MSLD 500 Module 9- Course Reflections

The Leadership Found’s in Research course was an overall excellent experience. Since this class was my very first graduate course, I was initially worried about the level of difficulty, my lack of work experience, and the “different language” that might have been involved. Perhaps the most positive aspect of this class is that it helped me overcome these fears, and this wouldn’t have happened without the discussion board activities.

Personally, I found the discussion board activities to be the most helpful thing in this course. Unlike undergraduate courses, a lot of the questions are opinion-based and these questions cannot be answered in a sentence or two: resulting us to really let out our “true knowledge”. For instance, when I used to study for my undergraduate exams, most of it was memorization. I honestly didn’t bother to learn all the details and just recognized keywords. For example, if the answer to a question is diversity, I know that this is the right answer because the definition in the question contained the word “multiple” or “culture”. If we were to change this question in the same manner as our discussion board questions, it is for certain that we don’t completely know the definition of diversity. We are forced to think critically, which establishes a more detailed answer.

While establishing the environment to think critically helped me out in this course, reading and replying to others were also very helpful. Though the majority of other answers all mentioned the same or similar answers, some students looked at the questions at different angles. Both replying and reading these comments provided us more opportunities to think critically again, which resulted in richer knowledge. At the same time, having the opportunity to read and reply to these comments made me overcome my fears since we are all learning from each other.

I honestly cannot think of any negative things in terms of course contents, however things could have gone bad if the professor didn’t reply soon enough or understood the students’ struggle for the course. As a full time worker and student, the balancing of time can be challenging. I am aware that most Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide courses’ assignment due dates are at midnight Eastern time. As a student in the Pacific coast, this would have been a challenge since this meant that I only have roughly three hours each day to complete all my assignments. I am usually slow-paced in completing my assignments and usually require an hour to eight hours to complete one assignment. Since the professor considered and adjusted to those in the Pacific region, I was able to study and complete my assignments with ease.