For awhile now I have been holding my tongue about the administration of the program. We’ve had some hang ups in the past and meetings and so forth to try and rectify the issues. However it seems like we are being ignored. Not in the sense that they don’t want to help us … well yes partly in that sense but maybe more in the area that no one wants to take responsibility for tending to our problems. We have problems on all fronts at the moment.

With our home colleges we still don’t know exactly how things are transferred, we don’t know what classes we are supposed to take. This is a huge problem since we are talking final exams already. Many of the other students that were told to take summer classes in economics are now being told that these classes will not apply to the degree abroad. This is a very costly mistake that has everyone pretty heated. I already took the classes before I transferred to DePaul, but it sure would be nice to have that extra buffer to fall back on. The cost for taking these classes over the summer can easily reach $10,000+ with tuition not to mention housing etc. (opportunist cost for not being able to work because you were told you had to take summer econ classes).

To the FUTURE STUDENTS OF THE ATLANTIS PROGRAM *** DO NOT TAKE ANY EXTRA CLASSES UNLESS YOU HAVE IT WRITING THAT IT IS REQUIRED AND WILL APPLY TO YOUR DEGREE ABROAD IN FRANCE AND SWEDEN ***

Although the issues that are arising in Sweden aren’t nearly as prodigious as the issues in France, they still need to be addressed. Many of the students living on campus in Linkoping have to pre-pay a deposit before moving in. This to our knowledge can only be done by a Swedish account which we won’t have until we are in Sweden. This can easily be fixed by asking one of the Swedish students to cover the deposit and then pay them in cash. However one of the bigger issues has to do with course selection in Sweden. We aren’t sure if a certain class will work better for our individual academic then others. We have asked about this and have heard nothing back. When talking about issues in Sweden the biggest by FAR is the title and type of the degree we are receiving. According to DePaul when we signed up we were to receive a International Business degree. Later we were told we would receive a Business Administration degree and one student, due to the “economics” course credit mix up would only receive a Social Studies degree with a minor in Business. Not only is this completely outrageous, deranged but also unfair. One of the solid business principles my father taught me is that “you cannot change the deal after both parties have agreed on it”. How can anyone expect to be trusted after a stunt like this?

And now for the big kahuna, the whopper, the king … a quick look at the issues in France! First off the scheduling of classes … personally I can’t stand it. It doesn’t work, it’s unorganized and inefficient. Every day we think we have a class we have to go to school, and look at the bulletin board. On this cork board there is a paper with “ATLANTIS” on it. On this paper is the list of available classes, with the times and classroom location. Not the best way but ok … it works. Now here’s the crazy part. Often this paper is WRONG! When a class is moved or rescheduled ( which happens often ) many times it’s not updated on this paper. Rarely we are notified of a change or cancellation. In the event that someone actually catches wind of the change it must be spread throughout Skype or Email. Which is also consummately F.U.B.A.R.’ED because the internet at the residences is UNRELIABLE AT BEST!!!! That’s right consummately fubar’ed … “to bring to a state of perfection” of F.U.B.A.R. if you don’t know what FUBAR stands for go watch “Saving Private Ryan” or google it. And get this … MOST of the time when the classroom has changed it gets changed again so we are forced to loiter around the administrative office until as classroom is found. And wait it gets better! Atleast half the time that classroom is being occupied, so we have to repeat the cycle until an open classroom is found. I remember specifically one incident this cycle happened 4 times. And the icing on the cake, the administration then displays it’s disgust with their American students by blindly threating and chastising us for missing class!!! Needless to say we’ve “left” a bad impression on the French administrative staff. I’m not going to go in depth about the issues related to the lack of respect on bothsides of students and administration. However I will say that we can’t respect the administration for how they handle us especially concerning the classrooms. Shuffling us around like cattle really does damage on our respect for them. We came to this school being told it is a private, prestigious and reputable business school of France. After being here a few weeks it was blinding how badly and inefficient your setup is. Now after being here a few months … it’s just not acceptable anymore. We can’t take it. We have the experience by talking with other students studying abroad at different colleges in France that our issues with this school is NOT CULTURAL. These are just 2 issues. There are more, many more like the collection of unexpected expenses, absence of coordinators and administration, and the total and complete lack of information.

As you can plainly see the administration of this program has repeatedly failed us. Almost all of these issues should have been worked out BEFORE WE LEFT. Many of the proposed solutions to these issues have been voiced but no action has been seen by our end. Our confidence in this program is falling, our trust in this program is nearly broken, our faith in this program is diminishing with every false statement, “unforeseen” cost and out right lie. We are being forced to take control of our situation and make the best of this idea that has been hindered at every turn.

I send this post out as a plea for help. This is not what we signed up for, this is not what we were told things would be like. We want to learn, we want to grow, we want to bridge that gap that this program was supposed to bridge. We like the ideals of this program and want it to succeed. We don’t feel all is lost, but we will be forced to take action soon if you do not. We have been doing research. We know who owns this privately owned school. We now know who they answer to. We know where they are. We know how to contact them.

/***/TECH RANT/***/
Here is a little snippet (Thanks Paterva!):
ECE Lyon is owned by INSEEC Group which was bought over by Career Education Corporation They have offices at:

Career Education Corporation
2895 Greenspoint Parkway
Suite 600
Hoffman Estates, IL 60169
Phone: 847-781-3600

And as of Tuesday they were trading at $28.80 per share CECO.O (NASDAQ). Would you like to know who their major shareholders are? Would you like to know who is on their board of directors? Would you like to know where they live? Would you like to know their email addresses? Would you like to know their cell phone numbers?

/***/END RANT/***/

p.s. Please do not misunderstand this as some weird threat or blackmail, I’m just throwing out some questions and showing off a bit. I also needed something to do to keep my skills sharp and this provided some practice.