Utter disappoinment with APMI Kaplan

WARNING ! SUPER LONG COMPLAIN POST AHEAD !
THIS IS LONGER THAN THE STARHUB-HP SAGA

Glancing at my invisible crystal ball many many moons ago, I foresee that I have a dire need to get a degree in order to further progress my career. 7 years after getting my diploma, it had depreciated to the point where it is as common as toilet paper. Although reluctant, it's time to throw money, time and energy into education again.

In April 2007, I signed up for a degree program from Murdoch University, (Perth Western Australia) offered by APMI Kaplan. Murdoch University is a top 50 university in the region, and I went for their Bachelor of Science in Computer & Business Information Systems. There were several reasons for choosing the course, with the primary reasons being the location of the campus in the city area, the more revelant syllabus and the exclusion of any forms of mathematics (I am terrible in maths). the fact that APMI Kaplan has good reputation as a education facilitator, was also an important factor. Although it's their first time doing a IT course, their expertise in business courses should been sufficient to see them through,

The first intake was suppose to be May 2007, but it ended up dragging till late May before they asked for payment for the first installment. I was surprised that I got 2 exemptions for the first trimester, when none was expected. Lessons were finally scheduled for September and orientation was set for October. It must be a lack of response for the course which caused the delay, given that it is the first intake. During the orientation, the first intake was a surprising low number of 12. Disappointingly, there were no girls in the intake. You can check out my blog entry on the orientation. This is also a boon, since we will have a lower lecturer to student ratio.

During the orientation, I recalled Gary (?), Melinda (ops), Christopher (program manager), and Michelle (sales) were there. They went through with their great promises and grand visionary talk which actually got us hyped up in expectation for the world class education that we are buying. They were wearing business suits and had those confident smiles that got us sold. Unfortunately, things started going wrong in many ways more than I would have imagined.

I was suppose to log on to the Murdoch's webpage as a student to activate my account but I couldn't. Somebody had screwed up with my personal information and had to be rectified. Starting with Michelle (Sales, APMI Kaplan), a game of taichi send me to Christopher (PM, APMI Kaplan), Henry (IT service desk, Murdoch), and finally Lynne Green (Enrollments, Murdoch) who liaised with IT service desk again to get things done finally.

The lecture schedule was also changed in the eleventh hour during the orientation. We were given a schedule earlier in august when we collected our textbooks. I found it quite strange that lectures schedules could be changed at a whim's notice. I only realised the change when I went on the first lecture to find that it was actually swapped with another lecture. It was updated on the new schedule passed on to us during orientation which I did not notice the change.

I took on 1 subject for the first trimester, Data structure and abstractions in C++ (ICT209). The surprises sprung all over the places thereafter. Being in a IT degree course, I was expecting to have computers provided for us to do a programming subject. To my horror, computers were indeed provided but without a network account to login with. That makes the desktop computer a lame piece of decoration in the computer lab. Without a network account, we cannot log in to the computer and use it for our lectures and workshop. Attempts to get a IT personnel from APMI Kaplan to rectify the problem at hand failed because stunningly, there wasn't one for months.

Since there was no printed course material given out, we have to take notes by inserting comments into the powerpoint slides downloadable from Murdoch's website. It was a pure stroke of luck that the whole class brought along their personal laptops, so we could go without the school's lame decorations. A useless computer is less useful than a broken vase to me. Even then, the challenges kept coming. There was no internet access available. The school's wireless network was password protected and we were not given the password. The LAN cables were fastened too tightly to the desktop computers to reach our laptops. The wireless@sg network from outside the school, probably Centrepoint, was too weak for use. A frustrated course mate managed to get the password and we managed to get online to download the much needed course materials. As the lecture went on, our laptop batteries couldn't sustain our power consumption and we had to use our power bricks. Since there wasn't any free power points available, we had to pull out the power cords connecting to the desktops.

I ended the first lecture with a bitter taste in my mouth. The IT infrastructure was useless and things should have been a lot smoother than this. I almost torn open all the cable ties with my Swiss army knife so I could use the LAN cable for my laptop. I was stopped in time only because my course mate managed to get the wireless network password.

