Disappointed with UC Berkeley - PG Certificate in Project Management first course...

Hello all,

Just finished the first course within UC Berkeley PG Certificate in Project Management (Introduction to PM) - and am deeply disappointed...

To put it shortly - I can't say I completely lost my time, but expected a bit more than a literate person can learn through own reading and researching skills.

The input/feedback of the University instructor was close to zero - lectures' content sketchy and banal stuff, he did not actually take part in online discussions (just listed all the questions to all the units on the course start date): did not care to structure/guide students discussion or develop conclusions...
Judging by instructor's feedback to assignments - he lacked time and attention to read them carefully, while his clarifications to student's questions were state-of-the-art laconic...

...frankly speaking, online discussions turned out to be just a string of individual monologues, no insights, fresh ideas or actual discussions...

It was easy to get good grades… if I were an HR-person, having been there, I would not give any credits for such a Certificate listed in one’s CV…

This is my first (and maybe the last) experience with online education... Maybe PG certificate courses are not meant to equip one with actual knowledge/skills (they are not degrees, after all) or it may be just bad luck with particular course, particular instructor in the particular University...

Natalya




...

 

Sorry to hear of your dissatisfaction and experience with them. I wouldnt give up on the online educational process off that experience though. Have you looked into the:

www.UniversityAlliance.com

they have a few good certificate programs through their conglomeration.

Also, I had a great experience with Cornell University's certificate programs.

www.ecornell.com

Hope it gets better for you.

 

I have to second the suggestion that ecornell offers a great online experience, please consider one more program before you dispense with online. I completed an MBA online and feel the program was well worth the cost and time, and in addition to this, the ecornell certificate enhances the experience. Don't give up on the online venue, it does work!

MP

 

My wife took 5 online courses from UCLA Extension and experienced full range of instructor feedback, from precisely zero in one course to simply superb in another. I would imagine it would be the same situation at UCB.

 

Hello, all,

Enormous thanks for the replies and feedback. I shall definitely look at other options available online - and special thanks for the comments on ecornell courses.

Best regards,
Natalya

 

Natalya:

I am sorry to hear about your experience. I am an adjunct instructor for UC Riverside and I teach that very course you took in a classroom format. I am in the process of converting the class to an online format and I would truly be in your debt if you told me what you liked and didn't like exactly with your experience. My students are very excited about my classes and they rate them highly on my end-of-course critiques. I want to migrate that same level of quality to the online format.

Thank you.

Michael

 

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your post and below are my comments:

• Course information contents were composed by textbook materials + instructor’s lecture
We were assigned to read
1. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide),3d ed., Project Management Institute, 2004.
2. Project Management, Heerkens, McGraw-Hill, 2002.
which was more or less sufficient for an introduction course: what I would like to have here is that instructor’s lectures were not just a banal and simplified version of what can be found in the books, but provided some analysis, or any kind of comments/observations on the textbook material made experienced project manager. There were some attempts of remarks of that kind, but only attempts…

Surely, after reading the textbook and moving to practical assignments I had some questions of very practical nature – I would appreciate it very much if there had been answered…

For example, both of these books had WBSs of “paper-and-pencil” style, that is block-and-arrow diagrams, while out there WBSs come in many other different types and some explanation on applications of various styles (at least in response to my emailed question) would be nice…

There were no assignments to check the reading materials (I understand we are all highly-motivated people who have enrolled in such a course, the instructor is already sure we cover all the reading materials and dig for even more…), but in my opinion, some problem-solving tasks based on acquisition of reading stuff would be useful…

• Web-board discussions:
I would appreciate them to be structured as discussions…

First, I think, it would be nice if after the introduction post a moderator developed a short overview table reflecting the structured profile of each participant: industry he/she comes from, what PM experience has (if any), etc. – for us to better understand our group …

Second, it would be nice if the instructor asynchronously moderates the sessions, turning them into discussions (within this course “the discussion” turned out to be a string of monologues), summarizing what has been said/written, making some conclusions, asking more questions, moving forward from just basic questions on the unit topic, somehow making people think, search for solutions, in general - providing the thinking frame... I understand, it would mean more time from the instructor’s part and may translate into more costs… but the way it was structured in the course I was having there was no much use in this format at all. Each participant supplied his/her reply to a very basic question – and that is it… actually nothing to be learnt…

And a couple of things I would not enjoy at all:
- at the very end of the course students are to email the instructor the final message, indicating that they are done, providing their feedback on the course and, as I got it, to some extent evaluating the instructor’s input as well… and only after that he will submit students’ final grades…
- Discrepancies between the required assignments/posts as indicated in the virtual classroom lectures compared to the ones indicated in the messages emailed by the instructor to students – and no clarification from the instructor when asked…

To sum it up - I would very much appreciate the course through which I could learn more than I can do just by own reading, researching and finding my way with Microsoft Project and other PM applications.

Dear Michael – please, understand I am quite new to the system and it may be that my expectations/comments for an onlyine course might be very subjective…still, I do hope, you find them useful.

Best regards,
Natalya

P.S. Just a short introduction: I am not a savvy project manager and even more – I do not work with a construction or an IT company where this subject is most relevant. I work in an oil and gas major, in the department that manages the company reputation (internationally and regionally), that is a PR subdivision. Our projects are relatively small (as compared with those of operations and technology business units), still I feel they need to be properly managed as well.