First Class & Whole30

My first class is finally over. 

Done.

So long.

Good riddance.

I learned two things from this class.

1. Online classes in an 8-week period are NOT my jam. Too much information, too quick.

2. Group work with people you don't know absolutely sucks. 

- Weekly readings, from not 1, but 2 textbooks.

- Weekly quizzes

- Weekly discussion board posts.

     - Initial response - 600 words

     - Replies - 2 of them, 450 words each.

     - All had to have 2 references and one biblical integration

- Group project

     - Annotated bib; outline; draft; final

This class started off okay. I knew going into it there would be a lot of homework. 

The readings - yes, they were terrible. Cramming 150-200 pages of reading in just means that I don't retain most of what I read. Highlighting didn't help. I just read too fast, just to get it done. I think there may have only been one week that I actually finished the readings.

The quizzes - my lowest was a 14/25, my highest was a 23/25. We had one hour and it was open book (right, how did I get a 14?!). 

The discussion board posts - a thorn in my side (there's my biblical integration!). The initial posts were due by Thursdays and the replies by Sundays. There were a couple that weren't too bad, but overall, it was a struggle. I would end up almost pulling my hair out trying to figure out what to write. Then the replies - one reply was tough, but the second was always more difficult. Finding creative ways to reword what you've already written is a skill - and one that I don't have!

If the discussion posts were a thorn in my side, the group project was a tree through my stomach. I won't go into all the details. Long story short - there were 5 of us. We had one very, very difficult group member who was not at a graduate level and should not have been in the program. This group member would not listen to our help and because I reached out first to clarify some concerns I had, I was the one chosen to be verbally attacked - at one point this person said I "lack respect, mutuality, as well as people skills." The rest of my group supported me and backed me up through this, and we attempted to get the professor involved. The professor's involvement consisted of a post to our group discussion board saying "Everyone is expected to communicate in a respectful and professional manner. In the graduate program, the level of professionalism expected is much higher than in undergraduate work. You can expect that from me and I expect it from you and toward each other." Which did nothing. 

That was it, after again attempting to help the group member with their writing skills they did not take any suggestions and was walking a very fine line of plagiarizing their portion of our paper. So we took that person name off of the group project. You would think we would've heard from the professor, right? Not a peep. 

We received our final grade on our paper, 3 points shy of a perfect score - the professor claimed 'minor grammatical/technical/formatting issues' but didn't even return our paper to us proving those things or provide the rubric scoring of where we missed the points. I responded asking for our comments - to which the paper was sent back to me, and there were maybe 3 commas deleted, an accusation of our margins not being correct (I checked this on the paper sent back, and they were correct according to the instructions outlined) and a comment about our intro not being complete - to which we were docked 2 points. However, in the draft submitted two weeks prior, we received a 5/5 with no comments about the intro - and WE DIDN'T CHANGE ANYTHING! How can you dock us 2 points on something we had a full score on!?

UGH!!!!

Going into today I knew that if I didn't do my last two discussion board replies or my final quiz, I could still get a B in the class. This morning I had decided that I didn't want to do it - I was so irritated at the professor and so heated about the process of this group project that I was done. BUT, I knew that wasn't the right thing to do - just giving up and not doing my assignments would haunt me. So, I did them. I'm not really sure my discussion board replies made any sense, but I did them. And I should finish with an A in the class. 

Wow - so now what? Now I get a one-week break before starting my next 8-week course - Health Administration. New professor and I know the group member we had issues with will not be in the class - does that mean my group will be rainbows and butterflies? I doubt it. But I'm holding out hope that it will be better.

And after that? Well, I submitted my application to IUPUI's Master in Health Informatics program. They offer mainly on-campus courses and a few online courses. I'm excited about the program at IUPUI, it's much more science/computer-focused while the Liberty program is much more business-focused. 

I know the title of this post was First Class & Whole 30... but I'll have to write about my Whole30 experience later... I've already written enough to where most of you won't it even make it to this part :)