The International Academy of Design and Technology Online

Date: Jan 07 2014
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
Upon visiting the college campus, I was greeted nicely by Wayne Gordin in early/mid 2003. After showing me the Orlando, Fl campus, jokingly said "You'll be making $67,000 a year." I was currently working two full time jobs one from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the other form 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Monday to Saturday with Sundays off. I had not life and the days off I had, I went biking on my bicycle. Getting back to Wayne. I called him a liar and he replied "You got me, that was a lie. see, you won't start off making that, you actually start off making $35k when you graduate guaranteed. We even have job placement. That's if you stick it through to the end."

My Father didn't raise a quitter. I was making $28,000 upon going there. I had to let go one of my jobs, I graduated in 2005 (Aug), but to walk, I had to wait until Jan 2006.

Job placement a month before graduation was awful. The jobs they offered were Pizza Hut (for designing pizzas), BlockBuster Video (for learning how to shoot and direct movies), UPS (hot to deliver on time) and some other unrelated job to the field.

My job I left was at a five star resort. Great people, great job since 2001, but college was guaranteed to bring in a better check. I decided to stay at my job I had since March 1998, BlockBuster Video while going to college. So when they offered me my own job for $0.35 less than what I was currently making, that truly sounded stupid.

I had a degree, I could find my own job. I continued working at BlockBuster Video, but eventually found a tech job, that was a dead end job, but just barely paid my current bills. It worked, but that is without the college loan in place.

Once the college loan kicked in, it was awful. Drained all the money I had saved up for what was going to be my house payment. Fast forward, I noticed my interviews went well as usual before going to college, except, now when I'd say what college I went to, the interviewers who were smiling and polite made faces of slight disgust.

Finally a co-worker gave me a lead to a great job. I went in and it went great, the interviewer loved me as usual. I've worked in customer service since 1997 and five start resort since 2001, it's natural to be nice and natural to me.

Well, this interviewer gave me the tests, both written questions and actual performance. After the interview was almost over and he was about to say what looked like "You've got.." He said "I see you went to college and asked which one?"

I purposely said "IADT" and he then asked "What does it stand for?" I hesitantly replied "International Academy of Design and Technology."

Then he too made the odd face of disgust. But then he turned and said

Don't take this personally, but the two people we fired came form that school. Again, don't take this personally, but why hire another bad apple if we just fired two?

He was saddened and I truly understood. International Academy of Design graduated flunkies and flooded the market. I had to push myself to find freelance customers while working my last job before getting laid off. This degree has hurt me more than it helped. IF i had learned something while attending, that would be nice too.

I was doing web design in 2000, built the resort's internal intranet that made all departments run 100% more smoothly and lessened radio talk to the handymen, activities keepers and house keeping.

would i recommend this college to anyone? NO. Not even my worst enemy. Keep in mind, this was BEFORE the job crash, so there should not be ANY excuse for me to NOT find a job.

This college did. IF I could go back in time, even though I met six wonderful people remained my friends since, I love them and they know I do, I'd go back and stop myself from going there.

IF Wayne Gordin did not guarantee me a job making $35k, I would NEVER have gone there in the first place. OR if the guarantee was legitimate and I was making $35k picking up trash, sure it is not a design job, but it's $35k. I would not be happy, but I'd be satisfied paying off my bills and buying a house.

If you are thinking about going to IADT (International Academy of Design and Technology) or ANY college, Google it. Find some graduates and ask them about it. New graduates and graduates that graduated at least five years prior. Then make a plan. Keep in mind, the military have options for college too.