Education : Post Graduate in Education – Intimidation Tactics

Come hell or high water, I was going to stay ahead of the curve.

Its that time again. I am back at the VTDI for my second semester of the Post Graduate in Education and in my first week I am already dreading the suckiness of it all. After conquering the first semester’s demanding assignment schedule; after two classes, this semester had morphed into a more formidable beast; power cuts, intimidation tactics and blasted group assignments.

On Monday, I hit the ground running with ‘Issues, Reading and Research in Specialised areas‘ course. Mind you, I only noticed that research part in the car park that evening. No fear, I am a writer and have done research so this shouldn’t be intimidating. Seeing as I was early I found the classroom, went in search for my grades from the previous semester, came back and settled down in time for class to begin.

It turned out I had to wait for an hour as the electricity went and there were only three students present. As I watched the sunset and 6:00 p.m. draw closer, cobs started to form in mind and as boredom settled over me I became agitated . After an hour and my impatient plea that we begin, the instructor commenced with several students in attendance. The class schedule was distributed and assignments discussed. In this class, I can expect to talk, read and research ALOT.

With this lecturer, I was only a tad bit concerned that he was teaching to one part of the classroom and not the other. Seeing as I was the one feeling lonely in my corner, I continuously noticed it and this was something we were taught not to do in Principles of Teaching and Learning, the previous semester.

On Day two, I became a bit engrossed in psychoanalysing my lecturer for ‘Theoretical Aspects of Training‘, seeing that he was getting off on scaring us and maintaining a bad rep. There was more that I deduced about his character, but I wont say more here. After the long, ego flexing speech, we learnt that we would have over 15 assignments. Crap! Like Semester 1 didn’t set the bar, for assignments from hell already.

I maintained my composure, tried not to panic and thought of how I could fast track assignments. With me, failure was not an option and the higher the GPA, the happier Denise would be. His macho altitude aside, I was going to be on this lecturers case like Matlock.

For my next course, Educational Administration, all my dreadful fears came through.
1. There was a final exam.
2. They were all group assignments.
3. There was an assignment to create a video, again. NO! This cannot be happening.

Seeing I am who I am, before the class was done, I had group members and had delegated who would do what. If I had my way, this semester my only real time consuming activities should be the Teaching Practice and those 15 assignments.

By Wednesday night, I had a draft for all assignments for my first course and received feedback from my lecturer. By Thursday afternoon, I received handouts, guidelines and assignment schedules for all my courses. By the end of the weekend, I will start two assignments and finish at least one.

During all this, with God’s help I would meet my publishing goal to publish one book per month and work on a novel that I started.

Game On!!

About the writer:
Poetess Denise N. Fyffe has worked as in Software Implementation for more than ten years and enjoys volunteering as a Counselor. She has transitioned to being a Jamaican blogger, ghostwriter, web content writer, internet writer, and researcher.

She has published several books of poetry including: