Southwestern Michigan College

Date: Jul 24 2011
Major: Design Arts - Industrial Design/Graphic Design/etc (This Major's Salary over time)
I have been taking courses at this college for 5 years due to the unorganization, lack of communication, and carelessness of teachers and faculty. Many times I have taken courses and have been given a non-passing grade only to re-take the course 2 more times before finally passing (and no it was not because I slacked off or didn't do the work, it was because teachers lost assignments, didn't clearly explain what they were looking for, or just decided that your paper was just not worthy of being looked at). I have also taken many courses that the first day of class the teacher told us they didn't know the first thing about the subject they were teaching and that this would be just as much of a learning experience for them as it was for us.

The course work did not prepare me for an actual job at all. When I got a full-time job as a Graphic Designer, I had to go through a lot of training just to understand what to do. Over the course of my time there, I only had 3 teachers that were extremely helpful, knew what they were teaching and were passionate about it. My degree is in Graphic Design and yet most of my course work was centered around business, math that I had taken in high school, elementary english classes, and other courses that did not teach me the first thing about design.

Not only were the courses not helpful, but the faculty at the college did not know the first thing about their jobs. Many times when signing up for classes, they would tell me that I had not taken a course, when in fact I had and had passed. There were many times that I had to take my grades and syllabi to the academic office just so they would believe that I had taken and passed the course. Many times, even after proving it to them, they would not unblock the courses so that I could sign up and it would be too late to get into the classes I needed. They were so unorganized in that office that I have wasted a lot of time and money taking courses that I didn't need or had already taken.

After wasting so much time and money on this "college," I would not recommend that anyone attend. I have brought my concerns to the dean of students, and even he did nothing to help me. This school is not worth the hassle, time, or money.