Course Executive Summary #1

Course Name: Professional Leadership

Course Number: PS 4443
This course provides an overview of various leadership styles practiced by
professionals in the public and private sector. The focus of the leadership
skills identified will focus on the following competency areas: operations
management, technology applications, facilities planning and management,
human resource management, fiscal management, and organizational
behavior.
Core Competencies learned from this course:
1.) Time Management: This course went into great detail on how to
effectively manage not only your time but others as well, so that you can be
an effective leader throughout your career. It did this by teaching skills such
as self-direction, goal-setting, decision making, organizing, and personal
awareness. Each of these skills taught can be applied to my professional
career in so many ways, most of which is taking the time to set proper goals
for myself and others whom I might be leading, and setting a proper time
frame for those goals to make them realistic and attainable. It also made me
a more self-aware of how others within the organization can perceive me
based upon my time management skills. If I want to be a leader I have to
make a serious effort to ensure that my time management is a focus of
improvement so that I am making the most of co-workers, and my time.
2.) Management Preparation: This was the biggest area of competency skills
I gained from this course. It expounded on what proper leadership is and
different styles and approaches to leadership. It helped teach me how to
better delegate task, how to build a better team and to work with that team,
how to communicate to employees and assess needs within the work place.
Learning these things from this course has already greatly helped me in my
career, mostly by helping me to identify with my leadership styles and then
helping me realize how to better translate those styles to my daily work. It
showed me that I work best by leading by example, not by always being the
loudest voice but instead the hardest worker.
3.) Conflict Resolution: This competency stems mostly from the learning
about human resource management as well as proper organizational
behavior. Before this course, I knew very little about HR and never put much
thought into workplace ethics, this course helped me understand some of the
ins and outs of how to handle situations that come up in the workplace and
how to carry myself when conflict does arise so that I am not part of the
problem but the solution. It taught me how to properly analyze situations
where conflict arise, how to focus on the resolution, and communicate within

my organization so that I better the any situations and not hurt my situation
or status within my organization.

Course Executive Summary #2

Course Name: Operations Management
Course Number: MGMT 3103
This course is a study of the overall operations management task. Critical
issues include its integration of market issues, the development of
operations strategies, and the management of people. Specific attention is
given to the design and development of services and products and the
systems by which they are produced and delivered. Factors central to the
operations management task include capacity, technology, scheduling and
execution, quality, inventory, the significant role of managing the supply
chain, and process and delivery system reliability and maintenance.
Core Competencies learned from this course:
1.) Technical Expertise: This course helped me with this competency by
setting me up with the knowledge base on how the business process works
and what it takes to run a highly effective market operation. It increased my
technical expertise by giving me the background knowledge and
understanding as it pertains to project management, product management,
customer focus, and internal and external awareness as it pertains to the
product or service supply chain. I was able to take this knowledge and apply
it to my current role by relating what I learned about operations to how I
carry out my daily task. The management of people within the operations
process is where I benefited the most, as I was able to use this to better
understand how and why people within my organization operate, and how to
better relate my skills to make a positive influence on the daily operations at
my work.
2.) Management Preparation: This was the most influential competency for
this course, as it helped me to understand how to better become a leader,
how to better communicate, plan, assess needs, think strategically, and
analyze performance. It did this by first diving deep into how to analyze the
communication process within an organization and then how to better to
process so workflow and the supply chain work effectively and efficiently. I
also learned a lot about the process of planning, and how instrumental
planning is to the operation of the business. Without proper planning and
taking time to assess and analyze current performance, and set goals to
where you want to be in the future, youre setting yourself or your company

up for failure. This is knowledge that I carry with me in my daily job duties
and has really helped me to be a more efficient employee.
3.) Executive Development: You cannot be an effective manager and try to
develop into an executive, where everyone in the business world is trying to
get, without the background knowledge of operations management.
Operations management is a quintessential part of business and offers the
knowledge and skills necessary to climbing the corporate ladder. This course
helped me develop that knowledge as it pertains to vision and long term
planning as well as designing and carrying out a strategic plan, which helped
me to develop my leadership, delegation, analysis, and awareness skills as it
pertains to how a business operates and how you can help a business
continue to grow in an effective way. Before this course, I had little interest or
knowledge in operations and how businesses run from the ground up. I was
always focused on doing my duties and not much else; this course changed
that for me and set me up with great background knowledge on why
operations are important, and how this knowledge of operations can help me
become a better employee.
Course Executive Summary #3
Course Name: Applied Professional Research
Course Number: PS 3143
This course provides an overview of professional research fundamentals,
including instruction in applying citations and appropriate statistics in
professional settings. Topics covered include, but are not limited to, different
types of research, the research process, ethics in research, reference citation
models, and statistical concepts.
Core Competencies learned from this course:
1.) Technical Expertise: This course help me with my technical expertise by
setting me up with knowledge and giving me valuable experience with
external and internal awareness, project management, computer literacy,
data analysis skills, and knowledge and information application. With the
course being focused around research and the research process, I was able
to work on all the above skills throughout each module of the course. It really
helped me with my project management skills as well as knowledge
application as it pertains to the research process and information literacy as
it pertains to learning how to access different references and applying them
to my project. I have been able to carry these lessons learned into my new
job mainly through learning how to properly research topics, and how to take
information gained and turn them into real time applications.

