As a 40-year-old returning to college for a third time these types of decisions are not taken lightly, nor are they an easy thing to do. This is why when I first saw an ad for a one-year program in web and mobile application development it seemed like a great idea with a fast-track result to upgrade my skill set. Unfortunately, when I went in to gather more information on their program I was heavily pressured into enrolling in the two-year program for which I clearly expressed my reluctance. For obvious reasons - my age, experience and background - I was assured that it would be easy to change the program details once I was enrolled. So I enrolled and was admitted into the two-year program with funding from OSAP's Second Career Program for a total of $28000. Within the first week of classes I spoke to the professor and asked him his thoughts on the one-year versus two-year programs and, considering my background, he agreed that the one year would make more sense for me. So the following week I sent an email to the administration asking them to change my program back to the one year to better fit my needs. Several weeks and months went by but still no response. I sent a few reminder emails but still nothing happened until finally, when approaching the end of the first year I was called into the office in order to do the switch. Unfortunately, however, it seems like it was too little too late. The result was that there was an almost $4000 shortage to cover my tuition. My initial thought was how could this be possible when I was approved for a full scholarship for two years? As it so happened, I was not the only one in my class who was in the same predicament and needed to switch into the one-year program. On that very day of the switch, seeing and feeling the pressure of this last minute switch I, upon returning to class, said to my classmate that if he needed to get the program switched over then it was "now or never". So he immediately ran to see his financial officer, who was different than mine. The same result happened to him - they came back and said they was a shortage of $4000 missing to cover his tuition. The only difference was that his financial officer was able to fix the situation, but mine said that they could do nothing for me. The worst part of this experience for me was that I worked hard at doing everything that was expected from me as a student - homework,  studying for my exams, and succeeding at all of my classes. When they informed me that I would not get my diploma until they were paid it made my heart sink. On top of all of this, the internship I was assigned to as part of my program out to be illegally exploitative, bordering on slavery. Under normal circumstances when you walk into an internship, you expect to be shadowing professionals and experts in the field you are studying in order to add that experiential learning component to your newly acquired skills. But what happened in reality was that, upon arrival, myself and my other interns found that 'we' were the team in place and that the firm we were working for basically relied upon the unpaid labour of interns to get the majority of their work done - there were no professional developers in a position to shadow. So needless to say the stress level and amount of work we had to perform was really crazy. At the time I had also not realized that they would prevent me from participating in the graduation ceremony with my classmates. The result was major stress and depression, compounded by all of the responsibilities of my internship which involved late-night phone calls by the head of the firm handling my internship, demanding more output on tighter timelines. I had to put in massive amounts of overtime with absolutely no pay, all the while being pressured by the college to pay the missing money. I pushed myself to get all my work done, hoping it was all a simple mistake that would resolve itself in time.