Groupwork

Warning – here comes another rant about Ohio State.  And for all you haters of OSU football, don’t get too excited.  This is another post about the Working Professional MBA program (WPMBA).

As part of Ohio State’s conversion from quarters to semesters (which happened 2 years ago!), the WPMBA program somehow got stretched from a 2.5 year program to a 3+ year program.  Now, many students like me are taking 3 classes per term vs. the previous standard of 2 just to stay on pace to graduate in under 3 years.  Having that extra class makes the program’s focus of group-based projects even more unmanageable.  The basic fact is that we are in the WPMBA programs because we demand flexibility in our learning, have special needs given our desire to continue working full time, and many people have spouses and children they would like to see on occasion :P

A couple weeks ago I had a back-and-forth with a professor about his policy of randomly assigning members of a 5-person group for a term-long project.  I raised my concerns which he acknowledged (and actually boiled up to the Faculty Advisor), but held to his policy. 

So here’s why I, as a customer of Ohio State, am displeased.  I am taking 3 classes right now, each of which has at least 1 term-long project involving 3-4 other group members.  With this one class forcing a random assignment of group members, I now have 10 other group members to work with over the next 2 months (vs. being able to choose my own group and getting some overlap of members who are in the same 3 classes as me).  With 3 of 7 nights of the week consumed by class, and the other 2 weeknights fairly off limits for either working out, relaxing, or taking care of errands, that leaves 2 weekend days a week for coordinating the schedules of 10 people who have seemingly endless conflicts in their schedules.  Even if you can get a group of 5 to agree on a time, you still have 2 other groups to try and coordinate with.  It’s about impossible. 

What’s my point?  I need an administrative assistant for this degree!  I am getting really frustrated with the program and the fact that they treat us WPMBA students as if we are full-timers.  I’m not saying I deserve special breaks.  But something like the random assignment of groups, or forcing groups to be as large as 5-8 people, are incredibly non-accommodating for a program that is supposed to be specifically designed to accommodate working professionals.  And it’s not a single-case problem.  This has been persistent for the almost 2 years I’ve been in this program.

Okay, rant is over.  Kent out.