Iona College

Date: Oct 13 2015
Major: Communications (This Major's Salary over time)
I attended Iona College from 2003-07 and graduated with a degree in Communications. I regret having ever attended the school and hope that high school students/prospective college students read this message and decide to go elsewhere.

If you're going to attend Iona, only do so if you're majoring in Business or Finance, or if you have been offered a full scholarship. Otherwise there is no point. The school is very expensive and provides a poor return on investment. Classes during the first two years can be taken at a local community college for a fifth of the cost, and the quality at the community college will be better than the quality at Iona. I had to take three classes during my first two years that each centered around "Ragtime" by E.L Doctorow. It's a good book, but one that can be taken out at the local library for free. I had to read it three times in three separate classes over two years before I could take a course that had anything to do with my major. How many employers are making hiring decisions based on someone's "Ragtime" expertise?

I wanted to do an internship during my freshman, sophomore, and junior years, and even did all of the work in getting the internships (the school offered no help when asked); the school wouldn't let me do the internships for course credit because "only seniors could do internships for credit." Imagine my surprise when I turned on the Howard Stern show (he had a tv show back then) and saw him interviewing my sophomore classmate, also a Comm major, as part of his "intern beauty contest."

They finally let me do an internship my senior year…and the company (the same alternative rock station that Howard was on back then) goes belly up two weeks before it's scheduled to start. I begged the career center for assistance. I explained the situation, and they pretty much told me to get lost and earn the credit taking a community college class that summer. Apparently I didn't meet the "deadline" to apply for another internship, even though I had an internship and it fell through. A month later, I'm reading The Ionian (the campus paper), and the big article is that eight students have been selected for a prestigious internship at the Olympics…five of the students were underclassmen. Of course.

I won't even bother going into detail about the career center and the lack of job fairs, and the lack of employers at said fairs, or the lack of resume preparation they provide. Here's what you need to know; after months of trying to set up an appointment with a career counselor, I met with one and they spent 20 minutes with me setting up a Monster.com account. That was it. No tips, no contacts, no help with interviews, nothing. Monster.com was the extend of the job preparation that they provided.

Do your homework boys and girls. Community College is a better option for two years; you can get your courses out of the way for a fifth of the cost, get your grades up and earn some extra scholarship money to go to a decent school. And for goodness sake, ask questions! Demand to know which companies recruit students. Demand to know what needs to be done in order to get a job with these companies. Hold the school accountable!