I have never been too interested in taking online classes; although, it would have been more convenient, I just felt the interaction with the instructor would be lost. I was of the opinion that taking online classes would be like teaching myself, thus I always felt that it would be better if I had someone explaining things to me face to face than just communicating through a computer.
My perspective about online education quickly changed after taking the Business Communication course with Mrs. Barcena in the Winter Term A. The professor set up the course in units not in weeks, which gave us ample time to complete the assignments and to receive feedback from her. In unit I, we learned about effective communication at work. We worked on different scenarios on how to resolve conflict in the workplace.
In unit II, we learned how to convert negative messages into positive messages. Also, as part of our assignment we had to open a Facebook account, upload a professional picture of ourselves, post statuses looking for employment, and add professional pages as friends related to our field. In unit III, we learned how to write business reports, proposals, and presentations. We also learned about how to improve telephone skills.
A part of this unit assignment was to call our professor and leave her a message. The messages consisted of a job opening that we had recently applied to and send our resume; we had to follow up with a voicemail to check the status of our application because we hadn’t received a response from the employer.
In the last assignment unit IV, we learned how to do job searches, resumes, cover letters, and interviewing. A big part of this assignment was to find three different job openings related to our major, write a cover letter for each job opening, create a resume that could be used for the three job openings and lastly, we had to go to a mall and try on some professional clothing suitable for an interview.
This course sounds like a lot of work but it really was one of the best courses I have taken at Florida National University. I learned from how important communication is in general to the importance of dressing appropriately for a job interview. This course was well prepared and structured. We received timely feedback from the instructor in every assignment. It only took to have an excellent professor teaching this course to change the perception I had of online education.
