Florida State College at Jacksonville Reviews

"This school, just like the people from 5-6 years ago said, doesn't have great service when it comes to being admitted. First off, I've never been to a school that has sessions. That was new. It totally messed me up in terms of getting my pell grant and such. Now I'm waiting a month to get that...smh. The people are nice and all, but the communication is really bad. For me, I have had made about 20 phone calls about my "missing" transcript(had to pay a second time), when my pell grant is coming, why I'm not receiving my payment from the VA(transcript is "lost" again), etc. I had questions that frankly should have been resolved in the beginning. One person says this and someone else says something different. They don't seem to be on the same page.The classes are fine; its getting into this college that's weirdly difficult. I would most certainly not recommend going to this college."

"FSCJ faculty and administration make many mistakes, but place the blame of poor performance solely on the students. They refuse to look at their own mistakes, behavior, and misleading information as the possible reason their students may struggle. Speaking to them about your concerns is like screaming at a brick wall; nothing happens! To pass your classes, you MUST receive 80% average on exam grades, which comes out to be 640 out of 800 points. If you earn 639.9/800, there is absolutely no helping you. You fail and have to retake the class, meaning you dish out more tuition! To put it in perspective, UNF only requires a 73% exam pass rate. It’s also easier to get the specialty/job you desire if you go to UNF. Not only do employers prefer BSN, but UNF has better clinical rotations. At FSCJ, we have done med surg clinicals the whole time. I’m a term 4 student and 90% of my clinical experiences have been on med surg floors. I had 1 and a half days in an L&D rotation and 4 days in Peds. Other than that, it’s all been adult med surg. The positive about FSCJ is the affordability, speed at which you can get through the program and get your RN, and the fact that after you get your ADN, many employers help with your tuition to get your bachelors. FSCJ’s rigidity and outdated teaching information makes me question if it’s worth it, though."

"The EMT and paramedic classes are poorly executed. EMT is 1 lecture day and 1 lab day but don't expect much in lab. If you have no prior medical experience, good luck cause they immediately start at it and you'll be behind confused. Paramedic is 1 day a week, lecture and lab combined. The rest you do at home yourself. They will tell you right out how many people drop out within the first couple weeks like it something to be proud of. If they didn't make it so stressful people wouldn't drop out. The whole program needs revised and planned out better."

"I should have listened when someone told me not to enroll here. It’s been the worst college experience I’ve ever had. I’m feeling so discouraged ready to give up on my degree. I should have known when they gave me the run around just to enroll. You are on your own at the school. Find another one to attend."

"I previously received a Bachelors at Purdue and am currently taking classes at FSCJ. From the first day I began looking into this school, it was nothing but confusion, ignorance, complete disregard for students, and stupidity. First off, I couldn’t even tell you if I’m in a program or not. Because I should have many classes accounted for with my previous degree, my application was not as straightforward. I have talked to 6 advisors over the phone, the head of the radiation therapy program, admissions, and put in multiple help desk tickets for extremely basic questions regarding my application and no two people told me the same answer. One of them took over a week to reply and then sent me a form that had a due date several days before she even sent the email. I couldn’t get an answer on whether or not it was “late” since I didn’t even receive it on time. I still don’t know. The professors are absolutely HORRIBLE. Both of my current professors do absolutely nothing and can’t even be bothered to answer emails. Yet they accept late work for “absolutely no reason”, not even medical emergencies or their own delay in answering questions needed to complete assignments. I emailed them both about two weeks ago and have yet to hear back from either. Neither one post lectures or any learning material. All we have is the textbook, which is where all study materials, homework, exams, and labs are located. What kind of lazy, bull career is being a professor here? And why am I paying so much to be taught by a professor when all I needed was the $200 textbook? Another thing is that one of my professors has every single due date posted differently between the assignments page on Canvas and their syllabus. I had to email multiple times to get a single response, and she never even told me the correct due dates. She asked me to send her a list of the ones that were incorrect instead of researching her own mistakes on her own. After all that, she didn’t even fix it or even post an announcement letting other students know about the mistake. I have had several students email me asking about this issue because I had posted a question about all of this in a “Questions for Professor” discussion, which never got answered. At this point, students deserve to get paid just for going here, seeing as we have to find and correct our professors’ mistakes on our own, as well as teach ourselves all material and how to navigate this POS school"

"Attended for the Engineering course as an affordable option and found out why it was affordable. Often there were no Professors for required credits for a year, and most of the Gen Eds that were forced were led by terrible professors. Had a history professor fail the whole class and the college had to change everyone's grades, had a Electrical Engineering Professor just dip for the whole semester and was unreachable, and then several Profs that don't even follow their own grading rubric and fail you for not sucking up. Dean doesn't care, and will just try and gaslight you into thinking it's your own fault. Terrible college and a nightmare to attend. It's to the point I'm going into debt to attend another just to get away from this mess. If you can stay away, I recommend you do."

