ACSC OLMP?

[shark]

OLMP took me exactly 18 months (took a term off for newborn), so could be done slightly faster if necessary, but I worked my butt off and my wife was incredibly supportive.

Did the joint warfare concentration, which was the standard at the time (non competitive). Was an interesting experience.  Most classes had about 15 peeps. If you were lucky there'd be 4 operators in a class at once (alarming number of civilians, then ARC, very few AD).  So maybe talking 2 individuals with any joint experience per course. What that meant for most classes was that you had people with absolutely no knowledge of operations or even other services attempting to be experts on joint warfare. Sometime that was pretty laughable (ok, most of the time).  I'm afraid I did an awful lot of mansplaining. You figured out pretty quick who was worth engaging with online, and who was stringing together sentences solely from the week's learning objectives.

There was some academic value to the actual coursework.  The research classes were actually excellent, and would have worked wonders when I knocked out my real master's a decade ago.  Several of the other courses were highly entertaining and informative, but that was primarily a factory of the instructors. Some were clearly collecting a check (grade depends entirely on comment output, rather than content). Others were actually there to help facilitate learning...those were the best.  

In retrospect, would recommend if your life situation accommodates.  Yes, it's a free Masters, which isn't nothing, but it also takes WORK, which may not be required to accomplish whatever your big blue dreams are.

Hit me up if you have any specific questions.

 

 

 

 

[Khruangbin33]

Copy all.  I'm not chasing O-6 by any stretch of the imagination, but if I can get some kind of masters out of the way for $Free.99 that seems like a good deal.

[brabus]

Well it’s not free in terms of time and effort, but to each their own on what they want to do with their time outside of work. 

[hindsight2020]

I'm currently waiting to begin my first facilitated on 7.0. Same limfacs as 6.0, gotta wait for the faciliated courses, one a month. Plus the whole d!ckdance that is CANVAS (they moved away from blackboard) having to wait for AUSIS to reflect grades before the windows 3.1 coded UI allows you to enroll on the next modules. 7.0  has more modules in total too, to include one more faciliated, so logistically cannot be done as fast as 6.0 by default. Have a snickers, cuz you're gonna be at this a while.

As to content, Jesus, this sh%t is actually making me dumber, but I had a brick and mortar STEM masters before I decided to leroy jenkins my life and become a stick monkey for the USAF in lieu of respectable pedestrian high paid occupation. So that colors my perception of PME. They don't call me uncle hindsight for nothing....🤣

/sarc

 

[FLEA]

7 hours ago, hindsight2020 said:

I'm currently waiting to begin my first facilitated on 7.0. Same limfacs as 6.0, gotta wait for the faciliated courses, one a month. Plus the whole d!ckdance that is CANVAS (they moved away from blackboard) having to wait for AUSIS to reflect grades before the windows 3.1 coded UI allows you to enroll on the next modules. 7.0  has more modules in total too, to include one more faciliated, so logistically cannot be done as fast as 6.0 by default. Have a snickers, cuz you're gonna be at this a while.

As to content, Jesus, this sh%t is actually making me dumber, but I had a brick and mortar STEM masters before I decided to leroy jenkins my life and become a stick monkey for the USAF in lieu of respectable pedestrian high paid occupation. So that colors my perception of PME. They don't call me uncle hindsight for nothing....🤣

/sarc

 

Dude I'm still struggling to get registered. They auto registered me under a base specific email. I have no idea how they even got it since we've moved to the AF.mil and then the cloud since we had base specific email servers. Then to change my login they redirect me to a website that no longer exist. The help application is a total train wreck. The minute ammount of care they put into details like software and material really cement that the AF doesn't give a shit about you if you are not a school select. 

[Seriously]

4 hours ago, FLEA said:

Dude I'm still struggling to get registered. They auto registered me under a base specific email. I have no idea how they even got it since we've moved to the AF.mil and then the cloud since we had base specific email servers. Then to change my login they redirect me to a website that no longer exist. The help application is a total train wreck. The minute ammount of care they put into details like software and material really cement that the AF doesn't give a shit about you if you are not a school select. 

