Microscopic Professors

So I have been dormant for about six weeks now with keeping the blog alive.

I have successfully completed MBA 530 HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT and moving onto MBA 590 STRATEGIC IMPLEMENTATION AND ALIGNMENT.

[GOOD GRADES ARE NOT EASY]

It should go without saying (at this point) that onliners do a lot more work than B&M-ers. While I will side step what I learned from academic lenses in MBA 530 HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT I learned a lot more.

I learned a lot about why an online degree is as valuable as its B&M counterpart. Professors are just as challenging, I was lucky to experience one of the most microscopic professors I have ever encountered. Meticulous was an understatement for this gentleman. He was very particular about assignments and very very strict on grading.

I scored 89.5 overall and received a B+. There was no curving, now normally in a B&M environment I would have been able to use my personality, charm and some extra credit to easily change that to a 90.5 and get slated as “still an A student”. But, no such luck would come my way.

Bottom line, for the context of this blog, good grades in the online courses are not easily achieved. This is a general misconception that I have seen/heard in the general public’s opinion.

You have to work twice as hard for your good grades, the reading assignments are the same amount, the papers to be written are doubled and the scenarios to be tackled are more realistic.


[AN ASSOCIATION OF ONLINE GRADUATE STUDENTS]

I had a conversation today with someone that is leaving my firm to get his MBA at Colombia (NY). We chatted briefly and I ceased the opportunity to discuss my online MBA with him. He was very excited to hear that it’s real but opted to leave a nice career for two years to ear his degree at a B&M institution with a good reputation.

I then realized that we onliners needed more to support the fact that these degrees are real and tangible. This blog will serve as a good place to for others to look to for expectations, but who will act as a cheerleader for us in the years to come?

I found the following site http://www.nagps.org/ I thought the organization there was great but will they accept me as an “online” graduate student.

In the months to come I will be soliciting support to incorporate a non-for profit organization that provides support for online students (MBAs) and will serve as an organizational evangelist for our degrees in the minds of senior executives and HR departments.

Those who are interested in participating in the planning and development please feel free to write me at retwaru@etwaru.com.

[CLOSING]

On a different note, my experiences with online learning has been good so far, are there any bad experiences out there? Anyone who wanted to participate in this blog, once again please contact me. We should ensure that we document our experiences are unbiased as possible.

More to come.

Richie Etwaru