"The worst school I ever been to. They do not help the out of state students. They DO NOT give out of state students any heads up on anything. They are very unorganized. If you come to this school and be an online student be prepared to be lost cause they cannot give you any information you need on time or in a timely manner."

"This is a terrible school!!!! I regret wasting my life here. You're better off saving up for a more expensive college. The advisors will misinform you and hang up on you, ive been lied to multiple times. They can't admit to not knowing stuff they would rather give you false information. Dont go here"

"I heard that the FSCJ nursing program used to be exceptional in preparing its students for a career in nursing. Currently, this is not the case. There is a painstakingly obvious lack of communication and preparation between the professors and clinical instructors involved in the nursing program. For the similarly-formatted assignments assigned each term, each professor had different grading criteria that were not made explicitly clear due to the lack of communication. They also taught different signs/symptoms/clinical manifestations for the same diseases, and we were expected to completely discard our previous term's learning each time. Many of the professors I had belittled our concerns when it came to the format of the instructional material. The first-term professors do not teach, they list out terms and ask that the students find the definitions on Google or in the textbooks and share with the class. A couple of my professors didn't have sufficient knowledge to answer our questions on the instructional material. Of the 4 term professors I had, only 1, possibly 2, showed genuine concern and cared for our education and experience in this nursing program. The HESI exit exam was completely unhelpful and only amounted to adding an unnecessary level of stress and busy-work, which took away from time I could've used to prepare for the NCLEX. To summarize: - There was way too much busy-work spent doing EAQs and online assignments that were unhelpful in preparing for exams and ultimately pointless. - Many of the professors were extremely rigid and prioritized assignments that I don't believe added anything to my knowledge as a new nurse. At times, the incompetence and lack of patience could've even been described as unprofessional. Most of my substantiative learning came through online lectures and help from my more experienced classmates. - The last term, where most nursing schools focus on preparing their students for their exit exams and NCLEX, was riddled with, again, busy-work and an evident lack of support for this stressful transition into completing the program. FSCJ Nursing seems to strictly adhere to this inflexible method of teaching without continually assessing if their methods are actually effective for their students' learning. As a student, I felt undervalued, spoken-over, and disposable. Almost all of my professors refused to listen to genuine complaints and suggestions. There needs to be an immediate program-wide shift in focus from keeping students "busy" to thorough topic explorations, NCLEX preparation, and nursing skills practice. With the appointment of the new dean, I do feel that FSCJ Nursing has potential to become exceptional once again, but in it's current state, I would only recommend this program if you truly could not afford or get accepted into another school."

"I have been speaking with Student Records of FSCJ for months. My initial enrollment was Oct/2020 for their PTA program. My college education is from abroad so the Evaluation team has to validate my credits for the program. I have spoken with several academic advisors, all who say the Evaluations team of student records must validate my previous credits to be considered for my prereqs. The evaluation team (who by the way seems to be One Single Person for the entire institution) always tells me she cannot evaluate my credits as I am non degree seeking, then proceeds to ignore my questions until I have no choice but to open a new ticket weeks later in hopes of acquiring an answer. Starting in May of this year, slight progress began. She validated a few of my previous course work in the span of a few months, but then stopped. When asked why certain classes were not validated (classes that I need for the PTA program), she once again answered that "As a non degree seeking student an evaluation is not required." At this point I feel the money I would have put down for the program will be better fit to pay for the therapy I will need to recover from this extremely stressful year."

"I didn't have a good experience talking to an advisor. I inquired about the bachelor's degree in Human Services. I asked if it's an online program. They said they can't guarantee it's all online but it's advertised as being online. I don't live close to Jacksonville so this is potentially a problem. I tried applying today but the portal is saying my application can't be processed because I am applying for a term that has already started. I am clicking on the spring semester 2021 and it's November 2020. There's a technical issue. All of the above has made me not want to apply at FSCJ."

