Love Jones

From the day I decided to attend school online, I was excited. My advisor M. Wergen called me every other day to tell me how excited he was to hear how excited I was about going to school. Almost every day, I searched and researched what I thought was everything I needed to know about the Virtual Campus. Then reality hit me in the back of the head on March 18, 2011. I was so excited about classes opening, I jumped right in and my first thought after the 3rd question of the home page section was where in the name is the academic calendar. I tore the AIU website up looking for this one question to the point I gave up and my answer was, "Click on Mail!" I sent emails to my classmates asking if anyone started the scavenger hunt yet but I think I was the only one really excited to get started. It was not until I began to search the other questions when I found the real answer. It was under university polies but I found the link to university polies in the letter to the students from the Dean. Imagine how dumb I felt to find the answer was sitting right there in front of me. When I checked my emails the next morning Jaclyn Rickard was the only person who replied. In all of this, the scavenger hunt helped me to understand, when you are overzealous and too excited you tend to miss things. From that point, I slowed myself down and made sure I found the right answers.

In 2006, I attended the University of Phoenix for one class. The interaction other student was nice but the commute was terrible considering I lived North of Baltimore and my job and classes were south of Baltimore. If I had to compare AIU & the Virtual Campus to attending school, I would have to say the Virtual Campus is better. With the gas prices the way they are, having children, trying to find day care etc., this is easier to handle than trying to be in 99 places at one time. Going to school online I can cook dinner, help my kids with their homework. I only work 20 minutes away from home. I can access my class from work. The flexibility was really needed in my life and I am enjoying the experience thus far. The contrast would be the class times are different. For instance in High School classes were 45 - 50 minutes. Our current online class is about 1 hour and if I would have attended Morgan State University my class time would have been 1 and ½ hours to 2 hours long. Online classes do not have access to sports or fitness at least as far as I know. I am slowly finding about that with our student ID card gives us access to a lot of things. I guess that means I need to go deep see fishing to find out more!

The virtual campus is unique in the sense of how well everything is organized. From finding information (important or otherwise) or just networking with people is very easy. Taking the time to get familiar is worth the effort, especially when doing a scavenger hunt. There is so much to do and see on the website, you definitely need to take the time to find as much as possible. From there the scavenger hunt helps to reinforce the information found and provide information you might have missed. I have never been in a situation where everyone from your school is calling you to make sure you have everything you need. It is true hospitality and customer service with excellence and a smile

During my private search, I found a lot of things was motivating such as the Poet Society and Management Club. I thought joining the clubs would be a great way to network with people