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Review of NLU What is NLU? It is not a university, college, or school. It is a business committing fraud. I want everyone to hear my story about studying at NLU, since there is absolutely no reason why it should even exist. I ended up going to NLU, since the school I was originally going to go to, Northeastern Illinois University, dragged its feet with the final part of my application. I knew NEIU was ranked according to US News and World Report, and NLU was not ranked. I ended up going to NLU, and... Read More I ended up making one of the worst decisions during my academic life. Hear my story, and hopefully you will not make the same mistake I made by going to NLU. My life began at NLU by going downtown to NLUs campus on Michigan Avenue. There was an orientation for all students of the College of Education. Its building was nice. The auditorium was beautiful. It had a very nice ceiling with intricate designs. I was impressed. From that point on, I never was impressed. The horror began. First, I saw the students. They were very, very poor students. Some looked like they just got out of bed, did not brush their hair, and went straight to school. Only a small minority seemed to be smart and clean. When I took classes, I learned this same fact. The presentation began by a professor who was just hired by NLU. He came from Virginia (?). He seemed to be a terrible professor and example. He began with jokes and details about the program. He lied about how teaching jobs were in demand and that we were all making a great decision by attending NLU to become teachers. He was completely wrong. His presentation was just false advertising, since he was just an employee of a sham business that just gives away degrees and only cares about money not students. The presentations format was very similar to the presentation I observed at Primerica, a company that is accused of fraud and a pyramid scheme. After the presenter talked about the program, he began to tell us how to pay for education. He encouraged us to take loans. Loans are bad ideas, if you have the money to pay for college. They just make students slaves of debt. It was another red flag that NLU was a business scheme. After the main presenter finished his part, we all divided up into our educational specialties. They were early childhood education, secondary education, and special education. The students in my class for secondary education were not impressive. A few looked like they were dropouts from high school. At least one looked like he just got out of bed. His hair was all over the place. One person seemed very strange. I ended up having him in class. He apparently has autism. This very fact alone sums up NLU. The presenter talked about the program. I was not impressed. He did not seem very smart or scholarly. There was another teacher or professor at this meeting. She was a teacher at the high school I attended and hated. She was not impressive. She talked about edTPA (the test students of education have to pass to get a teaching license), and what she said was completely ignorant and wrong. She probably never took it before, since it just came out. However, the fact that she said something wrong is very important, since employees at NLU make all sorts of mistakes. They truly are some of the worst you will ever encounter in academia. The orientation was a terrible experience to live through. I knew right away that I made a mistake by going to NLU. I should have dropped out immediately. I did not. It was my fault. It became one of my biggest regrets. The story keeps getting worse, and we are just at the beginning. My first class was on special education. I went to the campus in Palatine. I saw the students. Many of them were not at the orientation. Most were not impressive. I learned this fact repeatedly. One student sold obese womens underwear. One went to college on a basketball scholarship and left floor trading after his brothers company bankrupted and stole millions from investors in a ponzi scheme, just like Enrons. He dressed up like a hippy woman twice around Halloween. One student apparently had autism. One student used to be a bartender. There were other bad students. There were only a few good students. Two went to UIC and graduated in honors in biology and math. A few went to UIUC. The professor for the special education class came into the room. She seemed nice at first, but something seemed wrong with her. When she was going over the syllabus, see seemed to get confused and flustered. I was very angry. I never saw anything like it before. We ended up learning that she was probably disabled later in the semester. When some students said that disabled students should not be in regular and accelerated classes, she started crying. She really was disabled. Who else would be interested in getting a Ph.D in special education in the first place? This person ended up being the best professor I had at NLU, since the other ones were so bad. After she talked about the syllabus and program, she put us into groups. The activity sums up what NLU is all about. The activity was to talk about the particular issues each of our fields had in education. I knew nothing about education at that point, just like others did not, and she wanted us to tell her what issues were present in education. I was steaming during this activity. She was supposed to be teaching me about education and not the other way around. If this fact is not enough, the people in my group were very ignorant. They did not know much about their fields, except for one who went to a top school. The others simply should not have been there. This theme kept repeating when I was at NLU. Most students at NLU should not even be in education or graduate school. Many of them worked forty-hour or more jobs during the day. They did not have time to do the reading and work for class, even though there was barely any. Many of them would be put into group work to discuss readings that were for homework and would just sit there, doing absolutely nothing. They ended up becoming teachers that our future generations will have to deal with. It was so sad to see. After my first class, I was ready to completely drop out. When I got home, my mom asked me how it was, and I said, degrading. NLU