It's not that they don't care about you if you aren't a school select. A lot of school selects actually have to accomplish their master's degree through OLMP. I think that office is just grossly understaffed and underfunded, so you have to place a trouble ticket, send an e-mail, and then call them 69 times to get anything done.

 

[FLEA]

14 minutes ago, Seriously said:

It's not that they don't care about you if you aren't a school select. A lot of school selects actually have to accomplish their master's degree through OLMP. I think that office is just grossly understaffed and underfunded, so you have to place a trouble ticket, send an e-mail, and then call them 69 times to get anything done.

 

When I say "they" don't care, I don't mean the people directly responsible for the program. I'm sure they care. But rightly, if big blue cared, they would invest in that office with more money and manpower. 

Consider the fact that the Army sends EVERYONE in residence, and then compare. The AF simply doesn't want to be bothered with something it sees as useless. I'm sure if we bought 1 less F-35 we could probably have a state of the art e campus to make Trident university proud. But we don't do that, because we are cultured to believe 1 F-35 brings more combat power than educating our entire officer corp. 

[ThreeHoler]

our entire officer corp. 

Corps.

[FLEA]

37 minutes ago, ThreeHoler said:

 

Corps.

 

Submit a support ticket to my private message box and in 3 days I'll consider fixing it. Or I might give you some ambiguous advice that won't fix it. Either way, I just gave a half a shit more than the AF did about their PME programs. 

[Seriously]

2 hours ago, FLEA said:

When I say "they" don't care, I don't mean the people directly responsible for the program. I'm sure they care. But rightly, if big blue cared, they would invest in that office with more money and manpower. 

Consider the fact that the Army sends EVERYONE in residence, and then compare. The AF simply doesn't want to be bothered with something it sees as useless. I'm sure if we bought 1 less F-35 we could probably have a state of the art e campus to make Trident university proud. But we don't do that, because we are cultured to believe 1 F-35 brings more combat power than educating our entire officer corp. 

For sure. I started to write a diatribe about the inadequacy of our comm infrastructure and Big Air Force's focus on "the small things" meaning color of your sock when really "the small things" should mean being able to read encrypted e-mails on webmail, not having to fill out the same in/outprocessing checklist in 15 different ways, or the fact that it took me 48 hours to get NIPR access in a combat zone because of such problems as, "no sir, you'll have to sign the agreement digitally (pen/ink not allowed!) with your e-mail certificate" to get access to a system that I was just using at a base <1 hr away... a form, by the way, that will get filed away, forgotten about, and lost when the next sharedrive crash happens.

...but I deleted that rant. 

[herkbier]

Army does not send everyone to school btw

[FLEA]

51 minutes ago, herkbier said:

Army does not send everyone to school btw

My understanding is all Army officers in an operations career field will attend ILE (their IDE). Is this not correct? 

[jazzdude]

I think all army officers go to their respective Captain's Career Course (SOS level PME) based on their branch. My understanding was their IDE and SDE equivalents were competitive.

The Army also seems to be a lot more competitive to LTC, where if they don't make it, they'll be out on the street. Navy also seemed to be that way as well, if you didn't screen for department head, getting to 20 and retirement gets much more difficult.

[HossHarris]

Masters degree helps with your airline apps as well ....

 

just sayin

[hindsight2020]

56 minutes ago, HossHarris said:

Masters degree helps with your airline apps as well ....

 

just sayin

[herkbier]

3 hours ago, FLEA said:

My understanding is all Army officers in an operations career field will attend ILE (their IDE). Is this not correct? 

 

3 hours ago, jazzdude said:

I think all army officers go to their respective Captain's Career Course (SOS level PME) based on their branch. My understanding was their IDE and SDE equivalents were competitive.

The Army also seems to be a lot more competitive to LTC, where if they don't make it, they'll be out on the street. Navy also seemed to be that way as well, if you didn't screen for department head, getting to 20 and retirement gets much more difficult.

