Personal Goals

As a student at the University of Phoenix three personal goals that I want to achieve are, first is to complete my bachelor of science in business management in 2 years. Next is to become a better writer. Throughout junior college, writing has always been my weakest point and with the amount of writing assignments required at University of Phoenix this needs to be one of my top goals. Finally is to complete every course with no less than a B letter grade. With making the decision to return to school and taking on the considerable financial burden, receiving an average grade would be unacceptable to my standards.

While being employed full-time, The University of Phoenix has the rare opportunity for working professionals to finish courses in just 5 weeks. Having such a compressed time schedule for completing degrees will make it possible to complete my bachelor of science in business management in 2 years as long as I do not deviate from the program. I have decided that my number one priority in life is to complete my degree. I do not have other major commitments outside of work that will distract me from my assignments so staying focused on school will be realistic. Though I cannot predict the future, I do not plan on taking any time off during the two years that would result in interrupting my class schedule. With the option of taking CLEP test this will allow me to "test out" of some of the lower-division courses such as communication arts and humanities. Although this will require additional studying outside of my upper-division courses the CLEP test can help eliminate additional courses needed to be taken, so I can stay on track of my 2 year goal.

Writing papers has never been my strongest asset throughout school. I always found myself only writing what was required of me but never trying to improve my writing skills on my own time. In junior college the majority of my classes were math and science with a major in Administration of Justice. The only writing that I had to do was case briefs, which was based on legal research, which did not require any creativity, brainstorming and writing skills, just citing the facts and decisions in a proper format. To become a better writer it will take self-discipline and dedication. Because writing is my weakest point, submitting quality papers will require the most amount of my time by doing research and proofreading. I will need to use the resources available to me to proofread and receive constructive criticism on my papers. Such resources may include the Center for Writing Excellence made available to University of Phoenix students which has two ways of submitting papers for review. One is through WritePoint which is an automated service and could have a response within minutes.