ERPadmin's Grad School Journey

erpadmin

Well, I figure with the MCITP:EA and WGU out of the way, I figure I start the next epic thread--the beginning of my MS in IS trek. As I stated earlier in other threads, I'm a non-matriculated student that's doing a Graduate Certificate (GC) program in Management of Technology at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). All of the courses are part of the main MS degree but I'm shooting for Bs and As (or rather, shooting for an A and hoping to end up with a . I have four classes to take to earn the certificate and if I get the certificate with a 3.00 average, I qualify for a GRE/GMAT waiver. Also, GC students have a much easier time getting matriculated after the certificate is earned.

I'm pretty much on my own with this; at least with WGU, I had a support system with those attending WGU on here. Now, I'll have to hope I can make some new friends. I still want to share my experiences here though. You guys gave me so much, and it's my hope that maybe I'll inspire someone from here to follow in my shoes to shoot for a MS degree.

I thought I'd be starting this next Tuesday as that's officially when I start. However, both of my courses opened up yesterday (of all days....) Sylabi was made available and I had to find a suitable place that would send me a textbook in one business day (I used ecampus.com.) My first classes are Information Systems Principles [ISP] and Organizational Behavior. Organizational Behavior seems like it will be doable, provided I particpate in class discussions and do the required reading. ISP seems like that one will require both thought and work and promises to be challenging (that was the class I needed the book for.) The ISP course will also require "team" participation....(yikes!) I can work with anyone and the format reminds me of The Apprentice shows. Team members not performing can be "fired" and if that happens, you lose 20% of your project grade. Also seems like it's gonna be paper writing and open-book quizes.

I should be organized with an attack plan by Monday. (A much needed holiday.) As I progress, I'll make notes in new posts here.

powerfool

These are good threads to see. I hope you do well.

What school are you attending? Is it a completely B&M school, or does it offer some/all courses online (I know you were trying to find a more traditional school for your graduate work)?

Best wishes.

swild

Subscribed. I hope to be going for something similar right after WGU. Which schools did you consider and which did you decide on and why? I have been doing quite of bit of grad school hunting and really haven't gotten very far. The only thing I know is that I want to attend an NSA CAE.

the_Grinch

Sounds like NJIT (I believe you're in NJ). Good luck, I am sure you'll knock it out of the park!

erpadmin

powerfool wrote: »

These are good threads to see. I hope you do well.

What school are you attending? Is it a completely B&M school, or does it offer some/all courses online (I know you were trying to find a more traditional school for your graduate work)?

Best wishes.

I just edited that post, but it is NJIT, a well known B&M school in the metro-NYC area. The entire program can be done online, and I'm not 100% sure I would want to go to a class on campus. But I was always going to go to a school that was known as a B&M. Only reason I'm doing the program online is so that I can still travel and do the course work. But if I'm required to show up on campus, I don't see why not, as it's only twenty minutes from me from work.

erpadmin

swild wrote: »

Subscribed. I hope to be going for something similar right after WGU. Which schools did you consider and which did you decide on and why? I have been doing quite of bit of grad school hunting and really haven't gotten very far. The only thing I know is that I want to attend an NSA CAE.

Inititally, I wanted to do an MBA with an IT focus; I had my heart and mind set for it. However, it looked like an MBA wouldn't be enough to be an adjunct professor in some schools. I had physically visited Seton Hall, and Montclair State (while I had been to both campuses many times....I enjoy going to either of them for the eye candy. ) So after trying to figure out what to do, it made sense to me to go for an Information Systems degree. None of those trivial Calculus courses to worry about....(I had considered Rutgers-Newark as well, but they require Calculus in addition to Stats, which I believe would have been covered by WGU anyway, but not the Calculus.)

Shockingly, for an IS degree, no math is required, so I decided to do that. Plus, an IS degree may still be able to get me into an IT management spot somewhere. But it was more important to try to get an adjunct position somewhere after I get the MS degree. Having NJIT on my resume can only help in that regard.

erpadmin

Well, I got my textbook yesterday for ISP and the professor for that course just updated course content. Pretty much gonna do some reading for the course today. The Org Behavior course I'm gonna spend sometime either after ISP or tomorrow. But Tuesday is when the real fun begins.

Pretty much am going to spend a good deal of the weekend getting everything organized for the semester. Gotta download the syllabi into my respective folders (much like I did for WGU) and see what's up.

I gotta tell you that I'm excited and nervous about this program. I felt somewhat the same way when I started WGU. Gotta focus that nervous energy into something constructive for both courses. Let's see how it goes.

themagicone

Good luck! You'll do great. Congrats again on graduating WGU.

