Complaint Review: Al Collins Graphic Design School - Tempe Arizona

I was looking forward to attending Al Collins Graphic Design College in 1997.  I had just graduated from high school and was from Minnesota. I pretty much got myself into college because I had no help or motivation from any of my parents family or school. I just knew I wanted to have a good decent career in the field of art and read about Graphic design being a major future career in demand.

So I decided to do it, along with one of my friends who also wanted a career in the art field. I was very excited because I loved school and learning so much.  And the prospect of being able to make money doing any kind of art related media was very exciting. My friend and I were placed in the student housing in a small dingy apartment we had to share with two other not friendly girls attending the school, and by not friendly I mean they were totally not even into caring about school, they had major parties, they brought over tons of guys and other groups of people, we filed reports to the school, then they moved us into an actual worse situation where the same thing was going on except now it was closer to downtown and I had guys following me home and stalking me and at one point ended up having someone break in to the apartment and was almost raped. 

 The parties got so bad, I was the only one working and trying to attend Al collins, any groceries I bought were gone by the next day I got home.  I would try to do my homework in my room mate's and my shared room, which the door didn't lock and a guy came in and started trying to get with me, I said leave and he wouldn't and started getting on the bed and tried to also rape me, luckily our other roommate came in and stopped him because she said she would tell her older brother or something. So we kept telling the college advisors and they still did nothing about it.  The classes taken at the college for graphic design were extremely elementary.  I had already learned this stuff in high school, I was in ap art in high school and the college had us drawing adds for soap or something.  My point being, my money was not being put to good use.  I kept asking them to help us with the room mate situation, until one day upon coming home from classes, there were about 20 people in our apartment. Partying, drinking, on drugs, and who knows what else.  It was complete chaos.

  My friend and I hid in our bedroom, and when we got up at about 7 am the s*** hit the fan, the whole apartment was covered in spaghetti sauce, I have no idea why, the tub had been plugged and left on so the whole place had about an inch of water, there were beer and vodka bottles everywhere and there was still people half naked everywhere.  A guy tried to get me to have sex with him and he was naked.  Another guy very scary looking, had fork rings on his hands and lunged at my friend and started slashing her face up.  At that point a knock was heard at the door, it was a Al collins worker sent over to inspect the apartment.  Well you can guess what happened.  Yep.  My friend, me and the other girl who was our room mate all got kicked out of the college and were left home less in Tempe. 

I was sent a giant bill for the damages to the apartment and for rent that I couldnt' pay because my (All my clothes and personal belongings were stolen pretty much the first week of moving into the second apartment including money) money was stolen along with my purse and other personal things.  So that went onto my credit report as a negative.  I know this story sounds like something out of Trainspotting or one of the crazy movies, but let me tell you, that college took the best years of my life and spit them in my face, and I am still paying for it, I am trying to get into college right now for my AA degree and what do I find when I need to get my transcript for Al Collins?  Multiple reports on the same type of things, and wow if I would have graduated from that colllege after going through all I did just trying to survive day by day and getting no help from the college at all, crying literally to the counselor and they did nothing.

  If I would have gotten my degree there and then not been able to even get hired because of no companies wanting to hire Al Collins graduates, I think I would have lost it completely!  My life after we got thrown out of the apartment was hell.  I had no where to go back to, I struggled from job to job and stayed with "friends"  And I can't even put into words how much I hate that college.  If it wouldn't have been so cheap to go there and they wouldn't have offered me a loan for student housing I would have just picked a much closer school like two hours away from home.  Al Collins Graphic Design School ruined my life in what was supposed to be the best college years of my life that I had been looking forward to my whole senior year in high school.  I hope they get sued beyond recognition, because they have ruined so many other hopeful students lives.  Lily H.