Vocational School Hell

Okay RHU, Queer Geek to let everyone know I’m still on the job hunt. 

I haven’t thrown in the towel just yet.  So far I’ve got two interviews in another area of the retail hell field so hopefully one will pan out.  It’s good to know that I can still file unemployment and use the resources my taxes have paid into if I have to.  Believe me folks, I’m pimping myself out as best I can in this troubled economy.

For this post, I wanted to share something high-larious while I was doing the jobless thang.  After Big Fancy decided to lay me off, I was feeling sorry for myself for a few days that I kept looking into other possible options for the next phase in my life.  Then it hit me.  Vocational schools! 

You know the one where they advertised catchy slogans like “Do you want to learn pole dancing? Gun repair? Bernie Madoff Ponzi schemes?  Well you too can join the growing profession of students willing to be swindled into taking out billions of students loans into a career field that cannot guarantee job placement at Vocation College!”

Yes folks I almost went that route.   Here’s how it went down.  I was doing my usual filing my resume through various websites when one of the internet job sites popped a stupid browser window.  Now I should’ve known better than to fill out my personal info but according to the pop-up if I wanted to ACTUALLY get on the site, I would have to fill out my life history to bypass to the next step.  BIG MISTAKE.  The problem is that it generated to the vocational/training school network who immediately contacted me about various schools in my area.  My phone rings.

ME: Hello?

CALLER: Hello is this Queer Geek?  Queer Geek, this Joe Schmoe.  I work for Vocational Search Engine and we would like to connect you to several schools in your area.  It says here you are interested in the rewarding career in the health field.  Let me connect you…

ME: Wait…I just wanted information.

*Phone rings.* CALLER: Hello Queer Geek.  This Vocational School Number 1 and we would like to view the Power Point presentation on your e-mail.  See how wonderful our school is and tuition is a lot of money but don’t worry you can take out one of student loans.  Let me connect you to our enrollment and financial aid department…

ME: Can’t you just mail me the brochures?  I’m still trying to figure out my life right now.

CALLER:  Heaven’s no!  We want your money.  Let me connect you... *click*

I hang up the phone but not before the phone rings again.  Stupid me picks it up.

CALLER: Hello Queer Geek.  This Jane Doe from Vocational Christian School Number 2.  We want your money and want to tell you all the exciting classes and tuition fees as the Lord would have wanted.  Let’s connect you to our admissions and financial aid department.

ME: You do know I’m jobless and have no money right now?

CALLER: Just pray for the Lord and He will Giveth to You.  We have student loans that will pay for school as part of our Christian charity.  All we need to do is connect you to the right department…

ME: You do know that I like dudes, right?

CALLER: Ummm…uh…we’re not the right school for you.  I apologize that you going to burn in Hell. *Hangs up.*

I thought this was over.  Then suddenly, the phone rings again.

CALLER: Hello Queer Geek, this is Douche and I want to explain all about our exciting career school Vocational School Number 3…

ME: Look I appreciate you guys calling me.  Right now I’m weighing in my options so I can’t make any decisions right now.  Please just mail me your brochures and I will happily get in touch with your admissions office if I decide to go back to school.

CALLER: But that’s not how it works.  We want your money so we will harass you daily until you join of cult like Scientology.  Since you won’t join us now, we’ll call you tomorrow. *Hangs up.*

Sure enough, they did but I had a couple excuses up my sleeve.

CALLER: So Queer Geek have you made a decision on joining our school?

ME: You know I’m going to have to decline so you can take me off your calling list.

CALLER: What?  You’re unemployed.  What other options do you have?

ME: *lying* I’ve been offered a position elsewhere.  It is rather questionable depending on the illegality of it all but all I can say that I’m an avid smoker of the product and I’ll be involve with various groups of people in different degrees of undress.  It’s rather lucrative when you think about it as long as law enforcement does not get involved.

CALLER: Well I’m sorry we’ve wasted your time.  *Hangs up.*

In all seriousness folks, I finally told these vocational schools to stop calling me.  I’ve been doing some research and discovered that the real truth behind these institutions is that they make money through their astronomical student loans. 

In addition to that, the job market is saturated with medical assistants grads who can’t find employment due to the competitive nature of the field and the companies asking for one to two years of experience so the chances of finding a job is really slim.  Therefore, their advertising of guaranteed job placement is not true.  Also pay rate wise is no different than what you would be making full time in the retail hell industry so that is also a misnomer.

I then considered vocational nursing but I then I talked to my younger sister who is an RN and she beat the advice into me.  Don’t do it for the money.  Do it because you enjoy working and helping patients.  Also, you will be working with a lot of bodily fluids (and no this is not a porn set) so hopefully you have a strong stomach for this sort of thing. 

Hmmm, I have much to consider.