"FSCJ will scam you. Avoid at all costs - especially if you have financial aid needs. I originally attended another state University and I thought I knew what my major was going to be right out of high school. That changed drastically due to financial hardship, family issues, and the economy's collapse. Because I was in such a regimented career path, I was taking 15-18 credit hours per semester and most of those credits would not count for anything other than electives if I switched programs. I transferred to FSCJ, faced more hardships, had to leave for a bit, and have now returned to horrible grades from dropping after the deadlines and a pile of classes that don't count for anything. All FSCJ is looking at for my GPA now are my failed classes. Virtually nothing else I took counts toward an AA or and AS or the Bachelors that I'm seeking. Online courses are new for me and, when I enrolled in college the first time, it was all done on paper. I didn't have financial aid before either so everything was new to me. FSCJ did not help me understand anything. For the better part of a year, I have spent at least 5 - 10 hours per week contacting their advisors (whether they be in student services, financial aid, financial services, or academic advising) to attempt to resolve major issues. This is time that would have been better spent working or studying. They do not explain SAP and its importance. I was told repeatedly by financial services, financial aid, and academic advisors that if I took a minimum of three courses in the summer and received A's in all three of them, that I would maintain SAP compliance and would continue receiving financial aid. I spoke to 2 different academic advisors (one who recommended I get an AA and then another who was more focused on business administration degrees who insisted that the AS track for the Bachelors would be better for me). The business administration academic advisor discouraged me from taking the courses I would need for the AA, never once bringing up that I would still have to pick up many sciences, additional Humanities, etc. courses during the second half of my degree (the Bachelors). In fact, she never even mentioned that I would be attending 3-4 years of classes. She made it sound as if I would have the Bachelors in 2 years if I just followed her plan. This was not true. Then, this same advisor suggested that I enroll in 3 summer classes to "take it easy" since I had not had a "good academic record" and the courses would be "challenging" for me. She enrolled me the three specific courses and then provided me an outline of future courses to take. Because I wasn't feeling challenged enough and because COVID was forcing me to stay at home anyways, I selected another course from my fall semester to take in the summer. It was a course that she had recommended. Of these four courses only ONE counted toward my AS or my Bachelors. During the summer semester, I was receiving financial aid on a probationary status because of my GPA - or at least that's what I was told. It was explained to me many times that I needed all A's in my summer courses to maintain my GPA so that I would stay in compliance with SAP. No one - at any point over 6 months - mentioned that I would inevitably fall out of SAP compliance because of my credits for completion percentage. All the classes (whether A's or otherwise) that I had taken prior to this summer semester were counted as "taken". And this is where it gets fuzzy. Some people told me that taking more classes that counted toward my degree (the AS) would "bump out" the classes that didn't. I think that was incorrect but I'm still not sure. I lost my financial aid after the summer semester and within 1 week of the start of fall classes. By this time, no one wanted to take responsibility for the misinformation and, instead, they blamed me for it. I was told that I "should have known" and that it was my "responsibility". Yes. It is my responsibility. That's exactly why I've spent so much time emailing and calling advisors! I was blamed for not asking "the right questions" at "the right time". Additionally, I was passed around from person to person for three straight days and, by the time I finally got to talk to someone who might have been able to help me, I was told that he couldn't because the deadline was the prior Friday (I was talking to him on Tuesday) and I would have had to speak to someone did. And I had. I'd spoken to over 6 people that prior Thursday and to a director at FSCJ on that Friday and none of them mentioned that Friday was the cut off. However, I was just "supposed to know that". Had they actually assisted me during that entire week that I was attempting to resolve the financial aid issues and figure out how SAP compliance was affecting me, I could have enrolled in a payment plan through FSCJ, started my classes, and then paid gradually - and I could have afforded it! Instead, I was removed from my courses, encouraged to do a SAP appeal (which went nowhere), and then ended up having to get a student loan halfway through the semester just so I could pile on classes in the C semester. After I spent even more time researching SAP compliance, I learned that I was required to meet SAP Compliance within ONE SEMESTER to ensure that I would continue receiving financial aid. Now here's the kicker. In order to meet both the GPA and the percentage of completion requirements, I would have had to take and pass with a B or better at LEAST 34 credit hours in ONE SEMESTER. It was impossible for me to achieve this! Additionally, even though that would put me back in the good graces for the completion percentage and GPA, it would not have put me in good enough standing for my total credit hours which would have been exceeded after one more semester of at least 3 classes. Therefore, I would have had to take 34 credit hours in one semester, get all A's and B's in those courses, and then finance one semester