is degrading. It is just complete garbage. I was ready to drop out, but my mom did not let, even though I was paying for it myself. I could have dropped out and never had anything to do with it ever again, but I stayed. Now, I am writing a long review of NLU for everyone to know it is a scam. It is so sad. My class in special education actually ended up being the most informative at NLU. It was the only one in which I really learned something. The reason was that there was a lot of reading. The homework was not very helpful. For example, we had to read our textbook, and pick about three sentences in it to reflect upon. It was just busy work. I would have preferred just taking notes. We had to read two novels in class. One was poor, and one was disgusting. The disgusting one used the f word probably twenty to forty times. We were in graduate school. The novels were not helpful. I would have preferred reading real textbooks. We had to reflect on the readings in an online discussion. The discussions did not help to learn. Activities in the special education class were almost all group activities. The professor, just like all the other professors at NLU, did not give formal lectures, like you expect in college. Professors just put you in groups to do easy work that does not help you to become a teacher. All classes just focus on lesson planning and not much else. Lesson planning is very simple. It is only one part of education. Just about anyone cam make a lesson plan if they have Common Core State Standards. The second class I had at NLU was with a professor from Hungary. She made us read an anti-White and anti-Christian book on the history of education. It was the first of its kind I ever read in college. The only time she ever referenced the book in class was when she talked about an anti-Christian cartoon that had the Pope with a sign that says, We trick you. I barely learned anything in this class. All of her classes were based on group work. We watched maybe a few short clips of the history of education. She was one of the laziest professors I had at NLU. She gets an absolute F. She ended up leaving NLU. She said she left, since her job requirements changed. I am not sure if she was fired. The theme of professors at NLU leaving is a constant one. Many stay only briefly and never return. It is no surprise. Anyone with an inkling of culpability or standards would not stand for the fraud happening at NLU. This second class only required a unit plan and a few lessons or at least it is what I remember. When I gave the professor one of these assignments, she did not even want it. She said that I did not have to turn in it. We were in graduate school. How could it be happening? The third class I took at NLU was an online class. It was the easiest class I ever had in college. It took about one week to do all its work. We had to read a textbook, take open book quizzes that could be repeated until we were satisfied with our grades, and do one research paper that was two or three pages. It was a complete waste of time. Online discussion was utilized. It was useless. You did not learn much from it. The fourth class I had was with a teacher who taught in a diverse high school. I did not learn much in this class. Not much was done, just like in other classes. The teacher swore in class a few times. She used the f word once. We had to present something, turn in a few lesson plans, and write a reflection on the last day in class with open notes. It was terrible. One of the students in this class sums up NLU in one character. He was apparently disabled and worked in special education. He had very long hair as a child, was given a drum set when he was a kid to get his stress out, said that his experiments with drugs were a great success, and said that he was fingerprinted for a crime recently. He said all of these things in class. Would you want to have such a classmate? The fifth class I took at NLU was the second best one I took at NLU. He taught us a little about the problems in education and some of the things he had to deal with. He was a pretty good guy. The problem was that he was unprofessional. He taught in a bad high school in CPS. He used the f word a few times in class, including during the first class. There was no textbook in this class, or at least I do not think there was one. He had us do a few readings outside of class. They did not help too much. The most informative things he taught us were the problems in education, such as the fact that rich parents constantly call and complain about teachers, teachers do not follow rules, and a lot of students do not care about education. He was the only teacher who told the truth about education. The problem with this teacher was that he ended classes early by thirty minutes to two and one-half hours early. My money was wasted. He was hired after a friend or someone at NLU called him at the beach or pool and asked if he could teach a class. He was probably my favorite teacher at NLU if I had to pick anyone, since he taught things that were actually important. The sixth class I took was online. It took about a week and a half to complete. You just had to read a textbook, take online quizzes that could be retaken an infinite amount of times, participate in online discussion, and write a two or three page research paper. The textbook was really good, but I cannot even recall one thing I learned from the class other than the fact that I came to the conclusion that education is meant to be bad in our country. I came to this conclusion just by reading the textbook. The professor wrote to me and said that I am not the first to say such a thing. It is a common theme that comes up in education inside NLU and outside it. If these classes were not embarrassing enough, what happened with student teaching was even worse. Student teaching does not have any requirements from NLU. There is no syllabus for it. There are just recommended documents for student teachers and cooperating teachers. These documents were possibly mentioned on the first day of class. I was given my placement in a poor high school in the far western suburbs. I did not know it at the time, but this school was as bad as any poor CPS school. When I met one of my cooperating teachers for the first time, he had gym