To be an effective manager or
student (and indeed an effective member of any society), you must have
effective communication skills. Effective
communication skills are essential and influential our capacity to have gratifying
relations with family, friends, co-workers, and others. The quality of our relationships with the
aforementioned people is all dependent upon unassailable communication skills. Having a good foundation in the world of
communication will help you succeed at Kaplan University.
Early on, I took introductory
courses that helped to develop basic individual reasoning skills, insights and
experiences in information-sharing, interacting, decision-making,
problem-solving, resolution of disputes and other issues fundamental to good
communication. Later on, I was taking
more complex courses that focused more on business communication that is used
to build partnerships, utilize my intellectual assets, and helped to facilitate
the promotion of ideas in a business setting.
Building upon previous
classes is one good thing I like about Kaplan University. During my nearly four years there, and due to
the fact that I am a School of Business student, one can only imagine the
number of communications-type classes that are required. Just in the last half of my degree, I have
taken, or will take Organizational Behavior, Conflict Resolution and Team
Dynamics, Organizational Communication and more. All of those have some element of
communication to them that must be mastered in order to pass the class. Almost 25 percent of my degree program
consists of courses that have something to do with communications.
I used to look at my degree
program and think, “Oh no! Not another
communications class.” But when I
actually involved myself in the class, I found that 90% of the curriculum was
new, yet the hook back to the previous classes was still effective and helped
us to build upon that information. Kaplan
has done an excellent job of meshing the classes to where the student always
learns something new, but is still able to refer back to what has been learned
in previous terms and build upon that experience.
In reality, we want to build
a house by the end of the degree program.
Each class we took was a small part of that. In the first class, we put the foundation
down. The second class helped us put the
frame up. Next, we installed doors and
windows. Next came the plumbing, and so
on. You get the idea.
If a student approaches what
seems on the surface to be some level of redundancy in the course curriculum
with a building-blocks perspective, they will get the most out of the class and
improve their chances for success down the road. After all, life is a set of
building blocks. The only way we learn
is through relating to previous experiences.