of a minimum of 12 - 15 credit hours to get my financial aid back for the third semester where I would take another 12 hours and then I'd lose my financial aid again and have to finance the last semester, if any courses were still remaining. At no point was any of this explained to me. No one did any math to determine that it would be pointless for me to even bother with financial aid for the fall 2020 semester. It was my responsibility to do their jobs. Had I known this would have been the strategy, I could have applied for loans early. I could have worked more hours to cover some of the costs. But I didn't know. Every time I called in about notifications I was receiving about my financial aid status, I was always told that everything was "fine" and "not to worry about it". Apparently I should have been very worried! Additionally, three of those four summer classes do not even count toward my AS or my Bachelors. These are courses I was told that I had to take because they were "prerequisites". They weren't. I checked - after I'd already taken them. Therefore, these three courses would not have even counted toward that completion rate. They did raise my GPA, but what good does that do me when I cannot meet the other financial aid requirements and am not actually working toward my goal? Because of poor academic advising and poor guidance from financial aid and financial services advisors, I not only lost my financial aid, I wasted my financial aid on three unnecessary classes when I could have been taking something that mattered, and I am now in debt and having to enroll in five courses for the fall C schedule just to stay on track. Yes. I'm taking five classes that are each compressed into seven weeks just to make up for being unable to properly enroll in the fall semester and not having taken courses that actually mattered in the summer - all courtesy of my academic advisor. Additionally, I submitted a SAP Appeal which took a countless amount of hours preparing, only to have it rejected. Financial Aid required me to take a "SAP Appeal" course online. Why wasn't this assigned to me back in the spring when I was enrolling for summer? They literally had this information and withheld it from me. To make matters worse, I no longer trust my academic advisor. I spent over 15 hours figuring out my own degree path and, in doing so, started looking at ways to transfer out of FSCJ. But I can't leave. I'm stuck. To transfer to another school, I would have needed to complete an AA - the Associates that the business administration academic advisor told me would not be good for me. This is the same advisor that had me enroll in three pointless classes by telling me that they were essential prerequisites and failed to tell me about the impending financial aid doom. I also learned that more of my classes (the ones I have A's in!) that I'd taken back when I first started college in a different degree program would have actually have counted toward the AA, but not the AS. Therefore, had I taken AA courses over the summer, I would have been in a better position to transfer, would have been closer to being in SAP compliance, would have had a better chance at maintaining my financial aid, and would have started with a better GPA. Instead, I listened to an academic advisor who has now basically trapped me at FSCJ unless I want to spend another year taking classes for the AA. Through all of this I have learned the following about FSCJ staff: 1) They do not have the tools necessary to do their jobs well or timely; 2) They are either provided outdated training or insufficient training to do their jobs properly; 3) They have no one in a leadership position who will hold staff accountable for their actions; 4) They have no choice but to pass students around between any number of departments because no one department or group fully understands any part of the registration, advising, or payment portions of being enrolled at FSCJ; 5) They are unavailable during non-business hours even though their school is supposed to be built around people's busy work schedules; 6) They rarely take initiative to explore solutions; 7) They will avoid responding to inconvenient emails; 8) The staff that can be helpful usually blames the student for following instructions given by other staff members. Bottom line: There is zero accountability at FSCJ. I truly regret enrolling in this school. It is a nightmare. My transcripts are incomplete. I have lost my financial aid because of their negligence. I have lost precious time because of their inefficiencies. I have taken unnecessary classes because of their advising. I have somehow lost my AP Exam credits and now must pay to have those sent to FSCJ (even though they had them previously). I am somehow ineligible to enroll in College Algebra because I have to take a placement test, but I have a prior College Algebra attempt. I cannot seem to change my name despite multiple attempts to engage with their staff. (This resulted in my private loan having issues that I have been trying to resolve for the better part of two weeks now and cannot get a concrete answer or resolution from anyone.) I cannot get reliable answers over the phone from FSCJ staff and advisors. FSCJ is a stressful nightmare. They will misadvise you, trap you in their programs, and cost you more time and money. What I suspect has happened to me is that they knew that I was going to lose my financial aid, gave me easy but pointless classes for the summer so that I would get A's and make their school look better, enroll me in courses that had low attendance (because no one actually needs them for their degrees!) to fill a quota, have me take courses that would use up my financial aid so that I would have to pay for more courses, lock me into an AS so that I could not transfer, and, thus, milk money from me for an extra semester or two. I honestly think they scammed me. I just can't see it in any other light."

