The English Composition course at Penn
Foster College
is perhaps the most frustrating experience I have had with any course at the
school so far. Unlike other courses, it
takes at least three weeks to receive a grade on the assignment exams.
With other courses in the Penn Foster associate degree
program, you enter the answers online and get the grade immediately after
hitting the “submit” button. However,
in the English Composition course, you must upload your essay and then wait
three or more weeks to receive your grade.
Sure, you can work on your next assignment, but if for some reason your
essay doesn’t make the grade and you have to rewrite and resubmit, it can
really throw off your progress.
I submitted my Narrative Essay not quite three weeks ago,
but it is a frustrating wait nonetheless.
I am currently working on my Reflective Writing assignments, which consists
of reading a few pages in the study guide, reading a few essays in the
textbook, and then writing some journal entries as I prepare to write the
Reflective Writing essay.
In the meantime, I plan to line up the proctor for my final
exam tomorrow. The local public library
said they provide proctors free of charge, so that’s a deal I can’t
refuse. I’ll have them fill out the
paperwork after I finish work tomorrow, and then mail it off to Penn Foster. I hope to finish my Reflective Writing essay
this week, and wrap up my final English Composition assignment next week. After that, it’s time to take my final
exams.
Final exams for me will consist of six, one-hour exams
covering each course that I took during my extended two-year semester. Since it has taken me so long to finish one
semester, I haven’t even looked at some of this material in well over 18
months.
The setbacks I have experienced over the past two years and
the length of time it has taken me to finish what really should have only taken
me six months has been discouraging at times, but in the end I feel it will
still be worth seeing this semester through to the end. For one thing, I have finished paying for
this semester, but more importantly, I have my eye on the price: 17 credit hours that I have worked very hard
to achieve. I only hope the next two
weeks go smoothly.