For various personal reasons, I opted, after many years of over analyzing, to try the beginnings of a career change. To facilitate that change I felt I needed to do some educational leg work which I decided to start at NCC. Let me preface that I had attended NCC in the past but it wasn't in this Millennium and A LOT of things changed in the 20+ years that had transpired in between.
Remember to keep in mind if you read this: these are only my personal experiences and they are not necessarily indicative of how things may turn out for anyone else.
Administrative: A lot of the initial paperwork for admission is done online via their website. Very easy and everything is well laid out. The college also does a great job explaining academic calendars, course schedules and course descriptions with lots of detail. Truly, all of this information is at your fingertips with minimal searching or effort required.
Eventually you probably will have to do some business at the Student Enrollment Center on campus. The people that work here are all over the place in terms of their willingness to tell you things or in terms of being helpful. The one older woman who sits out at the desk next to financial aid is completely miserable. Before meeting with someone from financial aid I had to interact with her for a few minutes and she did her best to talk down to me and make me feel really stupid/inadequate. On the flip side, John in financial aid is fantastic. Very patient and very willing to go the extra mile to help.
Advising: This part for me was pretty miserable. I went to the main academic advising office on the 3rd floor of College Center, signed in and waited for the next available adviser. I wound up getting an older guy who I feel didn't know what to do with me. He seemed accustomed to 18 year olds who have no idea about the process, not someone over 40 that had been there in the past and can actually ask him questions. The questions I asked him were mostly ignored/talked around and he eventually gave me a blank add/drop form, signed it and told me to "do what I wanted" because he felt I had a good grip on things. So, more or less I was on my own.
Bookstore: The prices are very high and I assume that has something to do with the place being run by a 3rd party. They claim that they'll match prices from other sites but I can't be bothered with the hassle. Amazon or Chegg usually beat the prices here especially for rentals. Although of course there are classes where the book is proprietary to the school or it's a new edition then you have to suck it up and buy it here. Note that the new game in town for some classes is to bundle the cost of the book into the tuition price. Always shop around as that is not necessarily the best possible price and it might be to your benefit to opt out of that arrangement versus always accepting it. Hey, nothing wrong with a few extra financial aid dollars in your pocket versus someone else's.
Classes: This is way too varied to do justice to it but I would say it doesn't hurt to give Rate My Professor a look because while there is some crack pot stuff on there, there is also a lot of truth mixed in. What is maddening is that the college does not have some sense of standards regarding some very important things like professors response time to emails. When you take a traditional classroom based class things are easy because you get to know them and they get to know you plus if there is an issue it's always easy to make time to talk in person.
Too many of the online teachers are adjuncts that live in other states and/or they adjunct at multiple schools in multiple states which means getting a response to an email can take 3-4-5 days only to get a smart ass half-baked response which puts you back at square one. Having a teacher only respond to emails on weekends because they have another job during the week is unacceptable especially because that is your only communication option. This is 2019. It shouldn't be that slow and this hard. Yet, it very much is because it's happened to me three times yet I've also had a history professor who responded to everything within a few hours even at 1am.
Overall NCC has far more good points than bad points and if you live in a sponsoring school district the tuition prices are more than reasonable. Hopefully going forward the school's administration takes a harder look at/listens to some the issues that are present regarding the accountability of some of the adjunct faculty. Some are really great and others seem less than thrilled to do anything except collect a paycheck. Towards the end of the semester the school asks people to fill out surveys about their experience. I hope they truly take those to heart because it can only make a good place even better. read more
