career coach

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Colorado-Technical-University

I was introduced to CTU by a co-worker at VeraSun Energy Corporation (VSE). After meeting with the Dean of Students, he hired me for the first available course, Tax Accounting I&II the following quarter. I had to teach a group of professors first, before they would allow me to teach students. I found it to be challenging, a bit scary, but appreciated the opportunity to show the professors that I was more than capable of doing the job. I enjoyed the trust factor, and immediately reached out to other professors in the department to introduce myself and to learn what was expected of me, I also, from prior experience, was determined to make myself available to the students at all times. I had office hours on Tuesday and Thursday, but never denied a student extra help or time to complete an assignment. I also provided them with additional tutoring in any given class I was teaching at the time, and they always showed their appreciation, The reward was immense, and I enjoyed the networking I had developed in my own education. I received my teaching certificate from the university and my performance paid off with some of the highest review ratings by students in the school's history. I was proud of my students and never hesitated to comment in a positive manner on their performance, and to explain how wonderful a job they had done, or to provide ways in which they could do better when they were having a difficult time grasping the subject matter. I too learned from the students, and realized as I had been taught in the past by my own professors, that we are all open to learning and processing new information. I loved teaching and seeing that sparkle in a student's eyes when they finally understood the topic. Specifically in Strategic Management and Tax Accounting I & II, where I had the same students both quarters. I utilized my daily work experience, what I had learned from my mentors while attending school, and working with the IT department to create asynchronous lectures that has the ability of utilizing PowerPoint, Adobe, and other sources of information within the creation of Podcasts where students could use ITunes to refresh the weekly lectures, and then upload them onto their phones, and or PDA devices. This was very successful and the students loved it, Sioux Falls provided a new cultural experience for me and I cherished the slower approach to achieving the same goals in a work/life balance that did not go at a 100mph pace. The Dean and other professors were always willing to listen to me, and I developed better ways to teach with each passing quarter. I was able to work full-time during the day and teach two classes in the evenings, CTU was my first experience, and I look forward to the opportunity to teach again. I noticed that the average age of an online student was about 35-40 years of age, and while I also taught in person courses, I was truly filled with gratitude over the success I had from teaching online courses. CTU is a growing university and I would love the opportunity to teach their again, or to use what I learned teaching for another university,

I worked for CTU as an adjunct professor for over ten years.  In that time I had two managers who were excellent.  Others were an assortment of bad with two who were vindictive, arrogant, and micromanaged to the nth degree.  The reviews are true, the focus is retention even if students are ill prepared for college level classes.  At the end of each session, adjuncts are asked to evaluate the class, their own performance, etc.  I decided to tell the truth in one evaluation.  I was removed from teaching that class and given a different subject class - one for which I'd never had a college level class of my own.  Another problem I ran into was students who graduated from CTU then were hired by them as management.  CTU works for basic classes and the instructors try to do a good job to teach the subjects, but the short classes, the grim syllabi from CTU hinders good teaching practices.  There was also an issue with management because they wanted instructors to call students who had missed an assignment to encourage them to submit it.  I thought that was intrusive into adult lives.  I sent a text to a student who missed an assignment.  Some found it helpful, other students were angry at being treated as truant children.  I agreed with those students  Getting a phd from CTU is ill preparing the graduates to compete with brick and mortar degrees that fully immerse students in their field of study.  I never recommend online for profit universities. I do recommend online classes from public universities  Overall, the goal of CTU is profit and that drives everything.  The other issue I found was the archaic online technology.  I ended up talking to Apple for a computer issue and was told that CTU technology was not keeping up with industry innovation and thus my issues were never fixed.  I had to cut and paste info into my live chats as the screen share option was too old to work.  The upside of online teaching is that I traveled to Europe and all over the US while teaching in coffee shops, libraries, friends homes, and in assorted campgrounds.  For that reason I stayed.  The other reason, is that there were many students who hungered for an education.  One student was unable to write a coherent sentence.  I worked with that student and she passed the class with the lowest B possible, but she bit the bullet, did the extra learning required to write at a college level and learned the subject matter.  That student was one bright success in my tenure.  I love teaching, but CTU make is more difficult than it need be  I'd love to take over the school and redesign the entire program, update the technology, and screen students for incoming abilities, and then offer remedial classes in writing, reading, understanding assignments, who to contact when in trouble, and when to recognize when in trouble.   There is a place for online universities, but CTU isn't a good one.

The good: work from home. 
The bad: CTU used to be better. I there was a time that I have nothing but good things to say about it. But it has gone down hill. Not a single instructor pay raise in 6 years now. Pay was already low to begin with, and without a cost of living raise the pay rate is unconscionable. Along with the low wage per course, they limit you to just 2 classes a term. So, even will a full teaching assignment all year long, you won't break the 30k a year mark. 