Excellent1

Good luck on the new program, man. Keep us all posted on the progress. I'm definitely interested in your thoughts on the quality of resources / coursework, etc. I've been debating the master programs, but I'm not convinced on anything yet. Anyway, looks like you're keeping your momentum and rolling on--I'm sure you'll do well.

erpadmin

Well last night I got through most of ISP's assignments, learning about the Value Chain and how IT adds to the VC's bottom line. A lot of automating the supply line, and all of that. I am now using Evernote on my tablet and made notes on what to heed. We will have a quiz on the first few chapters of the textbook in a few weeks and I will start reading the textbook either tonight or tomorrow. I also have a Harvard Business Review article on how "IT Doesn't Matter" and I have to write a review about it. I kinda have an idea of what the article is about (pretty much what I've stated most of my time on IT...how IT shouldn't dictate the business....like it did in the 90s.)

Right now, I'm going to table ISP and go through the Org Behavior class' required readings. That promises to not be quite so...challenging as ISP, but I gotta make sure I'm on top of it so I don't fall behind. Once I'm done with that, I go back to ISP readings. So far, so good.

LinuxRacr

Sounds like you have a solid plan of what you need to get done. Congrats to you, and good luck!

erpadmin

Just finished a small write up to an article for Org Behavior. Argh.....I really lost some sleep on that. Week's not even over and I'm already pulling all nighters! Is this even normal? Between work and my family obligations, I didn't have time to do this earlier.

I will say this though...while I've heard from other WGU students about the use of both Dropbox and Evernote, I personally saw no need to use them until today. Both apps are just must haves for serious schooling.

Dropbox is just so much more efficent to transfer screenshots/pics into the tablet than just emailing it to myself. Simply install it on your PCs that are connected to the Internet, drop the file (document, pic file, etc.) and then in literally seconds, it is on your tablet when you access the Dropbox App.

Evernote is just great for meetings and taking notes with the lectures. I had no need to do that with WGU because I was so comfortable with pen and paper. (Especially for the math!)

I have to do a similar writeup for ISP. Both classes want you to do a writeup in their forums. Then you have to comment on your classmate's writeups. Unlike TechExams, you will get yelled at by the professors for pulling just a +1 or other "I agree" comments.....they want you to add to what your classmates wrote whether you agree or disagree.

I will need to better manage my time with these DL courses so I don't needlessly pull all nighters like today. I don't want to burn myself out. The last time I did something like this was for QL(x)1. In the future I will probably want to do what I did when I started WGU...do some stuff in the morning and then stuff in the evening. But I think a lot of this is that I'm so ----ing nervous about classes at the grad school level. I really want to make sure I get the "B." It's not to say that at WGU I didn't have to work this hard, but it was a lot easier, time management-wise. One thing I knew going in was that there's no "accelerating" these courses....you go at the pace of the professor. I understand that, and I think after this semester I should be able to decelerate the speed I was accustomed to at WGU. At the same time, I don't want to go so slow that I risk falling behind. Balance will truly be the key to winning this game, and I do intend to win.

powerfool

That has happened to me on several occasions during my grad school work. We have assigned reading to do every week, and "conference posts" (which are directed discussion board posts) that need to begin mid-week and finish up by the end of the week, plus our normal writing assignments. With work and family, I don't have much time to do any other that until the late evening, and sometimes those spill over into the early morning.

Welcome to graduate school

erpadmin

powerfool wrote: »

That has happened to me on several occasions during my grad school work. We have assigned reading to do every week, and "conference posts" (which are directed discussion board posts) that need to begin mid-week and finish up by the end of the week, plus our normal writing assignments. With work and family, I don't have much time to do any other that until the late evening, and sometimes those spill over into the early morning.

Welcome to graduate school

Seriously, you have no idea how much I appreciate reading that. I have such a greater appreciation for the work that has to go in working toward an MS. I can now understand why doing more than 6 credits would be akin to suicide. Weaker people would have just headed for the hills after the few days and it's promising not to get any easier.

I got to see what one of my classmate's wrote after I posted mine. I think my professor is going to ding me for being too formal in my initial post (not using any pronouns, double spacing, using APA formatting for citing the article.) But I basically came to the same conclusion as the classmate who posted earlier. I wouldn't get to know that though until after I posted and thirty minutes went by to edit the post if I wanted to. (I wrote it out in Word and then pasted into the post.) Both of my professors were both serious about the honor code...I think he'll take mercy on me and see that I was just trying to adhere to the CYA principle.