--Queer Geek

Comments

[Eric]

Sorry you had such a bad time with this. I found myself out of a job in customer service at 45 years old. I did go to a vocational school as a last resort and became a Pharmacy Technician for student loans of less than $5,000 due to free Pell Grants ( check them out) and I was hired immediately by one of the largest non profit hospitals in the world and worked there for 5 years before retiring with a great pension and made a ton of money along the way. Deal with a reputable school and it does work. Good luck and love your posts....

[perky]

Yeah, I talked to one of their placement agents. A 2 year AA degree was 28k! My four year BS degree from UCF was a a little less than that. I told them I was absolutely not going to take out any more student loans since I was already in debt, if they couldn't find me a scholarship I wasn't coming. They haven't called me back since then.

[heavy melvanova]

I've been peeking into this type of career path as well, maybe Medical Transcriptionist or Editor. (Libraries sure ain't hiring right now, so there goes my MLS out the friggin window) But do I want to go back to school for 1-2 years, then who knows about a job. There's also tons of new Voice Recognition software programs out there, so the field is probably dwindling. I found a ton of info about schools, programs and jobs, etc., but I just bookmarked it all into a folder on my laptop. We'll see.

At least my current part-time job offers health insurance and school-time hours, so I'll keep that for awhile. What to do ... oy.

[MA_Nightmare]

Put it this way: I'm a Medical Assistant who's worked Tech Support and now Property Management. It ain't all it's cracked up to be.

[Queer Geek]

@MA_NIGHTMARE

I definitely looking into different options in the healthcare field that is stable, that pays a little better, and that I would enjoy doing but so far I haven't found any that peeks my interest.

At this point, I'm looking into community colleges I can afford that offer similar programs.

[Queer Geek]

@Perky

I completely relate. My Bachelor's degree in Education only cost me 19K in student loans and some of the schools were asking for more than that for tuition. Heck no! I'm already struggling with paying the bills right now so there's no way I'm taking out more money for something that isn't guaranteed.

[Katie (the other one)]

Some of those vocational schools make it sound like yo ucan transfer their credits to regular colleges..in most canses, the credits DO NOT transfer. And my daughter went through an dgot certified in a field and when she graduated, she had a list of jobs waiting...but not one was offering over 20 hours a week! The school never said that the "guaranteed job" would be full time..
Good thing she managed to ge tthe training with grants. That was about 6 years ago and she now has a job, but it has nothing to do with her certification. I don't think any school can guarantee you a full time job, if the jobs aren't available.

[annoyedinsanecashier]

I've had that happen with one school before. We had some lady come to our AP Literature class when I was a senior in high school and talked to us about a vocational school. She then guilt tripped us into giving out our contact information, saying it was so that she could prove that she actually did the presentation for us to her superiors. I did not check the box that said it was okay for them to contact me, nor did most of the other students in my class.

Well, lo and behold, in the coming weeks, we each got at least two or three phone calls from these pigs. I got two, despite me telling them the first time that I hadn't checked the box giving them permission to contact me.

[NC Tony]

Cracked.com did an article a while back about how these vocational schools (the ones you see advertised on TV) are rip offs, and the only thing they guarantee you are headaches and debt. I think the article stated that while they say they can get you a job in the field, it's only a 20% guarantee (instead of the 80% they say).

[kitty foster]

Go to a community college for health care. There are SOOO many options: x-ray tech, hospital administration, ultrasound tech, surgery tech...also contact your local hospitals - they may have a program with your ROP in the area; and Kaiser has training programs too. I was goingn to go back to school for LPN, but I can't stand bodily fluids....yechh!

[CountsALot]

The other thing you have to watch for is if those vocational schools are accredited or not, because that can screw you up, too. Now my one friend went to a vocational school, got his associate's, and has a full-time job in that field making decent money (I think he's at or slightly below industry average). So, they aren't ALL bad. But most of them are for-profit businesses, which on paper justifies them sucking the money out of you.

[photoslave]

I've finally given up on finding a rewarding job without a degree. Decided to go to Everest for Medical Assisting. 5 thousand in grants, 10 thousand in loans, and I have to come up with the last 2 and a half thousand.

[Pixie]

I almost got suckered into something similar after I'd been well shot of the kitchen-wenching for a while and getting desperate for a chance at anything. Some recruitment agency, whose offices were in an unnamed, un-numbered building down the back streets from the ass end of a train station, supposedly had an entry-level position at a finance firm open for offer. The recruiter dude told me since my background was in social sciences instead of accounting or anything like that, they usually wouldn't consider me for the job, but since I've got an MA I must be a very hard-working and mature person and he thought my background would actually lend itself well to a consultant-type role, working with people on their mortgages and such.