But, your chances are getting a full teaching assignment are slim. They seem to have changed their philosophy on assigning 2 classes to adjuncts each term. Large number of really high preforming instructors are now often given only one course a term. They tell us the enrolment aren't high enough, but they are as high as ever. The loss of classes is a result of CTU raising class size to 75 students, squishing more terms in a year, and continuing to onboard new faculty, even though they don't have enough classes for their current faculty. I have been introduced to newly hired adjunct teachers in just about every everyone of the 10 meetings held this year, and CTU is still actively posting for more new hire adjuncts. 

Life for an adjunct is now stressful at CTU. Previously, it was consistent that two courses a term would be assigned, each starting on-time, and instructors were informed about the class schedule prior to the start of class. Now, every term is an anxious game of wait and hope. CTU started adding late start classes, which begin as much as 10 days past the official start date (that's a lot for a 5 week class). If you are scheduled a class, you might not know until after the start date of the class. You don't ever know if you will have 0, 1 or 2 classes and must wait and hope and stress for weeks about it. And this stressful cycle of hoping happens 9 times a year! 

Considering the low pay, the lack of security, and  distinct feeling that adjunct professors are now nothing but a disposable commodity, can no longer recommend CTU  for adjunct employment as I once would have. 



A typical day at work involved, organizing for the next day the day before. First order of the day was a fast meeting with my team members to set expectations and discuss what the obstacles are and how to overcome them. We would discuss our daily objective and how it will impact the larger monthly goals and company goals. Then I would analyze reports to find trends and patterns and conducted a root cause analysis on how to go about coaching my employees through their challenges and how to play a larger role with their strengths, while also managing core competencies and behavioral goals and how they tie into the company goals.
My Managers were okay but I felt at times that they could not assist me in overcoming some challenges and often provide me with more cookie cutter answers instead of real assistance. However, my co workers were excellent and providing me assistance when I needed it. My fellow Directors worked well as a team, but were often bogged down with their own objective needed to manage their individual teams. As a result larger decisions went unnoticed and often created a sealing for growth.
The hardest part of the job was managing different points of view and personalities. This required a lot of one on one type coaching and follow up which created a very busy schedule which I enjoyed very much. I loved the challenge of getting strong personalities to see the larger picture through coaching and follow up on helping them reach their goals by providing a customized plan catered to them. I would say this was the most challenging however rewarding at the same time.
One of the less desirable parts of the job was the work hours. They were often early in the morning, late at night, and on the weekends. The schedule can be difficult for those with families. The pay was really good, however not very conducive in regards to raising a family.

As a FA adviser you have a huge amount of work. You have to take inbound calls all day as well as make calls from your student population. And if you work the military side it’s even more work. They expect you to help everyone else’s students while trying to manage your own students, while working to make goal every start. The amount of dishonesty and incompetence as well as lack of integrity is staggering. They enroll these students in fast track classes starting at 48-50 credit hours. Then students using FA don’t have enough financial aid to pay for the huge amount of credit hours they are being enrolled in. Then they are set up with out of pocket student payment agreements that are so high monthly that are completely unaffordable. I had to do at least 3 to 4 deceleration schedule changes a day just so these students wouldn’t have out of pocket costs. They would blow through almost all their funding for an undergraduate in their first two years. Then you are graded on all your calls and when you say something wrong they grade you bad and threaten to write you up. When u voice concerns to management they do nothing and just say well I’ll look into it. You get cussed out by students who call in all day every day about their stipends and refunds and for some reason their funding is always changing so you can never give them a clear and accurate answer or explanation as to why they haven’t or won’t be receiving their scheduled refunds. It’s awful and such a heavy atmosphere. The remote environment isn’t worth the awful atmosphere. I have a BA degree and was paid very little for all the work I was expected to do. 

Please think twice before you apply it will suck you dry, kill your joy and take a toll on your mental health.

Low morale. There were times when I felt like we were being pushed to just cold call people just to get an attempt in, even for students who vehemently stated they dont want to be contacted. Have voiced some concerns and solutions to supervisors but have a feeling they cannot do much because top leaders are the ones pushing unrealistic goals. Tired of emails pushing numbers everyday. All leaders should ask themselves what they can do to meet goals without the blatant micromanagement or pushing work of other advisors onto the ones who do their work.

