I’ve read four chapters of Global Business today in around four hours. Last night I submitted my first papers in Taskstream around 6:15 PM. At the time the papers were 113 and 114 respectively in the queue. I assume that is the queue to be graded. Today at 5 PM the positions are 42 and 43. For a Friday night and Saturday I should be pretty happy about the speed of processing. I still want to find out whether I passed. It would be nice to complete my first Tasks and course on the first attempt in the first week of the term. Having already completed all the readings from one textbook as well, I feel better today about my progress. While Global Business was an easy read, it was engaging and had interesting examples. I know the next textbook, Principles of Economics, will be denser reading. Hopefully I remember enough from college or have learned the various competencies while working. If so, I will move through that material quickly as well.
My enrollment call with my mentor was on Thursday. The night before I sent her all my work for the first course and asked a few questions by email. During the call she gave good answers and shared some insights. She insisted that I have another call the same day with a course mentor. Once all the coursework questions were out of the way we discussed enrollment in the term and my degree plan. I had moved all the courses into one term the night before. She informed me that she could only enroll me in three courses for the first term to start. This is not a limit on what I’m allowed to complete but a standard for beginning the term. This part of our conversation bugged me but I held it in. I felt like my mentor was intentionally slowing me down. Maybe it is WGU policy, but I think I’m capable of doing more and wanted to put it in the plan. Maybe it protects me in case I don’t move as quickly through the courses.
My student mentor initially started discussing the Managing Human Capital course and said this would be my next course to complete. I stopped her and informed her I had already purchased textbooks and started reading for Global Economics for Managers. She asked me what prior experience I had on the subject. I told her I had two economics courses in undergrad and I work in Finance. She agreed with my approach with some hesitation. She mentioned most students found the HR course an easier starting point. The default degree plan put the Econ course first, so I don’t know what made her suggest an alternative order for me. Once that was agreed she set up the degree plan and approved it. Next she asked me to check a box next to each course of the first term and click enroll. Everything updated and it told me I was enrolled (with an exclamation point). It was underwhelming considering how guarded the course enrollment process is. Locks appeared next to the courses implying I’m now locked in to the first term plan.
Later in the day I held a ten minute phone call with the course mentor who heavily suggested I amend Task 1 using a different leadership theory. This made me a bit frustrated since the guidance has been so confusing and cost me so much time up to this point in the program. Three rewrites due to poor instructions is excessive and has wasted hours of my time. All the same I stayed up until midnight completing rewrites suggested for both Task 1 and 2. I agree with the suggestions, especially since I prompted them with my own questioning of the approach and lack of clarity from the Chapter 15 text of Management. Even though I agree and think my papers are better for the revisions, I know I could have completed everything more efficiently if the presentation of the Task requirements and text were both more clear and congruent in their terminology.