Stay away from Penn Foster Strategic Managment

[stretcharmy]

My wife is taking Penn Fosters Strategic Management like I did. I would have to say that things have changed for the worse. The new Professor, Mrs. Evans is one of those "educated elitsts" that gives higher education a bad name. Firstly, she spends 10-20 min of the webinars talking about herself like any good narcissist would do. She also does a good job of belittling people in the webinars for wrong answers instead of being supporting and helping to "educate and teach" like she is supposed to do. In one webinar the person actaully left the session after a tirade. She has made several references to "when you are in graduate school" and sets the expectations of the class and writings to that level, or in my opinion, above graduate level stepping into the doctoral level. Hello asshat! This is just an upper level undergraduate course. She is one of those people that gets an MBA and magically thinks that they are smarter than the whole world, and we mear simpletons should kiss the ground she walks on. This is why she is a professor at Harvard, oops my bad, I meant Penn Foster. She also sets the expectations for the end paper higher than what is in the instructions and does not provide a grading rubric. My wife laughs because she says that two references are required, but that will get you a bad grade and there should be 5. "What is this Office Space? If you want 5 pieces of flair, than make the requirement 5 pieces of flair!"

This is why I have a disdain for for-profit schools.

So if you like getting no real assistance from a professor, have unclear instructions and grading requirements, and being belittled by an "educated" elistist, please sign up for Penn foster.

I know there are a lot of good people on this forum, and being treated like dirt by a professor can severely disrupt your mojo. Hopefulyl I can save some people the poor experience and keep your momentum going. Rock on!

[sanantone]

An elitist at Penn Foster? That's scraping the bottom of the barrel. I did, however, have a community college instructor who required two discussion board responses, but that was only enough to get you a passing grade. You needed to do more to get an A. I thought he should have made that clear, but whatever. I adjusted. He wasn't an elitist, but he was senile. His messages would be so riddled with typos that it was sometimes difficult to decipher what he was trying to say.

[defscarlett]

I'm sorry you had this issue with Penn Foster. I took classes there for one of their technical programs and never had any issues with the instructors. They were always very helpful anytime I had questions.

[dmsgirl]

My wife is taking Penn Fosters Strategic Management like I did. I would have to say that things have changed for the worse. The new Professor, Mrs. Evans is one of those "educated elitsts" that gives higher education a bad name. Firstly, she spends 10-20 min of the webinars talking about herself like any good narcissist would do. She also does a good job of belittling people in the webinars for wrong answers instead of being supporting and helping to "educate and teach" like she is supposed to do. In one webinar the person actaully left the session after a tirade. She has made several references to "when you are in graduate school" and sets the expectations of the class and writings to that level, or in my opinion, above graduate level stepping into the doctoral level. Hello asshat! This is just an upper level undergraduate course. She is one of those people that gets an MBA and magically thinks that they are smarter than the whole world, and we mear simpletons should kiss the ground she walks on. This is why she is a professor at Harvard, oops my bad, I meant Penn Foster. She also sets the expectations for the end paper higher than what is in the instructions and does not provide a grading rubric. My wife laughs because she says that two references are required, but that will get you a bad grade and there should be 5. "What is this Office Space? If you want 5 pieces of flair, than make the requirement 5 pieces of flair!"

This is why I have a disdain for for-profit schools.

So if you like getting no real assistance from a professor, have unclear instructions and grading requirements, and being belittled by an "educated" elistist, please sign up for Penn foster.

I know there are a lot of good people on this forum, and being treated like dirt by a professor can severely disrupt your mojo. Hopefulyl I can save some people the poor experience and keep your momentum going. Rock on!

Oh yes, I TOTALLY understand! I feel your wife's pain! I took the same course with her and had the exact same experience. The paper was an "A" paper but received a "C". I already knew she was going to give me a "C" before she did. I followed those instructions to a "T". I told my husband that would be the grade she would give me. At least I got A's in all the tests so ended up with a "B" in the class.

And yes, I know about the belittling. I mentioned that I am a Director of Finance for a non-profit and that my goal is to work as a controller and eventually a CFO. Her words were "You have a loooong way to go!" I'm sorry, I didn't think she was supposed to be so judgmental on someone's goals. Why is she not supportive? She is so smitten with herself. I also agree that she does spend the first 15 minutes or so just patting herself on the back. Puke!

