College of DuPage Reviews
COD's instructors were excellent and helpful. The classes I took were challenging and I learned a lot. I have been to a few colleges prior to COD and this was one of the best undergraduate experiences I have had. Register was a breeze and it is easy to find assistance if you need it.
Depending on what your career goals are, it may or may not be a good idea to go to COD. My plan was to transfer ASAP, and after spending a few semesters there, I'm sticking to that plan. The good: It's cheap compared to 4 year schools, convenient with online classes and night classes, and you can have a second chance at having an education. The bad: Although cheaper than 4 year schools, they decided to jack up tuition to remodel everything. So it's not a bargain compared to other 2 year schools. Which kind of defeats the purpose. The professors are hit or miss. Many, many adjuncts. I've had adjuncts who were better than some of the full time staff, but I've had others who are so bad they have no business teaching, but keep getting renewed. The online classes are very hit or miss. Some have nonexistant instruction so you're not learning online so much as you're teaching yourself everything. Very over crowded main campus, parking is a problem. It is like a mall on black Friday 4 days a week. My bottom line: If you are smart enough to want challenging classes and classmates with ambition who will be like iron sharpening iron, look elsewhere. If you just need to get classes done cheap, do it here. But I've taken a class at a 4 year school which was much more challenging than what the curriculum here is like so it drives me nuts to hear people say it's the same education as a 4 year school but cheaper. No, you are getting what you pay for here.
College of DuPage is one of the cheaper schools to attend, with their PPCH being small compared to other colleges. You will have trouble with the financial aid office since they're in the middle of being audited by the IRS, and make sure you research what professors you take, since a lot of them are forced to have an online class as well as a regular class to teach, and are over-worked. They're totally re-structuring their board of directors since the old one pilfered millions out of secret accounts, so hopefully that means better people in office and better teachers teaching.
In regards to my school, I believe it was a good fit for me. I didn't really know which direction to take in my career aspirations and going there helped me sample a lot of everything. The counselors were really good and their online classes helped when my schedule got really busy.
No. I'd probably have focused on their culinary degree program. They had a pretty impressive set up at the school but it wasn't until much later that I even considered going that direction.