shoes, warm up pants, and a sporty sweater on. It was so unprofessional. My other cooperating teacher had gym shoes on, but he wore nicer clothes. I found out on the first day what I was going to teach. The two subjects I was going to teach were ones I was not endorsed to teach. One of the subjects I was to teach was one I only took one class in my whole life. I was shocked and instantly depressed. I told one of my cooperating teachers that I only wanted to teach the minimum amount of time to complete student teaching, since I did not feel comfortable. He was furious. He did not want to teach his class, since his students were checked out. I did not realize it at the time, but I just buried myself for saying about two sentences. A few days later, I met with my supervisor from NLU and my cooperating teachers. They told me to step out of the room. They talked and brought me back in. I was told that I would not be accepted for student teaching. One of my cooperating teachers said that I was not a good fit for this level. He said I would be a fantastic university professor. He was breaking a legal contract with my university, since my university had one with the school. It keeps getting worse. My supervisor from NLU said a racist statement by saying that I am not a good fit for America. He is a minority and I am a majority. He told me that Latinos come in with a high level of education, I have to complement the boots of female students, I should be teaching early grades, and other rude things. He told me that I was stiff and that I did not engage students. He never met me until that day. When I was there, I was supposed to only observe and not interact with students. Observations are supposed to just be observations and not interactions. He said the opposite. My supervisor gave me documents for student teaching that I did not know about before the meeting. NLUs professors never gave them to us. They were recommendations and not binding. However, they would have been helpful. This man sums up NLUs fraud in another entity. When I met with him and others later on, he lied. He said all sorts of things that were false. Moreover, he would not shake my hand at the meeting. Thanks, NLU. You now know what kind of fraud is happening at NLU. Its employees are nearly all Jews. Nearly everyone gets easy As, even if they do not do the work. It is unorganized. Its professors do not stay long. My tale has been told. There are others who have had problems here. When I launched an academic appeal, I found that a lot of other students were making appeals. It is very informative. If you go to NLU, you can end up fighting for your academic life. NLU has free applications. Why? It just wants students. Why? It just wants their money. It is just a business. My counselor gave me wrong information several times. She told me wrong things about two or three times. Each of the things she told was really important, too. One of them had to deal with my appeal. She exemplifies NLUs employees. They make mistakes and get away with them. NLU is truly a business that is committing fraud. It is just like ITT Tech, Everest College, Devry, and University of Phoenix. After they were closed in the summer or fall of 2016, I thought NLU would be closed, too. It is completely possible that NLU will be closed in the future. It is not providing education. After my problems with student teaching, which I was not prepared for, I received two letters that said that I am not a good teacher and that I should go into another field. They were from the two people who were at the orientation. I met one of them twice before I was out of the program. I never personally met the other one, but I saw him at a meeting during one of my classes. He is really, really short. He was sitting in a small chair and pulled his leg up so he could sit on his foot and leg. He wanted to sit taller. His behavior sums up NLU again. Is there anything positive to get out of NLU? There are a few things. I learned a lot from the textbooks I read. They were the only real professors I had. Other things I learned were that there are universities in our country that are really committing fraud. They are not providing education. NLU is one. I also learned that there is real discrimination happening by Jews against others in our country. I also learned that you cannot win appeals. The people involved in the appeals process all support each other. It is mostly a waste of time. You can just learn that you cannot win in it, even if you are right. I ended up going to Northeastern Illinois University. I am now very happy. In my first class, I had a lecture during the first day that was more professional than anything I had at NLU in two semesters. There is real work. There are real lectures. There are real discussions. Students are smart. They are serious and work hard. Classes do not end very early. I had to take a class that was worth one credit during my first semester at NEIU. I had to observe for ten hours and do services for another ten hours. I wrote a paper that was around thirty-eight pages or so. Over forty references were all used in it. At NLU, the two research papers I did in graduate school summed up about six pages or so. NEIU is superior to NLU. I remember that I read a review on Google or Yelp about NLU before I started. It said that she was glad that she never has to go there again. Every time she sees NLU, she is happy that she does not have to go there anymore. I am the same way. My cohort had a Facebook page. One student used an interesting word to describe our classmates. It was, fools. He seems to be right to call us fools. NLU made us fools. It gave us dismal education, and we paid high rates for it. If you go to NLU, you will be another fool. Learn from history and never go to NLU. After writing this whole piece, I can say that I finally feel at peace with my time at NLU. The most important part was thinking about the orientation. I did not think about it until I wrote about it. It was the key to understanding that NLU is a business committing fraud. Its pitch was just like Primericas. I now know to never support businesses that commit fraud and to check the reviews closely of all things that I purchase, even if it is something like education that does not sound like a regular commodity you can buy.