"FSCJ's administration for the nursing program is absolutely horrible, and I felt entirely undervalued as a student. Students are not respected and taken seriously. I would not recommend coming to FSCJ for any program, but as a nursing student, I can verify that the administrators and staff cause more stress than the actual nursing exams cause."

"Fair warning to anyone who is considering attending this school: it WILL stress you out dealing with their faculty more than any class you will take. They are unorganized and extremely unhelpful. Be weary of contacting them via the phone because they have conflicting information. I asked a representative over the phone about Financial Aid as it was my first time with the dilemma of dropping a class and putting me under "part-time" student status. Over the phone the man told me it would NOT affect my current loan in anyway. Several months later I received a notice stating that a portion of my Loan had been retracted. When I went to the campus to discuss that, they informed me that it was likely due to not being considered a "part-time" student before the semester ended. I told them of the discussion I had on the phone and the woman told me "you don't want to call in for concerns like that, we outsource the phone operators and they don't give accurate information."And you shouldn't call in anyways because I've called in the morning (9-10am) in the afternoon (12-3) and in the evening (4-5) on several different occasions and each time I've had to wait 30-45 minutes.Why would you outsource at a college? Why would you not provide sufficient training? Not only that but they claim to cater to the working class, busy parents, people who can't attend full time or have odd hours of availability, but they do not staff at appropriate times. Don't go during the hours between 12 and 2 because they only have 1, maybe 2 advisers and only 3 people operating the desk. These 3 are there to help route out the "easy" questions that require more generalized answers or the more common issues. That's fine but even they don't have any particular care and give less than optimal information. They are slow, taking SEVERAL (between 5-10) minutes after ending a discussion with a customer to call up the next one in line.Their portals are also consistently plagued with inconsistencies and difficult operating hurdles. I've had to call about twice each semester to have them adjust my program path when trying to select classes. Not to mention after I spent 2 semesters away a few years back, I returned and was told that I needed to reapply for school. This is all good and well, I understand that completely. However, after 3 semesters of taking courses, I spoke with a REAL adviser who informed me that after I had spent 3 semesters out of pocket, I had been started on the WRONG program path. I was supposed to be started on the original program path I had started the first time I attended FSCJ. Overall, this school is atrocious when it comes to navigating through your courses and earning a degree."

"This college has the worst organization in an admissions office that I've experienced. What school can't received a transcript and just process it? Their staff also will not answer your emails or help you with your questions. Avoid and go to a good school who wants to help students."

"99% of the staff are not willing to help you and are not in a hurry to help you at all, there is horrible communications within the admin department. If you are a vet get ready to have your BAH delayed until pretty much the end of the semester so have some money saved up cause you are not getting a single cent."

"This program is the deplorable, no teaching, limited clinical time, sit day after day teaching ourselves, review days that were scheduled for exit hesi and Nclex were nothing moring then us students sitting here doing nothing, watching tv, signing in and out because a clocked program, leave early when the professor needs to leave but if a student misses 15 minutes it is held against them. this program was comparable to being in grade school, treated like children and not adults. Administration doesn't care, anything learned was self taught, I did learn not to return here as I have discovered other programs aren't much better, maybe the 25k at a private school would have been benefical."

"If you have already graduated or taken classes at another college do not come here. They will mess up your transfer credits like it is their job. Then once you talk to them they will blame it either you or the computer. This school is fine out of high school but do not transfer."

"Run the other way... This program was much of a let down, hardly any teaching happening, power point after power point, can't ask questions, teacher not available for help, hardly any lab time, pay all these lab fees though nothing to show for it. Spoke to leaders of the college about my concerns to only hear excuses. If you enter this program be ready to teach yourself. Will continue education else where."

"This school is not for the faint of heart. If you want to be at a school that works with you and not against you this is indeed not the school for you. Every step you take towards getting out of this hell hole they call a school is like pulling teeth. They do nothing to help you whatsoever... if you don't have a personal computer good luck setting any appointments or even talking to people you need to talk to. If you're not proficient with blackboard or the new "my fscj" good luck receiving any guidance as to how to use these amenities. All in all I hate this place and please for the love of god go anywhere else and run and also thank me for warning you... peace and love"