South College reviews

Where do we begin? 1. Don't have any kind of personal/family emergency that requires you to leave the office for any reason. And do not even attempt to file for FMLA in an extreme emergency. You will just need to quit entirely at that point. You will be berated and questioned heavily, so far as to break HIPPA laws to determine if your need to leave is "justified". HR and all of management are ruthlessly unforgiving, and will ask probing questions and worst of all, gossip amongst themselves about your traumas and personal life. 1a. In regards to gossiping: all of management are friends with each other outside of work, so will frequently spend the weekends socializing and gossiping about employees under them. During the week, they will stay behind closed doors together regularly heard laughing and ranting about work and the employees far from discreetly. ****2. Upper management's "commitment to diversity" means hiring 1-2 people of color for the whole college, and showing fake favoritism to one over the other. Management shared facetious smiles and cheesy email shoutouts, but never offered any real promotions, professional recognition, or additional benefits to showcase their significant outperformance of everyone else on the team. The employees of color were continuously commented on for appearances and "attitudes". This is a topic that can be elaborated on in a lengthy essay format, so I would advise and prospective or current employee to research all the former and current lawsuits against South College in reference to their diversity and inclusion insufficiencies. 3. The office environment was always filled with negative competitiveness created by the harsh sales metrics and meaningless praise each week, drama between employees and management, hot tempers, and uneasy feelings. You always felt like you were being watched. Calls are recorded, for legal reasons, yet you know you were constantly being monitored/listened to and judged for "training purposes". You couldn't make small talk with your coworkers for longer than 30 seconds without eyes peeping around the corner signaling to break it up. 4. The covid policies and procedures almost left everyone in the office without a job or sick. Management arrived to work, knowing they were sick with covid, risking everyone else in the office, and we were instructed to keep it within admissions. No other departments or students were notified of the potential exposure, although admissions had had contact with students and other departments every day, which is a moral and health and safety disaster. Approving time off for covid was nearly impossible as well. Additionally, when the vaccine was being offered at the school, you were made to feel extremely guilty if you chose to opt out and seek your own vaccine site or otherwise. All of HRs policies around covid were so unsafe, and work from home was never on the table for positions and job duties that the department could have easily made exceptions for. 5. All attempts to foster a positive work environment felt forced and proved to be moot. Friday mornings were spent in trainings and department get togethers sometimes sponsored with bagels or coffee. If there were treats at one of these meetings, this usually meant there was an underlying purpose to stir up issues, talk about drama in the department, and show unfair favoritism under the guise of "professionalism training". There was no way to feel personal or welcome on this team without faking your personality or professionalism in such a tense environment. 6. All of the tech and systems the college uses are out of date and convoluted. There are too many separate systems that are used for too many different functions that are hard to learn. They have a poor sales system and tracking, which make it harder for reps to be on top of their outlandish goals in the first place. The whole process needs to be streamlined to make it easier both on employee and student. 7. Internet and power outages in the building. Also, building maintenance, in general, seemed to always be unreliable between frequent outages, broken elevators, construction, TERRIBLE PARKING, and regularly broken heat/ac in the coldest and warmest months. 8. There was always the moral dilemma of selling a school and program to students who were vulnerable and unaware of the business model a for-profit school like South College provides. We were trained to literally manipulate students, who were clearly in no financial position to spend $50k on a 2 year program to invest and come up with false solutions. The retention rate is so low at South College for exactly this reason; admissions lies to them to get them into classes, and they drop when they can't meet the unrealistic expectations, the curriculum/instruction is low quality, and of course the blasphemous financial burden. The CEO and upper management takes no time in choosing programs and instructors (and tuition pricing) for the students themselves, but solely for the highest paying programs. They do this by investing a lot of money into top quality facilities, for attraction and good marketing. But what good is a fully operational high-tech dental clinic, if the aspiring dental students are not all graduating and alternatively choosing irreparable debt that's just lining the CEO's pockets. The overall attitude toward the business model feels completely and utterly about the owners and founders benefit, and not an ounce about the well-being and success of students choosing career-focused programs. 9. The whole benefit plan is garbage. Insurance plans are ridiculously expensive, time-off policies will chain you to your desk begging for a break and defending your reasoning for vacation etc.

1) rude and smart communication, unprovoked 2) the benefits are terrible - they’re expensive for one, there’s no sick leave, you get 15 days a year of PTO and if you run out of PTO you have to wait until the following year. There’s no parental leave, paid or otherwise. If you ever need to work from home for any reason the request will be denied, even though you work for south college *online* and don’t need to be in the office to do your job. 3) if you stand up for yourself, you will be harassed and retaliated against 4) the handling of Covid was abominable. Made us return to the office as cases of flu and Covid continued to spike, and when people got sick in the office, still did not send everyone home. They would send a department home for a week, as if we all didn’t work in the same building and use the same bathrooms and break rooms. The mask mandate was dropped a year ago and the Covid policy changed to, if you catch Covid without vaccination you have to use PTO or take unpaid leave if you’re out of PTO, and even if you’re vaccinated, your request has to be approved through upper management. Also, you can be written up for the unpaid leave you were forced to take. 5) turnover is high 6) they do not care about students or workers. They care about their bottom line. 7) we are expected to harass students by calling them multiple times on the phone even though it’s the 21st century and most students prefer to talk via text or email. 8) The annual “raises” are abysmal, and we are not paid enough for the work load we’re expected to handle 9) there is no diversity in upper management and barely any amongst co-workers 10) the training is nonexistent. You will essentially be teaching yourself for the most part and then they throw you to the wolves 11) you are held responsible for students that stay or leave 12) the business model and practices are outdated and out of touch with students and workers which impacts work culture. 13) with a 9-6 schedule, work on Saturdays, and no option to work from home, there is no work life balance. The campus was moved during the first year of the pandemic to a location that requires you to pay a toll for everyone who doesn’t live in Cranberry, PA, or travel 45-60 minutes to get there. The former campus president lives there, but he no longer works for the college but everyone else must still pay 200 a month in tolls or suffer through that long commute. I have to get up 2.5 hours before my shift just to make it on time. 14) There are little to no opportunities for growth here, especially if you’re not a part of the good ole boys crew.