One of the questions I had when I started my "Back to School" experience was what the workload was going to look like.
Having finished my formal education a very long time ago, I had no real idea of what diving back into a formal program with the advent of the InterWeb and the remote nature of the program would be like. All I had to go on were memories of my previous programs, which involved a great deal of reading and report writing.
The reading is definitely there. The writing - at least for this course - has changed a bit.
My current class is a little atypical of what a "regular" class would be (or at least I assume it to be) as it a seminar, so we are covering a great deal of ground on more of a weekly subject nature (the overall class is about the survival of Greek and Roman Art and culture into the modern world). We receive a combination of reading materials: selections from different ancient texts (For example, Ovid's Metamorphsis, The Iliad, The Odyssey, Plato's Apology, The Aeneid) and somewhere between 3 and 5 articles a week to peruse. The book selections are usually only sections, but I have overachieved by reading the full of The Iliad (and probably should do so for The Odyssey and The Aeneid). The articles can run anywhere from 5 to 30 pages; longer articles may tend to have pictures which cut down on the total text.
For writing, we are required to produce a weekly blog post that deals with the subject of the week and includes two pictures of ancient art and two pictures of post-classical art that deal with the theme (the post-classical definition can be pretty broad: Disney movies, musicals, anime, and computer game images have been presented). Additionally we are required to produce 4 reports, a combination of article reviews and something about the subject of the week.
I say "reports". They are really PowerPoint presentations with a speech and run time of 10 minutes.
The report aspect is very different from what I expected - although if I think about it, maybe not really: I had to do such things once upon time, just verbally or with (gasp!) transparencies. The technological aspect makes it a bit more challenging though (for example, I completely messed up my presentation this week because I cannot operate in Teams as effectively as I thought).
Total workload a week? I do not keep hard numbers, but with reading and writing I would estimate it at not less than 8 hours a week plus an hour of class. A manageable number if I space everything out.
And besides - I get to spend time reading about and thinking about things that are terribly interesting to me. That, no matter what else, is a solid win.
Great post TB. How interesting that you do your reports as blog posts rather than typed papers. It makes sense for an online course with the added bonus of the teacher not having to tote around all those papers. Powerpoint would be a learning curve for me, though.
ReplyDeleteI think your last paragraph is the key to learning, i.e., where there's an interest, there's motivation. I can really relate to that.
Thanks Leigh!
DeleteThe blog posts do make a certain amount of sense - although (to be honest) after having spent years creating posts here, creating posts in Microsoft Products is...well, it is a challenge with all of the formatting joys you can expect. And PowerPoint is indeed a big learning curve for me as well; I expect I spend 20-30% of my "writing" time formatting things.
A note - at least for me - is that for once, I never have to struggle to finish my reading or my assignments. Studying that which you wish to study is very self-motivating.
College is so much different these days than it was in our days. My daughter, though she lives off campus and attends as a full time student, can effectively be remote if she chooses too. I discourage it since I think there is something to gain by attending class and listening to a professor talk in person.
ReplyDeleteEd - It truly is. I think one of the immediate biggest differences I notice is the one you are alluding to with your daughter: the company of others, including the professor. During my last Master's program, there was a group of us that moved through the program together and we had both the interaction in class and the ability to interact out of class as a group. Here, we are all faces on screen, really interacting once a week with some back and forth messages during the week around postings. It is very different.
DeleteOn the other hand, I could not pursue this sort of degree now without a remote program. So that seems part of the tradeoff.
Learning is a life long odyssey TB (heh heh) have fun sir..........:)
ReplyDeleteWell played sir, well played!
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