If your son or daughter has never had a felony, misdemeanor, or has never been in trouble with the law, I do NOT recommend this program for them. My boyfriend is currently there, and when he got there, it was WAY different than we had expected. He's one of the only ones there WITHOUT a ""record"". He's one of the ONLY ones there WITH a high school diploma. The admissions person did NOT warn us that this is similar to a reform school, mainly geared towards helping ""troubled"" kids. This institution is VERY strict. They have roll call three times a day, teach you proper table manners, make you make your bed every single morning in a perfect degree angle or else you get marked down, you are on a ""point system"" and can only leave campus a certain ammount of times a month, everything that goes in has to go through security, I could go on. It's like a lesser version of juvenile hall. My boyfriend is treated like a criminal, he's done nothing wrong. He's only been there for two weeks and hasn't even had ANY training yet. I'm not even over hyping this up. My boyfriend went to this place as a last resort because he applied for 67 jobs, even at fast food places over the last 9 months and got NOTHING! Only two interviews, he even logged everything down in a journal. The current economy sent us to Jop Corps. We thought it would give him the right training to get a job so that he could make a decent living. Well, now it seems like that along with the ""job training"" they are trying to teach him ""proper life skills"" that he already knows! They have ""how to be nice to people"" classes. You don't even have access to computers, unless you get the proper amount of ""points"". They even have a person come in and ""inspect"" your dorm room in the middle of the night to make sure you are ""sleeping INSIDE of the bed, instead of ON TOP of it."" You can't walk past the flag pole or into the parking lot, or else you are considered ""absent without leave"". I wrote a letter to him and he had to open it in front of security. If you're expecting it to be similar to a college dorm room, you're wrong. The admissions people NEVER mentioned to us ""Well, we should warn you, the majority of students we have here are here to improve their lives because they have a history of misbehavior with the law."" But we had none of that. We figured that it was going to be just a bunch of normal kids like my boyfriend trying to get a job...but there is so many rules there, it's not funny. No one ever told us that it was either ""jail or job corps"" for some of these kids. A lot of these kids HAVE to be in job corps just to escape being in jail... Don't get me wrong, it's good to have these types of programs for these kinds of kids...but shouldn't they have at least warned us? Or how about they have seperate facilities for kids who have a history of misconduct and kids who don't? Because my boyfriend shouldn't be treated like a criminal and have all these restrictions when he's already graduated high school, and has never EVER been in trouble with the law. Sorry, but they should have warned us. Job corps is NOT what we expected.
Pros: Last resort at job training-teaches life skills
Cons: Tight security, no freedom, treat child like criminal
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