Boston University

I really love coming to FitRec because it's right on my way home from work and there's always an open machine. The facilities are super clean. I also took a rowing class there this summer, which was really great. All the classes they offer are open to the public, so you usually wind up with a pretty diverse class.

Bottom line: It's a flashy school that you'll want to be a part of but behind the curtain there's no substance.

If anyone's considering the part-time program at CDIA, don't. To be fair I've heard the day students have a better experience but I registered and attended the part-time graphic design and web program and it really couldn't have been worse.

The major sell points of the school are its affiliation with Boston University (good reputation), real world experience through an "intership" class project, job placement services and a portfolio at the end.

I put down my 10k and knew after the first two weeks that I had made the wrong decision. We spent the better part of our first month 'discussing' design and working with construction paper and glue (no kidding) to cut and paste shapes in some sort of introductory design course.

After that we started working with the software (inDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop) which usually consisted of an instructor coming in and lecturing for about 20 minutes and then giving us an assignment to work on while we sat there scratching our heads for the next 3 hours.

On top of it all we never did get our "practicum module," so no 'real world' experience for the resume and seveal people in our class didn't have portfolios when the class was finished. We sent emails to the program direcor, Alex Whitehead, who promised a make up the practicum course but that never came.

The career services team isn't really accurate either in my opinion. They post jobs on a bulletin board and when I asked for help they continually asked me to update and tweak both my resume and portfolio until I got sick of bothering with them and gave up.

I thought this school was a good option because I have professional publishing, design, and production experience and I hope this doesn't sound harsh but I wish someone had told me these things before I signed up.
Now I have some pretty expensive student loans to pay off - which is fine - but I don't feel like I got my money's worth, not even close.

In any case, there are way better schools out there for web and/or design in Boston.
Check out the New England Institute of Art for better courses at a much cheaper cost.

Heads up.