The Search for a School

Part I: Why are you giving me a sales pitch?

The first part of this series will cover those schools which come up first when you google “graphic design school Vancouver” but are really – in my opinion – the last places you’d want to attend. Correct me if I’m wrong, graduates, I’d welcome some first-hand knowledge.

These are for-profit education institutions, some of which are being sued for enrolling as many students as possible and then claiming federal financial aid, which in the states made up nearly 90% of their revenue at $2.2 billion dollars.

This New York Times article should suffice as a reputable source. It does a fairly good job of explaining the situation:

The complaint said the company had a “boiler-room style sales culture” in which recruiters were instructed to use high-pressure sales techniques and inflated claims about career placement to increase student enrollment, regardless of applicants’ qualifications. Recruiters were encouraged to enroll even applicants who were unable to write coherently, who appeared to be under the influence of drugs or who sought to enroll in an online program but had no computer.”

This particular company is responsible for the Art Institute chain of schools, amongst others.

I find this so easy to believe because I – ever a devout believer in the powers of Google – gave my personal information to The Art Institute of Vancouver, Vancouver Career College and The Visual College of Art and Design.
If you follow these links, you’ll find that the Request Information form (EXACTLY the same for Van. Career College and VCAD, down to the loading .gif) is – with little to no tact – shoved down the potential student’s throat. The Vancouver Career College site even requires the visitor to scroll down past the form to even see that there is, in fact, information there. I suppose it’s no surprise that when the girl called for my “interview” (which would have been more accurately called an “infomercial) she started reading out – word for word – the course descriptions that were available on their website. That particular phone call ended when we simultaneously discovered that the only Graphic Design program they offered took place not in Vancouver, but Kelowna.

That particular person may have been inexperienced, but the format she followed was echoed by the other two institutions that contacted me. I gave them my information around 11:00pm that night, and all three called me the next day. “We’d like to set up an interview,” some would say, while others got down to business right away. When I asked about a portfolio requirement, they replied cheerily that there was a slightly different program for people without. I was asked my personal motivations for going to school there, and when I inquired what the earliest date I could start was, they told me January 7th – less than two weeks away.

Something, I thought, is fishy. Shouldn’t I be begging them to let me in? Shouldn’t I be worried about rejection?

I’ve heard from less reputable sources that employers won’t take a degree from these institutions seriously. My father, a business owner, has hired people from these sorts of collages and told me that although they can perform basic tasks, anything out of the ordinary exceeds their abilities.

Even if these collages provide basic skills which may be of some use, I’d rather have nothing to do with them. I am fairly certain that I could teach myself these most basic of skills from home without the gratuitous cost or the potential exploitation of government aid.