Granted I haven't taken any other courses for personal training, I was not at all pleased with most of the things that happened while I was at Hilltop Academy. I originally went for information, and because I am a shop-around person, I did not end up signing up for the class right away; however, almost all of the students I went to school with, said that they felt pressured and re-assured into simply filling out all the student loan applications and applying to be part of the class. I don't feel that they 'screen' for good candidates the way they say they do, instead, they try to sign up as many people as they can to make as much money from student loans as possible.
I understand this from a business point of view, however as the year progressed I had more and more issues with the lack of morals within the company. Some students were pushed through the system, and even got passing marks for things they didn't show up to. They didn't try hard, and the only way that anyone was made to fail is if they didn't show up at all. ---And even then, it took many absent days before anything was done.
We were constantly released from class early, every day. Apparently because all the material had been covered. For myself, I was okay with this at first because I felt I grasped all of it. The concepts were easy for me to learn or simply take home and re-teach myself, as I learn well alone anyway. As far as some of my fellow students, and friends were concerned though, they had trouble keeping up sometimes and found it hard to learn because of this. They would be invited to stay behind class, and pay for extra tutouring hours outside of school days to help them get better --- but why should they be charged, if our student loan was to cover a set amount of hours, that WEREN'T delivered in the first place? And even if they had stayed behind, for the extra help, I do not believe it should be up to them to know when they need to do such a thing anyway, or when information is being missed. I believe it should be up to the teachers to be sure they are completely thorough with the information they are suppose to have passed onto their students.
And again, later on in the weeks of learning, there were practicals that were suppose to be done one person at a time. Instead, they were done two people at a time, with one instructor.
All in all, I feel that for such an expensive student loan to be taken out, I did not get what I was promised to get. I was under the impression that there would be a certain number of students or less (which we started with well over the maximum stated), as well as a minimum amount of hours that was being paid for, that was not received... Why did I pay an extra few thousand dollars if I could have learned the same amount, on my own, through Douglas?
I DO want to say one thing. The staff always seemed to be on your side, and the teachers were really good at their jobs... But I do not feel that I got what I paid for... No hard feelings for the teachers (though I'm aware this may be taken as so), they are very intelligent and definitely know their stuff; however, I feel like I could have and need to learn so much more - and I KNOW that some of my fellow students really SHOULD have learned a lot more. read more
