The Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology

Date: Apr 18 2014
Major: Mechanical Engineering (This Major's Salary over time)
I am a Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) student in my last semester at Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology. I will be graduating with an Associates degree in May,2014. Overall this is a decent school. The majority of the faculty in the MET program are great, but I can't speak on the other programs available at the college. They MET faculty are dedicated, invested, and really care about the students succeeding. On the other hand, there are a few that are terrible, which is why the grades I gave the school are not all that good. The math department is a complete disappointment. The instructor for the upper level mathematics courses, Calc I & II, is one of the worst teachers I have ever had to deal with. She has no idea how to teach and refuses to acknowledge the fact that when the majority of a class is failing or doing poorly that it is her fault for not properly presenting and teaching the material. Some people just do not make good teachers and she is one of those people, not to say she isn't intelligent because she is, she just cannot teach. The head of the math department has ignored dozens of requests, complaints, and concerns from students and other faculty about the issue over the last three semesters and continues to do nothing about it. The department head made promises to me that he was going to be more involved in this particular instructor's classes and work with her to figure out where the issue is and how to convey the material in a manner where we actually understand it and absorb it, but he has made no attempt, whatsoever, to find a solution to the problem and get us the help and education we need and are paying for. As of today he has not done anything except lie to us. I would say that about seventy five percent of students in her classes either drops the course or fails it, this is not an exaggeration, and still the academic administration and management do nothing about it. If the school improved it's math department, it would be a good school. Now it's no MIT but if they made some changes it could be a good value and a great way of getting an associate's degree to go straight into a career or to transfer to a four year university. So to sum it all up, I've had a pretty good experience at BFIT, but feel I haven't been given the education I was looking for due almost entirely to the math department. I will be continuing my education in a bachelor's program next year but I do feel I am at a disadvantage now because I will be behind in Calculus I and Calculus II. If you are exceptionally good with math, then you will be fine because you can probably teach it to yourself, but if you are not a natural at it then it might not work out to well.