Texas State Technical College in Marshall, Texas is an aesthetically beautiful school. There are high quality technologies in place to assist in your learning. There are a few professors who actually care about their students career potential and invest a large amount of time preparing them for the workforce.
But the buck stops there.
While I was attending school there for information technology, the TSTC gods decided that it was time to push out the IT professors they currently had (which were indisputably top notch) and replace them with professors who didn’t know their bum from a hole in the ground. My educated guess from speaking with the former professors is that they had valid ideas to improve the IT program and when these ideas were presented to the board of directors, heads bumped and necks rolled, and a a mass recruitment of educators (which happened to be friends with someone ON the board of directors) was deployed after the mass resignation of the seasoned educators.
After the original professors had left, I got a professor who was teaching Cisco who had NO IDEA what he was doing. He was a great person and for what he lacked in knowledge, he made up for in enthusiasm. I felt sorry for him because he was undoubtedly thrown into a role he wasn’t prepared for. He even admitted this from his own mouth.
The actual learning experience at the school compared to the experience with the business office side of TSTC Marshall was a breeze. They speak to you eager and kind to get you into the school and once you are enrolled and going to class, their claws come out. You can never get a hold to anyone in Financial Aid, and when you do, you get blank, judging stares and a terrible attitude. When you actually call, you don’t get a kind hello, you can hear the exasperation in their voice and contempt for having to actually WORK for a college instead of graduating from one, and they hang up on your once they get tired of hearing your voice. There is usually no goodbye.
My God, if you try to transfer from TSTC Marshall, you are in a world of bull-dooky. You get lectured on being a college-hopper and they won’t release your transcript even if you owe them $10.00. I tried to transfer out a year ago and it took them months to send my transcript because they “lost” the request.
Now they are saying I owe them $810. Yes, this is partially my fault. I attended school until I couldn’t take the non-professionalism and consistent incompetence of what I was being taught. I had 4 classes, all of which were teaching the exact same thing I had learned the semester before.
I will be glad to pay the $810 once Texas State Technical College in Marshall, Texas can prove to me that they are giving the current students a quality education to help them in their future careers.
To be fair, I did learn a lot in the beginning of my career at TSTC. I received my CompTIA Network + Certification and have been working in the IT field thanks to the education that I have. If you are thinking of attending TSTC in Marshall, it really depends on what you want to get out of it. If you want in-depth education, especially in IT, one of the bigger colleges or universities may be more your style. If you want the basics and to get into the workforce quick, then TSTC might be for you. Just remember to ask A LOT of questions before you make a commitment and be in control of your finances.
