How I will be a Successful Graduate Student

Graduate School is a tool for a better future. I am not enrolled just to earn a piece of paper. In the words of Michael Flavin, my professor for Grad 703, “there are students and there are customers. Students come to learn the skills necessary to utilize their degrees post graduation; customers are just here to do the bare minimum to get the piece of paper and to add the degree to their resume” (M. Flavin, personal communication, September 6, 2007). It will not be easy. I know I will have to work very hard to grasp the concepts and complete the MCM program. I will do this by utilizing the many resources provided, along with my skills and strengths that I bring into the program. I will also push to strengthen my weaknesses, in order to be a true and successful “Student” of the Master of Communication and Marketing program.

Franklin University offers many on-site and online technologically-advanced resources to assist in the learning process. Their virtual tutorials help navigate the tools useful to completing and comprehending class assignments. They also offer online and on-location “Academic Success” workshops, to aid in areas of weakness or those of which there is uncertainty (http://www.franklin.edu/franklin/files/slc/workshopsched.pdf). When it comes to writing papers, they offer a service through the Student Learning Center that enables students to submit papers for review, in order to strengthen compositions and serve as a learning tool for future writing assignments. There is even a service on the library website called RefWorks that assists in the collection of references for papers, as you research various resources from the online library. I will take advantage of many of these resources, provided by Franklin, to enrich my graduate course work and enhance my understanding of each given assignment.

Resources will be utilized to support my class work, but my strengths will communicate my level of comprehension. I consider my writing to be my strongest academic skill. It has become clear in the past few weeks that I will be leveraging this skill often, in all of my graduate courses. My secondary strength of good interpersonal skills, combined with an aptitude for public speaking, will be employed often as well, knowing that many presentations are in my future. Finally, my tertiary strength, skills of visual communication, acquired by my undergraduate education and bachelor of fine arts degree, will most assuredly be exploited with personal and group presentations to enhance messages of meaning.

I do have an academic weakness that I would like to strengthen through my time at Franklin University. It is my hope that through learning new techniques, and lots of practice, that my reading comprehension skills will be strengthened. Reading has always been a struggle for me. I am very literate, however, it takes more time for me to read a page and truly comprehend all messages than it seems to take for most people. I attribute this to my mind’s tendency to run in many directions at a time, trailing off and consequently causing me to re-read something that I did not absorb. For this reason, it may take me longer for the reading portion of assignments. Knowing this, I will have to plan accordingly when scheduling time for class work during the week. It is my mission to find ways to improve upon this academic weakness.

The opportunity at Franklin, to learn and grow both personally and professionally in the area of communication and marketing, is vast. Recognizing the resources available to me will help me be successful in the Master of Communication and Marketing program. Through the utilization of these resources, combined with leveraging my strengths and striving to improve my weaknesses, I can maximize my opportunity of becoming a successful graduate student.

References
Franklin University (2007). Student learning center: workshop schedule. Retrieved September 22, 2007, from the Franklin University Website: http://www.franklin.edu/franklin/files/slc/workshopsched.pdf