The other subjects which I was not taking also ran into problems. Commercial computing (ICT208) assignment 1 scoring scheme adds up to 90% instead of 100%. The lecturer, Noel Ong also turned out to be unprofessional and unqualified. He couldn't answer questions satisfactorily, played games during lessons, cut classes short and did personal things during classes. He was supposed to be counciled for this, but the improvements was not good enough and his image was already damage beyond repair. Since dumping him midway into the trimester would have resulted in a delay to the course, my course mates endured this character and let things slide.

The Murdoch's webCT system which we were suppose to get course material and submit our assignments was also very unreliable. There were outrages, undeclared downtime, poor compatibility with my favorite Firefox browser and even if it indeed work, it's as fast as a snail. It took me 45 minutes to upload a few files to the system. When I was trying to submit assignment 1, I had no choice but to email Dr Loo with the files as the system died before I could submit everything. The webCT is sadly broken and unusable that the problems continued to resurface during subsequent assignments submitions as well.

Our wireless network woes didn't end with the procession of the network password. Sometimes, the wireless network will go down completely. Fortunately, we had our slides preloaded on our laptops, so I didn't have to threaten the cable ties with my Swiss army knife.

The allocations of the classrooms was bad too. It was given to use month by month, and could still be changed without informing us in the last minute. I felt that we were being push around like a unwanted lot, taking whatever was left over to us.

There was also an unhappy incident where lecture was being held a classroom on the third floor. It had practically no wireless network coverage and no male toilet. Whoever allocated us that classroom did not take into account that the BIS class is made up of 100% males and that includes the lecturers.

Another unhappy incident occurred during one of our Saturday lectures. It spanned 6 hours and had a lunch break in-between. We went to the counter staff and requested for them to lock the doors to the classroom so we could go for lunch with a piece of mind. Remember that we brought our own laptops for the lab because we were not provided with our network accounts. The counter staff flatly repeatably denied us even as we tried to explain our situation. The unhelpful staff didn't try to help us any further than saying no. APMI Kaplan might as well fired the whole bunch of the counter staff since they can only say no. There was no desire to help us at all. As usual, we had to go through name cards, and phone lists, but no one could make a decision or help us. Eventually, we reached a lady who was not working that day. She arranged the facility guy to help us with securing the lab while we were out for lunch.

The scheduling of the lectures itself was also prone to changes. The lecturers could say that they could not make it and had to make changes. Again, I felt that we were secondary in comparison to their day job. Being less important, it's always better to ask for changes to our schedules to accommodate changes in their day job. Back in Nanyang polytechnic, our humble local educational institute was able to fix the classroom and lecture timings and this disappointing world class institute could not. APMI Kaplan should not have forgotten that the students in this course are all working IT professionals, not 16 year old kids, and we deserve better than this. We are paying full fees out of our own pockets, and we do have expectations which are not being met. The scheduling of the lectures are important because we have to arrange our working and personal lives around them. Any changes to the schedules means lost time in rearranging and disruptions to our own schedules. Any rescheduling should be used as a last resort, and not as a easy way out.

All these problems were raised to the management throughout the duration of the trimester, but we often received fairly slow useless generic responses. There were little acknowledgment to our mails and the replies were often indecisive and inconclusive. We had to keep chasing for updates and this is handling of our emails is so unprofessional. Our primary contact is suppose to be the program manager, Christopher. However, he was virtually useless, and we were left wondering who can be actually perform as the point of contact for all our woes. With no one to turn to, there can no be accountability to speak of.

There were also constant bugbears which plague the entire duration of the trimester. Since there were insufficient power points in the classrooms, except for the computer lab we used for ICT209, my course mates had to bring their own power extension while the request to provide them finally went through. The pain didn't stop there. It was arranged for the students to pick up the power extension from the front counter before the lessons but that could go wary too. The front desk staff would deny such an arrangement had been made because the staff manning the counter were not aware of the arrangement. Some of the counter staff are plain rude and unhelpful. They did not try to verify our claims, simply stop there, and gave us short answers in a irritated tone when we asked them to do so. We ended calling people on our own, managed to get their mobile numbers and bugged them unfairly ever after.

