How to Succeed at The University of Phoenix Online Master's Degree Program
Succeeding at the University of Phoenix
Based upon my own experience at the University of Phoenix Online, here are key things I learned that you should know if you want to excel at your UOPHX online program. I hope you won't minimize the advice in this section. This is what is required to do well. The smartest or wisest people learn from the experience of others.
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I wouldn’t recommend taking more than one class at a time. When I attended, you could only attend two classes per each six week period with classes 2 through 7 or so. From that point on, they wouldn't let you. If you aren’t working, taking two classes is doable, but is not if you’re working. Many of the assignments require you to expand and expound upon your current employment anyway and it is seen as a vital aspect of the program. Still, I deliberately chose not to work during the program so as to optimize my participation and learning. (That was a mistake too.)
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The tools and software you’ll need are Microsoft Office, specifically, Word and PowerPoint. You’ll also need Outlook Express for the newsgroup capability it has. This is vital for the class and is indispensable. You’ll also need Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat. Adobe Reader is free and if you’ll go to Adobe.com, you can download it from there. Acrobat is not free but if you want to mark up your PDFs the way you would a marker with a regular book, then it’s not essential.
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Plan your week’s work in advance. This will save you time for every moment one spends in planning they save two in execution. When I took the program, Wednesday was the first day of the class schedule. It’s changed now I think, but that doesn’t matter. By doing this, I saved a lot of time and was always organized. Nor did I ever feel rushed. I planned my week and put all my core syllabus and other class information that I got from the facilitator into a Lotus WordPro file as it allowed me to divide up all the assignments and work into nice colored tabs the way I’d do with actual file folders. I also was able to save all of my work this way too. So, moral of the story? Plan your work and work your plan. You’ll be glad you did, believe me.
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Also schedule in some rest or non-involvement periods. I tried to keep Sunday free. It's important to be away from the class at times especially after working so hard. I liked to do the discussion questions, the required responses, even the weekly summary on the first day of the class. Later, I waited until the day before the weekly summary was due as I found I did have more to say after a week's work for those areas covered. The reading is usually lengthy as well so plan on that.
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Know there are some things you can’t control. You can’t control how other teammates will respond. You can’t control the actions of your learning team members. Like I said earlier, in the first few classes, be careful who you team up with. You’ll get some slackers until the program is far enough along that the lazy will have been weeded out. I had no problems with any learning team associates from about the fourth class on to the end. By then, the tire kickers were gone.
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Do your research with the Internet along with the tools and online intranet libraries they provide. Believe it or not, the libraries they provide are not that bad, they really aren’t. One thing that I wish I had done was this: explore those libraries more in the beginning of the program. The Internet is great for research as that’s what it was originally meant to be, but don’t make it your sole tool. Use their libraries but also use Google Scholar. That’s even better for researching papers. However, the standard Google search is great too. I also recommend you use MSN and Yahoo too for variety. You can get a good cross sampling of search engine results by using Dogpile.com. I only mention all of this for variety’s sake. I mostly stick to Google now but I wish I had known this before I started.
There you have it. Apply these tips and you'll do much better -- especially tip number three. Good luck with your University of Phoenix experience.
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