Big milestone today! I just passed the Objective Assessment for C215 Operations Management and completed the course. The MBA Capstone is the only course remaining to complete my MBA. I sent my mentor an email already asking to be enrolled for the January 4, 2016 start date. Apparently it must be completed with a team so the start dates are pre-determined.
I recognize there’s a slight gap in the journal here. I passed the previous course C207 Data-Driven Decision Making officially on December 20th. I had to rewrite an entire section of Task 2. However the grading continues to be fast and when I woke up the next morning I received the good news that I had finished the course. Thus I enrolled in C215 Operations Management immediately and accelerated my studying. My completion time is three days for this course. Because I was told I must complete all courses prior to the Capstone by today to join the January 4th group I’ve been plowing all the time I could spare into this course. I finished the Objective Assessment for C215 in 42 minutes and scored a 78%. During the test I bookmarked 23 questions for review. Because I did my math prior I knew I could miss as many as 29 questions and still pass. I mark every question I have a hint of doubt about my answer choice in order to get a good estimate of my worst possible score on the test. When I reach the end and see that statistically speaking I’ve almost certainly passed the test it lets me click submit without hesitation. This is an interesting moment to evaluate how bad I am at guessing on multiple-choice tests. I bookmarked 23 questions and missed 15 questions on the test. If theoretically I had no clue what the answer was, I correctly guessed only 8 out of 23 answers. A 35% guessing rate definitely will not get me through any of these tests. Thus by how bad a guesser I am I can further substantiate the competency I’ve demonstrated in this program!
I found a number of the test questions to be phrased more difficult than the pre-assessment or the chapter review quizzes in the book. I’m not sure I agree that simply making the wording of questions and answer choices more complex and confusing is a valid test of the competency of the subject matter. Changing the wording from that given in the text may test mastery but it could just as easily play to biases in the different context people give to different words. One question referred to variability of job scope and depending on how I read the question I could argue the answer would be either job enlargement or job rotation. Change in scope is associated with job enlargement. Variation of duties may imply a rotation for the employee. If they were testing whether I understood either one of these concepts, making a question unclear as to the focus doesn’t allow me to show that I know what both concepts mean. These critiques are perhaps overly critical as even 5-10 questions of such ambiguity would not prevent one from passing the exam and therefore demonstrating the required competency for the course. In my case I’m ecstatic to have completed this and all the other courses since September.
To pass this course I took notes during the pre-assessment and read all the textbook chapters. I completed all the chapter review quizzes. I also printed off a WGU custom glossary included in the online text and studied each chapter’s vocabulary at the time of reading. Considering I did all this in a period of three days means I wasn’t stopping to ponder on a lot of topics. I found my level of familiarity with many of the concepts to be higher than anticipated. Also, I found the concepts to be more intuitive to me and many things felt like common sense. I’m not sure whether this is a personal observation or a commentary on the subject. It made me consider whether moving into more operational roles would be a better career fit for me than the previous accounting and finance experience. Because of the quick completion and objective assessment I don’t know that I can say much more about passing the class. Again, I ignored all the additional readings and videos included with the course. My approach is efficiency to demonstrate competency. If I don’t need something to demonstrate competency I’ve left it out and my progress to date would give more credibility to my approach.
For the sake of a status update, here are some screen shots from my WGU account.
Approaching the end of the 4th month of my term, I’ve completed 30 CU’s or 88% of the MBA. The 0/2 Terms indicator requires explaining. The indicator is driven by the number of terms scheduled in the Degree Plan. Earlier in the program my mentor had courses scheduled across three terms in my plan. This also correlates with the Planned Graduation date of AUG 2016. I’m assuming that once my mentor enrolls me in the MBA Capstone both of these indicators will update. When the indicator shows 0/1 Terms that might be an even more confusing statement.
I still have 9 weeks to complete the Capstone and plan on finishing in the month of January. Here’s to hoping work doesn’t interfere too much with my plan. There are 11 flags there and the 0 is the CU for the Orientation course at the start of the program. Otherwise 10 x 3 gives the 30 CU’s earned to date. I’m not sure whether this is supposed to be a motivating factor. The flags are shaped a bit like ribbons on medals. Is that WGU placing ribbons of accomplishment on my Degree Plan? Suffice it to say WGU has thought of nearly every dashboard indicator that a student could want to review their program progress. One more indicator below shows a type of timeline. This is also where the indicator appears when the mentor modifies the degree plan. I’ll have to see whether I end up on Plan H once the Capstone is added. It is a close indicator of the number of times my degree plan has changed.
Above you can see my Term 1 courses with all progress indicators included and course completion dates. This comes from the same picture cropped to remove all the empty space in between. Nothing is modified or missing. I’m not trying to pull a fast one on anybody, just improving the presentation and readability. The circles tell what type of assessment was required to pass each course. P = Performance Assessment and O = Objective Assessment. Some courses required both. Before you question the commitment or rigorous nature of this program, just consider how much knowledge each of these represents. It requires a lot of commitment, determination, and of course knowledge to pass that many tests and write that many papers in the time indicated on top of full-time work. It’s not impossible or even soul-crushing, but it is something I will now defend with pride.
One course left and the biggest of them all based on Competency Units. If it doesn’t show, I’m very excited about this. The end is now in sight.
Later in the day.
Received 2 emails, one a system notice…
and the other from my student mentor.
When I opened my WGU home page I found only one change.
Good, I was hoping to graduate a little faster.
MBA Capstone initiated. Here’s Plan AA set up by my student mentor.
The MBA Capstone in the Degree Plan now has dates attached to it.
Here’s what appears when I click on Plan AA.
Also…
The final course moves from Term 2 to Term 1. This of course is the same change every time a course was accelerated and moved into Term 1. Note that the dates on C216 have changed again. This reflects the actual dates discussed with my mentor for completion. I check the box to verify enrollment and the ENROLL button is activated.
I select ENROLL and away… we… GO!
I can’t turn back now that it’s official. The entire program is finally shown in Term 1. In fact, Term 2 has disappeared entirely from the Degree Plan.
It would probably be sloppy to leave Term 2 sitting there looking empty and sad.
Back on my WGU Home screen I get another update that is more exciting to see than I anticipated.
Planned graduation is now January 2016 and I have my grammatically incorrect but accurate status of 0/1 Terms complete. That should say 0 of 1 Term, right? At the end of February that will finally read 1/1 Terms, still grammatically incorrect but very fulfilling nonetheless. At the bottom of my WGU account it also now shows this.
I also noticed a bar on the Degree Plan page just above the listing of the courses.
0+0+30=30. Yes, it’s been a solid term so far. With everyone locked down I can move into the MBA Capstone pre-work. Yes, they have pre-work. I’ll take the next couple days off to enjoy Christmas and family and then it will be back to school for one last push. Just in time I received another email confirming all this enrolling has succeeded.