Playing kahoot isn't going to make the situation lighter, especially when the person hosting it isn't available to answer questions as the training specialist. I like what I do as an advisor but the work culture is toxic. It is obvious when Upper leadership hides things because we aren't informed of pilot programs but then students call our queue asking about it. Then they are confused when I tell them we don't have a program like they're describing only to find out later there really was a pilot they didn't want to announce. It seems like there is either miscommunication from the top trickling down or a lack of communication. Maybe both. 

I'm finally enjoying my cohort size at 350 but I've seen other advisors at 800+. They must be stressed out and i can see why some people don't want to excel in the job because you will be voluntold to have special population cohorts with 800+ students. 

Online Education is the future opportunity for those in the Service of our County and who can work on their Education while completing their tour.  For those who want to further the Educational experience while raising a Family and working full time; online education can be completed right from your own home computer.  It is also a great way for future students to complete any College Prerequisites, to enter a College Program.  I found Colorado Technical University a Great Academic Promotion, for any person who wants to achieve in their Educational Goals. Colorado Technical University has a great Staff with guidance to help you find your skills and gives great direction on which Educational path that fits you and your future goals.  I recommend this College to all who is interested in claiming an Education for their future plans.  Online school gives the freedom to work out your schedule. Your co-workers are your classmates; Management is the School Staff from Academic Advisory to your  Class Instructor, to the Learning Center and Career Services and the Support of the Library Staff.
The hardest part is keeping up with the class, by reading your assignments and posting your discussions board, for your Fellow Classmates can interact with your views on the subject.  The most enjoyable part of the job is learning your Academic choice for your future and getting your Degree.

I worked for CTU Online from 2009-2012 as an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the English Department. I don't know if CTU Online offers any benefits now or not, but back then, they did not. The online teaching positions were highly structured with clear expectations for what needed to be done (e.g., number of discussion board and notice postings, 10 live/recorded PP presentations, posting of student grades, amount of student feedback, and dealing with plagiarism cases). Basically, the asynchronous online courses had several benefits for both teachers and students, but many students could not keep up with the workload and deadlines associated with a 5-1/2 week course. As a result, many students plagiarized other people's written work from the Internet, even though students knew their work was being submitted to an anti-plagiarism system (Turnitin.com). If the course length had been increased to 10 or 12 weeks, I believe there would have been much less plagiarism and students would have learned a lot more about academic writing and the research-writing process. In one single course, I recall having to deal with 18 cases of plagiarism, which is far more than what it should be. As part-time/contract teaching employment, CTU Online was better than many other institutions. The management was good, effective, and understanding of faculty members' needs. The number of students per course, though, was higher than what it should be (36-40 students per course).

Online admissions advisor.  While company culture seems ok, it's goal is for profit compared to most colleges that are non profit.  That means your job as an advisor is speaking to prospective students but most of them are not actually calling in interested in college.  The people clicked on add about grant and often not serious.  However we have to interview them and encourage them to start college through phone call and deal with many ignorant potential students who act like they are intetested but in reality they are not or think grant will pay for it all. As an admissions advisor I'm expected to interview on phone and help with applications and prepare for school. At traditional college where leads are from actual people serious about school, this job would be fine.  However we deal with people who apply but only 30% show up so I'm marked down in my performance score for that.  I'm a talented person who has always been good at teaching or helping students, the way we are scored in performance here and constant no shows of students can drive an advisor crazy.  Some people can handle it but if your smart and already have a bachelor degree, I wouldn't recommend.  They do have decent health benefits, work from home, employee tuition assistance is pretty much free.  

As with most other for-profit schools, the focus is on "customer satisfaction" (keep the student happy) rather than actually educating the student. As such, some students who truly value their educational experience will learn a lot and be prepared for their future careers, but some will skate by (but you can't give them an F) and decrease the quality of the degree for all those that worked hard. Additionally, the rigor of the classes has decreased over the years to a point where the classes teaching specific software skills don't even require the student to complete assignments in that software program, they just have to answer a bunch of M/C questions about it. The pay never increases, and heaven forbid you are assigned a class with fewer than 5 students, in which case your compensation drops to minimum wage or below (depending on how much effort you want to put into your job. However, to do it right and to give the students the attention and quality instruction they deserve drops you to about $10/hour). The max load for an adjunct is 2 courses, but you rarely get that, and sometimes you aren't even assigned a course. They claim that they don't have enough students to give everyone two classes, but then continue to hire more instructors. The immediate managers are awesome, but their hands are tied by the corporation and their greed. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Career coach 7 salaries reported	$23.36 per hour
Admissions advisor 4 salaries reported	$23.75 per hour
Faculty 6 salaries reported	$92,500 per year
Career services advisor 6 salaries reported	$53,000 per year
Criminal justice consultant 3 salaries reported	$80,000 per year

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