLOL. Actually we all went to lab and then wrote a single page about the fake answers the teacher just gave us, specifically with concern to if his answers changed our plans at all. Even if they didn't you still had to print out a piece of paper that said your plans remain the same and hand that in.

Then things got REALLY stupid. 

A secondary theme to this capstone is to try and get people more comfortable with presenting things. So every week we are given a really generic topic to make a powerpoint about.  This week we had to talk about a vacation we went on once, and what made it memorable. Not only is that extremely boring, but let's also remember that the teacher is one of the worst speakers in the school, and gives no pointers or feedback on any presentation that would result in learning to present better.  You stand up, you spew, you sit down and we move on.  Helpful right? 

No real surprises here, most people suck at presenting, or have god awful choices for font size/colors. Some precious gems combine both into one magical fail filled monstrosity. And then it happen... one of the really amazing students got up there...  REALLLLLLY AMAZING. 

Let's keep in mind that this student has passed 400 level classes and is about to complete a bachelors program.  This student went to Mexico for his trip, while down there he tried to fish.  But he couldn't figure it out, the whole reeling in the lure thing was just too complicated so his parents took the fishing pole away from him.  But it gets even better... so much better. 

That night his father makes a camp fire, which fascinates our star ITT student.  "What is fire?" he asks his father. "Pick up one of those logs son" the father tells him, so he does; burning his hands terribly and screaming in pain. "Fire hurts" he says, and his family laughs at him.

The next night the students father asks him if he would like to start the campfire. The student is some what apprehensive given the events of the prior night, but he agrees. The father hands him a lighter and some paper and tells the son to be careful and don't get too close because their is lighter fluid on the wood. I think we know what happens next, but just for lolz...  

He goes right next to the fire and starts the lighter, there is an explosion of flame that burns his face and hair. 

That's how I learned to stay away from fire - ITT Student

"That is how I learned to stay away from fire" he says, and his presentation is over.  Looking around the room showed nothing but shock. This is a grown up, he can't be serious.  But he was, and he was about to have the same degree as the rest of us. 

Capstone - Round 2 - FIGHT!

Here we go again, and the horror started to pile up the first day!

First - The teacher is one of the least technical in the school, he's actually a project manager.  I've had him for multiple classes and he's terrible. His idea of lecture is reading every slide in his presentation word for word.  One potential hilarious moment to come though, I noticed he has a class dedicated to "better presentation skills." HA!

His labs also deviate quite heavily from anything technical and usually focus on what he knows, project management. So instead of learning about networks and security, you instead write multiple high level papers about the processes and policies of IT. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of what you signed up for. I don't want to write papers about IT, I want to be the guy doing it, which is why I didn't go to school for project management.

Oh and did I mention he assigns TONS of this junk? I am talking 3-5 writing assignments per class + homework + I still need to actually do the capstone project. My group printed about 200 pages of documentation the first day...

Second - Groups were picked at random. There was some make believe "real world" excuse given for this. Which in some cases is true to an extent, however there is one glaring error that I feel is totally ignored. In the real world, all the people you work with know at least enough to have gotten the job. Even the most useless employee at your job got that position by showing some degree of competency.

This is a huge difference from people in a class. Some of my classmates are down right retarded, most simply got tricked into taking computer courses because they had no idea what to do. A small few are actually interested, and you can cut that group down again if you want to look at people who are good. So how does it make sense to force me into a group with these people?  People who would be fired from any other job.

The final quarter has begun.

Have you ever signed a contract or lease and then spent the remainder of the time counting the seconds until you were free of it? That's what my final quarter at ITT feels like.  There is no sense of accomplishment, no satisfaction, and certainly no looming job offers.  I imagine it's similar to what a prisoner feels as he gets closer to his release date. No one gets out of prison with fond memories of friends made and good times shared, you just want it to end.