All I had to do was pay some lady who, right on cue, stepped out from behind a wall somewhere and supposedly represented a vocational training school 600 pounds (almost $1,000) for a crash-course in accountancy and a premium seat at the next available certificate exam. Boom, guaranteed job with a VERY cushy basic salary, I'd make back that money in no time. I was a bit flabbergasted, a little suspicious, and very torn as to what I should do. I said I'd left my wallet with my bank cards at home, to give me time to look up the companies supposedly involved and the actual certificate they claimed they could get me. The certification and examination materials were legit, part of the national regulatory standards for accountants, but neither the "agency" nor the vocational peeps turned up on Google. Plenty of similar-sounding scams did. Gotta be careful out there.

[Greenhouse Gal]

For-profit schools are, generally, a big scam.

A couple years back, I interviewed for a job as an instructor at a for-profit vocational school I'll refer to as JUU Tech. It was...interesting. It was a group presentation followed by individual interviews. During the presentation, they pointed out that instructors were graded solely on student retention (and not, say, student reviews, or graduation rates) and that instructors were not expected to have, and would not be paid for, any office hours or out-of-class time spent with students.

They were pretty upfront that their degree programs were for people that had basically screwed up any chance of getting a degree from an accredited program, and that credits would not transfer...but I doubt that they were that upfront with students.

What particularly irritated me was that I was interviewing for a teaching position in either the paralegal or the criminal justice program. Their advertising was heavy on, "become a police officer! Become a probation agent!" In my state, to become a probation/parole agent, you have to have a degree from an *accredited* school--and virtually all police departments here require the same thing. It felt very fishy to me, and I was just as glad to not get an offer out of it.

They were also pretty unprofessional about the interview process--to let me know when the presentation/interview was, I got an email from them--that showed the email address of every other person that was invited for an interview with that department. The upside of that was that I re-connected with someone I had been good friends with in law school but had lost contact with, but still--that could have gone very badly for someone.

Long story, and I could go on (I have several friends who have been screwed by for-profit culinary schools)...but short version? For-profit vocational schools are likely a big scam. Stick to non-profit community colleges.

[Queer Geek]

Thanks everyone for sharing your words of wisdom. I transferred from a community college to a university and got my degree with the least amount of loans possible so my monthly payments were fine.

I'd rather stick to a acredited community college and take longer to finish then some charlatan school that just wants my money.

[Shannah]

I think it's pretty common knowledge that workers are needed in healthcare and computers, but there are lots of jobs that don't involve bodily fluids or programming that are available.

I recently went looking for a job for a friend, and there were several project management types of jobs, technical writing, and hospital jobs like X-Ray tech, teaching seminars on health, social work, etc.

So you might look at your degree, and your experience, then go look at major job sites like dice, and see if you can find a job that maybe you hadn't considered, but is a reasonable fit for you.

Keep in mind that most employers, if you aren't a total fit skill-wise, will still consider you if you're a good team fit.

[Hapax Legomenon]

I had a great time in a LEGIT community/tech college. They were even building their own theatre and film departments when I attended. Here in Kentucky, the community college systems are actually much better than the four-year university systems in terms of turning out graduates, preparing those graduates for life after school, and using their funds on students. My quality of education went way down after I transferred to a four-year school.
I hate that community colleges and tech schools and even the legitimate vocational schools out there get lumped in with crap like ITT Tech. I'd love to work with high school students to direct them to legit choices like my community college(where full-time tuition for a year was something like $2,500) if they want to go on to college but aren't sure what course they want to pursue yet. At least save money while you're deciding, right?

[Su Chan]

You had me at:

> I apologize that you going to burn in Hell. *Hangs up.*

I will have to try this line (about liking dick) the next time the Mormons/Witnesses come a-calling.

[Buddy the Elf......What's your favorite colour?]

Queer Geek - I don't know about your area but you might try to find a temp agency and/or a workforce program. The temp agency would give you the ability to work around in different areas and some even offer training. A workforce program (at least the one that was in my previous state) gave you free training and resume help and all that good stuff so you could find a job. It wouldn't hurt to look at least. P.S. I really thought when you said vocational you meant like a trade, like being an electrician or plumber, but I guess those schools are "trades" too. >.<

Greenhouse Gal - Not just for-profit colleges...all institutions of "higher" learning are not in it to teach you something. Most of them truly don't give a damn about you, just your money.

[Queer Geek]

@Buddy the Elf

I've sent a a few resumes to temp agencies and I'm waiting for a response. It looks like I'm going to have to file unemployment for now and keep pounding the pavement until something comes along. After dealing with the unemployment office, I'm going to check out a few temp ones in person and get a feel for what I need to get something with my skills. Wish me luck!

[Megsong23]

I don't know if you fit into the 16-24 age group Queergeek, and can't recall if you're USA based, but I did the Job Corps Program, and got the technical training for free...

[Queer Geek]

@Megsong23

I'm familiar with Job Corps and I've applied for a couple of their office positions and even a substitute teacher position but they never called me back. Unfortunately I'm past their age limit so I don't qualify for their program.

[Megsong23]

Ah well, good luck! I just squeaked in under the wire.