Graziadio Student Shares Experience

Graziadio School of Business student Cynthia Fields offers an insight to her first semester in a distance learning class for prospective students in the Graziadio Voice blog. Fields is pursuing her Master of Science in Organization Development at Graziadio.

Fields writes:

“Upon making the decision to pursue a second graduate degree, finding a program that offered flexibility for working adults such as me was imperative. Therefore I was thrilled when I located Pepperdine’s Master of Science in Organization Development (MSOD) program. In addition to its being one of the top-ranked programs of its kind in the nation, I became aware of its distance learning format.”

Fields applied to the program and was accepted for the Spring 2013 term. She was assigned a MSOD alumni partner who contacted her prior to the start of term to offer support and to give her insight on the program. Once the course began, she realized that the format of the course was not full of weekly online class sessions, occasional face-to-face meetings and a lot of independent study, as she had previously imagined.

“As the trimester commenced all preconceived illusions of my learning experience were quickly dispelled. Instead of weekly meetings I was greeted by an introductory course to “Yammer,” Pepperdine’s social media outlet of choice. Through the course’s ingenious design I gained system functionality and began to build relationships within my cohort. Yammer now serves as a platform to support ongoing communications and shared learning, as well as to enhance engagement and accountability.”

During the first semester, Fields was exposed to several varieties of educational methodologies, to include: assessments, You Tube videos, individual research, collaborative group assignments, teleconferences, volunteer work, “game-ification,” and face-to-face sessions.

“Through the MSOD program’s innovative combination of theoretical and practical studies, I have already experienced both personal and professional growth. With this incomparable experience, I am excited about what this continuous educational journey has in store as I continue to “trust the process.”

regions: Los Angeles

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