Another glaring problem is that they do not even have white board markers provided to the lecturers. I observed this on a constant basis in Dr Loo's lectures at the very least. He could not get any from the front counter since most of our lectures were on weekends, and so he had to bring his own. My course mates told me that this sadly also occurs in the other lectures too. It was so bad that one of the lecture actually went without the use of any markers.

If we encountered any problems during weekend classes, we didn't have to bother to seek help. There wouldn't be getting any. Not without a frustrating search and hopeless fight at least.

By the end of the trimester, despite constant reminders, our network accounts were still not provided. If they cannot put their act together to create the accounts after 4 months, I have to wonder if I have been paying handsomely for a third world education. Creating network accounts do not take days or months. It's amazing how a few minute's work was delayed and lost to the voids in the end despite repeated reminders.

Needless to say, for both the APMI Kaplan and Murdoch's satisfaction surveys, there is not enough time to write my long story on the small space provided.

We demanded a feedback session on the 10 Jan 2008 with Carol (Christopher's boss) and Christopher (PM) as our things were still not being done. Our examinations results were not out, despite being 1 week to the start of the next trimester. We have no collected our textbooks yet. The invoice of the next trimester was delayed from December and finally reached our mailbox on 4 January. It is demanding payment by 9th January, with a miserable 3 working days for us to get money for the payment. One of our course mate had repeatably chased for the invoice since December and nothing was being done to speed up the process. It was revealed that our names were not in their customer records and work was being stuck in in-trays after in-trays, resulting in the massive delay. An entire month was lost in their bureaucracy and they gave us 3 working days to talk to the banks. Not only that, we were all paying different amounts for the same course.

The lack of feedback since December naturally lead us to jump to conclusions. I was gravely concerned whether if APMI Kaplan is even planning to continue to complete the course. This is not laughing matter as time, money and energy is at stake and the consequences is extremely heavy. I was quite appalled that we had to chase APMI Kaplan to pay ! Only an uninterested business will do that.

They have also allocated Room 212 to us permanently despite that we still have lab lessons. It dawned on me that they thought that we love to bring our non-light weight laptops from home, to work, to school and back home so much that we don't need their lab computers. Apparently, they have completely forgotten that we are only using our own laptops because the network account was never given to us all along ! I was on the verge of demanding a discount for having to provide our own IT equipment. This is so insane and frustrating, APMI Kaplan is selling a IT course without proper IT infrastructure. I am not even talking about enterprise level IT infrastructure, I am talking about bare basic equipment and network availability here. Is there even anything at all resembling a service level agreement here ? You can't smoke through an entire class of IT professionals with the sub-standard quality here.

It was only just before the feedback session started when we received our textbooks, go our lecture schedules (which contained 2 mistakes) and examination results. Was that a coincidence or were they forced to work doubly hard as we were coming in for the feedback session in the evening?

We were reassured and promises were made during the feedback session. Deep down inside, I am just wondering what will go wrong next. This coming trimester, I will be taking 3 subjects, not just one. I don't think I will hesitate to harass APMI Kaplan or go public if they continue to deliver nothing but empty promises. Carol didn't have a complete picture of the situation until 1/2 way through the session. From there on, it was a one sided game. Christopher and Carol stopped trying to provide answer and were reduced to apologetic mode. We didn't want to spoil anyone's day but something has to be done before we have to force them to go into damage control mode.

So much for world class education, proper facilities and staff service. My expectations are now forced to be pretty low levels for APMI Kaplan, if not, already in shambles. Their quality of service is simply awful. In fact, we often felt that we have been mislead and they had over sold their capability to deliver. This is their first foray into IT courses, therefore I had expected them to spend more effort into this to uphold their reputation. Unfortunately, at this point of time, I am not impressed and my recommendation for anyone interested to sign up for any IT related course at APMI Kaplan to seriously rethink their decision.