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So I am all signed up for my online certificate program in Project Management through UC Davis. I am still waiting for my book to be delivered to me, but so far the course looks like it should be pretty interesting. For the first “assignment,” we all had to introduce ourselves on the class forum. It looks like a fairly diverse group. Also from what it sounds like I am one of the few who doesn’t have much experience in actual project management. That could also be because I am probably the youngest one in the class. That is fine by me though.

The syllabus looks pretty straight forward. 10% participation, 40% homework, and 50% for the final. One nice thing about the final is that it is open book, open note. Sometimes that works against you though, because the test is made 10x harder because of this. I think that I should fare fairly well in this class as long as I can stay on top of things. One interesting thing about the format of the class is that it is self paced. Therefore, it is plausible that classmates could all be at totally different parts of the class at different times. I think that this may provide some confusion to the message board, but I’m sure we will be able to sift through it.

I think this course will start to come together a little bit more once I get my textbook. I will write more once it comes in and I get a chance to look at it.

Tonight I decided to go ahead and sign up for online classes through UC Davis. I am going to be doing a certificate program through the university. The certificate program that I am doing is project management. I think that this certificate should help me advance my career. I think these types of classes are typically included in the MBA curriculum. I don’t think I am quite ready to pursue an MBA just yet. The other nice thing is that my employer is going to pay for the majority of it. Starting after this quarter I will be eligible to receive $2,000 in reimbursements each year. At the completion of the courses I should be able to sit for the PMP certificate examination.

Here are the main objectives of the program:

• Prepare for the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Professional Certification Examination
• Understand the fundamental concepts and theory of project management
• Analyze projects for cost, time, scope, risk and quality
• Understand how to utilize the control elements common to all projects you manage for maximum results
• Apply quality management methods to effectively organize staff and lead a successful project team

To me this seems like it will all be applicable in the workplace as I start to get more and more responsibilities. I plan on periodically making entries about my experience in this program.

I think that the whole online learning experience should be interesting. I really don’t know exactly how everything is going to work. I would imagine that the majority would be book based with online quizzes and papers. Although online education may seem a bit odd, I value the amount of flexibility that it will be able to provide me. I also think that a certificate through UC Davis will be much more valuable than something through the University of Phoenix or some other commercial venture. Did you know that the University of Phoenix is a publicly traded company? Something about getting an education from a company with profit in mind doesn’t quite rub me the right way. Maybe I am just overly skeptical.

Assuming I take one class each quarter, the whole program should take two years to complete. In that time I should be able to give a very accurate portrayal of how the program works. Hopefully this will inspire others to follow the same path as me. Here is a link to the program. The first course cost $650 to enroll. It is normally $600, but I signed up late. My books for the course are going to run me about $28 with shipping.

Stay tuned for more updates on how this exciting venture goes!

I graduated from college almost exactly a year ago. On the day of my graduation I thought that I would never go back to school again. Based on the current job market and job descriptions that I have seen, it seems to make more and more sense to go back to school and take more classes. While I don’t think I am ready to go for an MBA, I do think there would be some value for me to get some professional certificates.

There are many Universities out there that offer certificates for the working person that can be completed fully online. This is what I plan to do. It makes more sense for me to do it this way because of my work hours. They tend to vary widely based upon how the day goes at work. Because of this I would probably have trouble making it to a 6:30 class on a consistent basis. Therefore, I think online correspondence classes would work out best for me. The two schools that I have looked at the closest are the University of Virginia and UC-Davis. These schools seemed to have the best online setup for the courses that I was interested. The other thing that I liked was that they were a traditional University rather than a University of Phoenix that seems to be more of a business than a University. I also looked at the University of Villanova’s online course offerings, and theirs seemed to look more like a business than a traditional University even though that is what they are. UMass also has a lot of online choices, but none seemed to fit with what I wanted to do.

So my next step is going to be to look into when I can start. It appears that I can start just about any quarter and take as many classes as I feel like per quarter. I will probably just go with one class per quarter so that I don’t get too overwhelmed with everything else. After that I need to look into whether or not my employer will reimburse me for this. The certificate will cost about $5,500 plus books and other fees to complete. My employer will reimburse up to $2,000 per year. That would be a very nice help if that would work out. So I think my goal for this week is to see if my employer will compensate for it and then go from there.