Seriously though, you really have no idea how your response has motivated me. I feel like I didn't sleep for 3-4 hours and that was before the first of my second 12 oz cup of coffee thanks to reading it. It really is nice to hear from other grad students who have gone through the same things. Soon I may even speak the same language.

LinuxRacr

ERP,

It from the sound of it, this describes my undergrad courses at University of Phoenix. Not self-paced, and you had to actively post and participate in discussions, as well as do write-ups on topics, and what your classmates thought of it. We also had group assignments AND papers to write. It is hard enough being in a local group, let alone dealing with some of the personalities of people thousands of miles away. All this being said, you WILL do fine. That year at UoP was really an adjustment period for me in getting better at time-management.

erpadmin

LinuxRacr wrote: »

ERP,

It from the sound of it, this describes my undergrad courses at University of Phoenix. Not self-paced, and you had to actively post and participate in discussions, as well as do write-ups on topics, and what your classmates thought of it. We also had group assignments AND papers to write. It is hard enough being in a local group, let alone dealing with some of the personalities of people thousands of miles away. All this being said, you WILL do fine. That year at UoP was really an adjustment period for me in getting better at time-management.

Thanks for the encouragement. This is pretty much sounding like standard operating procedure in terms of how a lot of schools deliver DL content. I guess I have to get used to the adjustment. I don't necessarily dislike/like this model; it's just different and I have to adapt accordingly. Even my B&M experience doesn't help me that much because I could always ask questions as a lecture was going on and/or usually had that one classmate in class I'd be cool with to bounce stuff off for the class. What I do like about this model is that the work one has to do is kind of laid out for you. What I recognized quickly was that it is very easy to fall behind if you stop staying on top of the classes. That was a given anyway, but it got quickly verified. LOL.

This was pretty much all I could ask for going into this in the first place. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't (going to go) crazy.

erpadmin

Well, the second week had started yesterday. Right now, I have two things that are due soon. For ISP, I have an article write up that's due on the 31st. It's about half way done.

Organizational Behavior has also started a new week, but I had to wait for this week because he wants us to incorporate this week's lecture into an assignment due on Super Bowl Sunday. (It will be done MUCH sooner than that....with my Giants in it.....I'd have to be dying for me not to watch that game.....)

I'm hoping to get the ISP assignment done tonight and work on reading the text and his lectures on the text this week. Then get into the Org Behavior lectures.

I gotta tell you, I'm really disliking the format of ISP. We're using a newer implementation of Moodle, which is an open source WebCT/Blackboard/Taskstream-type application. The Org Behavior class is using the older version of Moodle, but that class' format is a lot easier to follow, and hence a lot easier to hand in whatever assignments he wants. As long as I keep forward though, shouldn't be a problem.

Psoasman

LinuxRacr wrote: »

ERP,

It from the sound of it, this describes my undergrad courses at University of Phoenix. Not self-paced, and you had to actively post and participate in discussions, as well as do write-ups on topics, and what your classmates thought of it. We also had group assignments AND papers to write. It is hard enough being in a local group, let alone dealing with some of the personalities of people thousands of miles away. All this being said, you WILL do fine. That year at UoP was really an adjustment period for me in getting better at time-management.

I did some of the same for my AAS degree. Most of my courses were hybrid-online, where you only go in for hands-on work or I took full online. I had to work in groups each quarter and trying to coordinate powerpoints between 5-6 people made me want to pull my hair. Lots of social loafing going on. Each class also had forum posts each week, where you had to "provide insightful, focused feedback" for at least 3 students - most of which wouldn't bother to post until the night it was due, which made it hard for others to do their posts!

I think the team approach is gaining more ground in the education world as well.

erpadmin

Just handed in my first assignment for Org. Behavior to be graded. I tried to be as concise as possible...let's see how it goes. The worst that can happen is he gives me a lower than expected grade...then I have I have five out of nine attempts to get the grades I want (five assignments make up 90% of my grade, with the remaining 10% on discussions.)

Tomorrow I wrap up my ISP assignment and then post it. It's half-way done, but now I need to finish that too. Then I finish off this week's readings in that class and focus on next week.

Fun times...fun times...

N2IT

erpadmin wrote: »

Seriously, you have no idea how much I appreciate reading that. I have such a greater appreciation for the work that has to go in working toward an MS. I can now understand why doing more than 6 credits would be akin to suicide. Weaker people would have just headed for the hills after the few days and it's promising not to get any easier.

I got to see what one of my classmate's wrote after I posted mine. I think my professor is going to ding me for being too formal in my initial post (not using any pronouns, double spacing, using APA formatting for citing the article.) But I basically came to the same conclusion as the classmate who posted earlier. I wouldn't get to know that though until after I posted and thirty minutes went by to edit the post if I wanted to. (I wrote it out in Word and then pasted into the post.) Both of my professors were both serious about the honor code...I think he'll take mercy on me and see that I was just trying to adhere to the CYA principle.