2.) Time Management: This competency was a big one as far as gains are
concerned with this course. The work load was heavier than any course I
have previously taken and with each module having an extensive
assignment, or piece of the research process due, I had to be really solid with
my personal awareness and self-direction as it pertains to ensuring that I
made enough time to complete each module on schedule. In doing this, this
course helped me improve my skills with prioritizing and organizing my
schedule and ensuring that I always made the most of my time. Working on
these skills have really helped me when it comes to ensuring that I am
always making the most of my work days and am not wasting time and
energy on things that I do not need to be wasting on.
3.) Goal-setting Skills: Goal-setting, professionally and as it pertained to the
course was a big part of this course. Setting our goals for the semester was
one of the first assignments we had and this was the first time I have had to
do this for a course before, so this course certainly helped me in the goalsetting competency. It helped create self-awareness and creativity in making
us think about specific goals. It helped me to be decisive in what my goals
should be and forced me to plan my immediate future and what I ultimately
want for my future. Anytime you take time to set solid, realistic goals you are
improving a very important skill, and I certainly was able to do this in this
course. This helped me professionally by forcing me to think deeper about
where I want to be and how I will get there, and helped me learn the
importance of setting realistic goals that will benefit me both professionally
and personally.
Course Executive Summary #4
Course Name: Program Planning for Adult Learners
Course Number: PS 4243
This course provides the steps and processes required to apply a practical
guide to planning education and training programs for adults in a variety of
settings. The program planning model presented captures and reconfigures
classical and current descriptions of the program planning process. The
course explores, and applies, a comprehensive 12-component model, the
Interactive Model of Program Planning, with a focus on the practicality and
usefulness as a technical description of the planning process, the emphasis
on people being the heart of the process, and the importance of context as a
centering point for action.
Core Competencies learned from this course:
1.) Communication Skills: A lot of my job entails giving presentations and
educating adults on how they can reduce their energy usage and why it is
important to reduce their usage. This course was perfect for me to better my

skills in many areas as it pertains to my job, one such area was improving my
communication skills. This course taught me how to better my
communication skills both written and verbal. As well as stressed the
importance of listening to peoples needs, and taking those needs and
turning them into effective presentations and programs. It stressed the
points of body language, nonverbal communication, and persuading the
audience to buy into what youre presenting. This course went a long ways in
helping me to better understand how to communicate when I am in meetings
and presentations, and I take that knowledge with me every day.
2.) Technical Expertise: This competency might seem like a bit of a surprise
given the course I am describing, but this course helped me with my project
management skills, computer and other technology literacy, data analysis,
and knowledge application, as they pertain to putting together an effective
learning program. As mentioned, I put together and present learning
programs on a weekly basis, and this course went a long ways in helping me
to better understand how to relate to the audience and how to use
technology to your advantage when designing and presenting a program.
3.) Management Preparation: This course helped me in so many ways in
gaining knowledge and skills for being an effective manager. It stressed
communication, analyzing performance, inclusion and diversity, assessing
needs, and ethics in building a learning program. These are skills that I can
translate to my every day task on the job and use to better understand how I
have assembled learning programs in the past, and how I can better do it in
the future. The analyzing performance skills I gained have really been useful
in doing just that, and making my presentations and learning programs more
efficient and effective for the learner. Overall this was a great course in
improving my skills as it pertains to my job and those improvements have
not gone unnoticed by my management.
Course Executive Summary #5
Course Name: Professional Communication
Course Number: PS 3023
This course supports career fields which require competencies in advanced
professional communication. Course includes principles of effective
professional communication using technology to generate professionallyprepared materials including formal correspondence, brochures, public
relations materials, graphics, and technical documents.
1.) Communication Skills: Just from the name of the course, you can infer
that I would learn a lot, and improve my communication skills with this
course. With my job revolving around constantly communicating with co-

workers, clients, and customers this course really helped me to understand

how to become an effective communicator in each professional setting. It
gave me background knowledge and laid the groundwork for understanding
how to better communicate verbally, with writing, body language and so
much more.
2.) Interpersonal Skills: This course certainly helped me understand the ins
and outs of interpersonal communication and why it is important. As well as
how to cope with certain situations, how to be persuasive when need be, and
how to be self-aware of certain situations so that you can effectively
communicate to whomever youre trying to communicate to. These skills
have helped me to try and relate to my audience more, and do not just give
the same elevator speech each time I do a presentation or talk to someone
about our programs, but to adapt to your audience, put yourself and their
shoes, and try and relate your communications to them, not at them.
3.) Management Preparation: You cannot be an effective manager if youre
not an effective communicator. This course helped home my communication
skills in so many ways, that It has set me up to be a better leader, a more
strategic thinker, how to better analyze my audience and performance from
other situations and learn from poor communication errors I have made in
the past and learn from those errors. Communication is the backbone of any
organization, without it, you will fail. This course helped me to realize that
and taught me to be a far better communicator in the workplace and in my
personal life.