She really sets me off LOL.

[dmsgirl]

Did she talk about her fiance working at Proctor & Gamble?

I mentioned I worked for a non-profit and she said she worked for a non-profit. She asked if it was a large or small non-profit. I said it has about 100 employees. She said, "It's a small non-profit. The one I work for has thousands of employees and is a large non-profit." Superiority complex much?

First she says she wants it written as a paper, but then she wants every answer marked as 1, 2, 3, etc. I don't know about you, but every college level paper I've ever written never had numbered answers. They were written in paragraph form. Asshat is right!

[stretcharmy]

I think my wife said that she talked about him being a retired marine or something like that. And her damn dogs, like anyone gives a shit. I really have a problem with people that are so disrespectful. You know what they say about the people that think they are the smartest in the room!

I told her that a pass is a pass and that's all that matters. TESC isn't going to care. Just get it done with.

[tyc9283]

I just had my first webinar with her. She must be all over the place. She said she works for a small non profit. Also, she didn't mention anything about numbering answers in the final. She also didn't mention 5 sources for the final. She just said you need to cite correctly.

What bothered me was that she gives us a question and says ok you have a few minutes to answer and less than a minute later she's saying "We're waiting on YOU" really? you said we had several minutes. She uses slides and there were so many spelling errors. The question that I took long on was filled with errors which is why I didn't know how to answer. I didn't know what it was she was asking lmao. The rest of the questions were easy. They're from a CMA Exam test bank so really one can just look it up.
She did spend quite a bit of time talking about herself. Probably 30 out of the 60 minutes were her talking about herself and her old jobs.

[smf6824]

Go to ratemyprofessor.com and give her a rating. Personally I never went to Penn Foster; however, every professor I had that had a complex I just played along with it. Feeding a narcissist can be quite fun. I never let a professor or my classmates realize my college level or experience in the real world because then it sets an expectation high. I usually play stupid till about mid semester then pull a Rocky 2 on them and next thing you know the course is over, and I have a decent grade. This technique has never inhibited my learning and proves to be entertainment for the most part. When I was in the Army I was a Psychological Operations Specialist so every psychology or sociology style course I take isn't too bad for me, but I would never let my professor know that I have experience. Life can be a matter of expectations and if a professor doesn't think you have the knowledge they won't expect it until you Rocky 2 them. So this is terrible advice but just feed into the narcissism, pretend you know nothing, wait till later in the semester, Rocky 2 them. Remember I said this was terrible advice.

[stretcharmy]

Go to ratemyprofessor.com and give her a rating. Personally I never went to Penn Foster; however, every professor I had that had a complex I just played along with it. Feeding a narcissist can be quite fun. I never let a professor or my classmates realize my college level or experience in the real world because then it sets an expectation high. I usually play stupid till about mid semester then pull a Rocky 2 on them and next thing you know the course is over, and I have a decent grade. This technique has never inhibited my learning and proves to be entertainment for the most part. When I was in the Army I was a Psychological Operations Specialist so every psychology or sociology style course I take isn't too bad for me, but I would never let my professor know that I have experience. Life can be a matter of expectations and if a professor doesn't think you have the knowledge they won't expect it until you Rocky 2 them. So this is terrible advice but just feed into the narcissism, pretend you know nothing, wait till later in the semester, Rocky 2 them. Remember I said this was terrible advice.

I went to rate my professor but they don't have an "asshat" classification. :-)

[AlmostGraduated]

I just wanted to insert a note about this topic for those trying to decide whether they want to take the Penn Foster Strategic Management. Please do not decide based on the experiences of a few students. I know several people on this forum, including myself, have had positive experiences with this class. I just got my final grade back yesterday and passed the course with an A. I will admit that the webinars were not very helpful but there were only three and not enough in my opinion to not take the course. And yes, the instructor was not very helpful but there are a ton of bad professors no matter where you go. I've had my share believe me.
The course only took me a month total to finish (while working 20+ hours a week), so it was worth it for me instead of taking a 12 week course through TESC or a TECEP (I'm not very good at timed essay exams so TECEP was not an option for me :o) Like stretcharmy mentioned, a pass is a pass. Who cares if she gives you an F on your paper? For me, I would have been happy with a C on the course because it was my TESC capstone and I got it done in four weeks!