Seriously though, you really have no idea how your response has motivated me. I feel like I didn't sleep for 3-4 hours and that was before the first of my second 12 oz cup of coffee thanks to reading it. It really is nice to hear from other grad students who have gone through the same things. Soon I may even speak the same language.

You aren't kidding. I did an introduction course to information management and human resource management at Webster University and almost killed myself. I passed both courses but I never went back

Bring us back a winner!

pinkydapimp

Keep up the good work. I am 3 semesters into my MS IS at Stevens. i have only been doing 3 credits a semester due to the work load. i figure i would rather be able to digest everything and not worry about killing myself. So far its been a great program and very informative. My last course (cybersecurity principles) enabled me to pass my CISSP exam!

petedude

erpadmin wrote: »

Shockingly, for an IS degree, no math is required, so I decided to do that. Plus, an IS degree may still be able to get me into an IT management spot somewhere. But it was more important to try to get an adjunct position somewhere after I get the MS degree. Having NJIT on my resume can only help in that regard.

You'd be surprised how many degrees in IS/IT don't require any math. But then, those are not CS. IS and IT are business-directed disciplines in the implementation of computers to achieve organizational directives, so the assumption is any schmo could work them with or without math skills but needs background in order to manage/administer them.

erpadmin

pinkydapimp wrote: »

Keep up the good work. I am 3 semesters into my MS IS at Stevens. i have only been doing 3 credits a semester due to the work load. i figure i would rather be able to digest everything and not worry about killing myself. So far its been a great program and very informative. My last course (cybersecurity principles) enabled me to pass my CISSP exam!

I totally dig that. I saw that Stevens can also be done online. I am a spit's distance away from Hoboken when I'm at work, but I couldn't personally justify paying that tuition. Still, Stevens is very well known in the metro-NYC area. Three credits a semester is a pretty decent load if you're not in a hurry and also ensures that you can pass your classes with a nice grade. If I had done nine credits, I know I'd lose my mind.

petedude wrote: »

You'd be surprised how many degrees in IS/IT don't require any math. But then, those are not CS. IS and IT are business-directed disciplines in the implementation of computers to achieve organizational directives, so the assumption is any schmo could work them with or without math skills but needs background in order to manage/administer them.

There are CS courses in the IS program, and they relate to other concentrations (Systems/Network administration, Database Management, etc.) I am not entirely sure yet if I'm going to go 100% into Business Decision Making or split up Business Decision Making and Database Management. Right now, my grad certificate allows me to take two courses from my core (which I'm doing now) and two from business decision making. When I formally matriculate, I'm most likely going to wrap up my core and then decide how I want to proceed with that. A lot of that is going to depend on what courses are available to me by the time I register. But I gotta make sure that I have at least 18 credits in IS courses.

erpadmin

Now I'm all caught up. Finished my first ISP assignment of giving an initial post on how IT infrastructure spending doesn't, by itself, add to the strategic value of an organization. This would have been done a lot sooner, but this course is pretty much a pilot for the new version of Moodle and there were some technical glitches. I didn't want to write this in Word to copy and paste it later, but the professor's TA (or I guess the IT person responsible for NJIT's Moodle administration...he never did introduce himself) told us to do just that. I still had to go over the text as I had to integrate the concepts in the textbook with this article. This is the type of professor who lets the publisher dictate the course for him, and he'll just add his own schpiel. Nothing wrong with that, as I would probably do the same thing. Though my other professor who teaches the Org Behavior courses uses no text and he pretty much has straightforward lectures from his own hip. I feel like I'm getting more out of that class than ISP, but that's only because much of the stuff he's "teaching" are things I already know. My professor did like my one contribution to the course about a nearby organization who had a major ERP implementation failure. Was a few months ago and I added that it was a failure due to poor planning and such. The only thing I gotta do now is read two more chapters for an upcoming "quiz" (all open book) and watch a video. Then I have to go through this week's Org Behavior lectures.

erpadmin

YAY!!! I got 100% on my initial assignment for ISP that I handed in on the 1/31. He gave me some decent feedback, which I will carry over onto the next assignments. I'm a bit worried about the team assignment, but we have until April to complete that. If I can carry this momemtum to the end of the course, I might actually see an A for this course! I don't want to get my hopes up though...