Jazz dude has it right. 

[brabus]

11 hours ago, FLEA said:

1 F-35 brings more combat power than educating our entire officer corp. 

It does. Here’s a serious suggestion: shit can all of our standard PME and either send people to civilian schools (more so than the current, limited slots) / have them do one of those schools online. Or make AF PME have some utility, but I think the former option is a much higher probability of success. I don’t think I’ve met a single person who thought anything worthwhile happened/was taken from ASBC, SOS, ACSC, AWC. 

Edited April 17, 2020 by brabus

[IDALPHA]

2 hours ago, brabus said:

I don’t think I’ve met a single person who thought anything worthwhile happened/was taken from ASBC, SOS, ACSC, AWC. 

You haven’t. Neither have I. I honestly believe the only way to move away from this junk being considered is to JUST STOP DOING IT. 

[brabus]

The hard part is coordinating enough of the masses to not do it. Reality is a lot of people know this is bullshit, but it’s not the hill they’re going to die on. Admittedly I’m in that group, but I also did 100% of it on work time...I refused to let 1 min of my own time be wasted on it. Highly recommend taking that approach to anyone who is doing correspondence ballwash. If a bob cries about something not being done, you can remind him the AF is making you do this (not your choice) and you’re not sacrificing home life for it. If he doesn’t like that, well that is a hill I will die on. 

[FLEA]

Funny thing is I honestly have no idea why I'm doing it. For me it's really hard to close the door on something though. Also, I don't like this AF culture bullshit of once they get wind that you have thoughts of getting out, screw you and drop you to the bottom of the stack. So I just keep playing the game because I can't stop. 

Edited April 17, 2020 by FLEA

[skibum]

On 4/16/2020 at 6:28 PM, brabus said:

It does. Here’s a serious suggestion: shit can all of our standard PME and either send people to civilian schools (more so than the current, limited slots) / have them do one of those schools online. Or make AF PME have some utility, but I think the former option is a much higher probability of success. I don’t think I’ve met a single person who thought anything worthwhile happened/was taken from ASBC, SOS, ACSC, AWC. 

One of the best parties I ever attended was at PME. That was worthwhile.

[Danger41]

On 4/17/2020 at 8:11 AM, FLEA said:

Funny thing is I honestly have no idea why I'm doing it. For me it's really hard to close the door on something though. Also, I don't like this AF culture bullshit of once they get wind that you have thoughts of getting out, screw you and drop you to the bottom of the stack. So I just keep playing the game because I can't stop. 

That’s really too bad. In my little corner of the AF, I had an approved separation and pulled it (long process in a pilot shortage, but I digress) and my commander took the complete opposite stance and has been nothing but helpful and supportive as I try to figure out what’s what. There are good ones out there.

[brabus]

9 hours ago, skibum said:

One of the best parties I ever attended was at PME. That was worthwhile.

Well I’m not saying the 7 days a week of boozing and mountain biking was not fun at SOS...

[JBueno]

On 11/28/2013 at 4:50 PM, ellsworb said:

They'll let you sign up for more than one applied course at a time. Hell, I'm currently enrolled in 3 applied courses right now (all of which start in Dec). At first I was pissed, then I called and complained that I was going to be deployed, blah blah blah. . POOF, enrollment for 3 of 4 right there, with the assumption that I"ll have the prereqs done prior to start.

 

The National Security one sucked.

Can you sign up for multiple applied courses in DL 7.0? Has anyone pressed to test?

[cragspider]

4 hours ago, JBueno said:

Can you sign up for multiple applied courses in DL 7.0? Has anyone pressed to test?

I know you couldn’t in 6.0. So I’d have to say that’s a no for 7.0 as well. As soon as you finish one self study course you can sign up and start the next. The only hold up was waiting for the allied classes to start.  Now I did have success in getting them to let me move on in the self study while waiting for the applied to start.