I'm hoping my Org Behavior course goes just as well. I won't know until after the super bowl how I did for that assignment. I'm gonna spend this evening and sometime tomorrow making sure I'm all caught up on readings, videos and assignments. I have to do four responses to other student's initial responses (I did one already, need to do three more) and I want to try to finish up whatever I have to finish by Wednesday, as that's when I'll be in Atlanta. However, the laptop is coming with me, so if I have to do any work, it'll get done down there as well.

So far, it's a good day for me.

erpadmin

(Sigh....)

I might be in trouble with my Org. Behavior class. I got into it with my professor over how Google was not evil. He is definitely a lover of Apple (the fact that I had to infect my laptop with Quicktime to follow his lectures was a sure indication of that fact...). I respectfully disagreed, but I'm starting to wonder if that was a good idea. I'm of the school of thought where one shouldn't blindly accept things as fact (in fact, this is why people go to college in the first place, right?) I wasn't rude or confrontational about the discussion, and I was able to support my arguments with (cited) facts and not speculation. Considering that I don't even know how this professor will grade my first assignment with him, I am freaking out a little. However, unless he flat out fails me, I'll be happy with whatever grade he gives me. Actually, that's not true. At the very least, I showed him that I will stand my ground. I'm hoping he'll at least appreciate that, but each professor is different.

As for ISP, I am caught up on the syllabus, with exception of writing two more final comments on other students' initial comment. I have one person in mind for a response, but I am not sure who to choose for the other one. I am sure I will have them done before Wednesday, when I head down to Atlanta for my WGU commencement walk. Even if that doesn't happen, I will have my laptop with me, so there won't be any excuses about not doing any school work (the reason I enrolled in the online classes in the first place.)

I start my fourth week this week. So far, I'm still alive. I have decided that I will do two classes in the summer to finish out my graduate certificate program and then work on becoming matriculated in the fall. If everything goes according to plan, if I apply with a 3.0+ in my certificate program, I get my GRE/GMAT waiver, which is why I really want to do well.

powerfool

I have had the same experience, but with my whole program, thus far. It didn't start out that bad, but each class has become progressively biased. Essentially, the entire department has reached a predetermined conclusion about the entire field and how the program should work... and it is politically biased. I had a few classes, out of my 40+, in undergrad like that, so it isn't new territory for me.

You will be fine, just tread lightly when you need to.

veritas_libertas

I've had these experiences as well, and they are no fun. It's sad because public institutions are suppose to be a place where you can discuss, and have debates about issues without having to fear reprisal from your professor/instructor. The only class I felt safe starting a debate in was Political Science class. Fun times...

forestgiant

erpadmin wrote: »

(Sigh....)

I respectfully disagreed, but I'm starting to wonder if that was a good idea. I'm of the school of thought where one shouldn't blindly accept things as fact (in fact, this is why people go to college in the first place, right?) I wasn't rude or confrontational about the discussion, and I was able to support my arguments with (cited) facts and not speculation.

I'd think that as a a student your bargaining power is nil on this one. Just play along w/ the guy until you finish his class. I've learned that people in academia take their positions very seriously, and especially those in OB. I've just finished my JFT2 course at WGU MS ISA and if I could apply just one concept, it is that any effort to sway the system is futile unless your title is CEO, Chairman of the Board, or Union President.

But that's besides the point --- while college is supposed to be where you experiment w/ ideas, you're first and foremost there to learn from those that have gone before you. They have paid their dues, so even if you don't always agree, play along, you will get your revenge on the young and innocent one day.

erpadmin

forestgiant wrote: »

But that's besides the point --- while college is supposed to be where you experiment w/ ideas, you're first and foremost there to learn from those that have gone before you. They have paid their dues, so even if you don't always agree, play along, you will get your revenge on the young and innocent one day.

I'm with you on this, but I had to call him out on his bias towards Apple. I wish I hadn't, because as I did some homework on the professor, the guy actually wrote a presentation on how Apple is better than sliced bread and presented this to a bunch of other academics in Canada. Between that, and he made it a point to point out on his personal web page that it was written on a Mac. I don't care if he's biased toward Apple, but I don't want to buy an iPad and iPhone just to get an A in his class.

My "revenge" will be when I do my final review, regardless of what grade I get. The only negative issue I have on this class is that he makes students infect PCs with Quicktime because that's the format he has for his lectures. O-M-G, it is the slowest piece of garbage ever. I can't wait to uninstall it.

But yes, I will be a heck of a lot more conciliatory until the class is over. I was very conciliatory in my response to him, but I just couldn't bring myself to agree with him on that issue.

the_Grinch

I wouldn't be too concerned, most academics expect to be disagreed with. They know they won't be swayed by your opinion (even when backed up with facts) and I truly don't believe he/she will hold it against you.