Student Success – Week 2 Discussion

Scenarios

Scenario #1:  Amaya

Amaya is a 40-year old female who lives with her four children in her mother’s home.  She is a single mother who works one full-time job Monday-Friday and works part-time (8 hours) every Saturday at the local supermarket.  Her children are 11, 9, and 6 (twins).  Her mother is retired and takes care of the kids when they get home from school.  Amaya gives her mother money to do the grocery shopping (etc.) during the day when the kids are at school, and her mother cooks all the meals. 

When Amaya gets home every day, she eats dinner, helps the kids with their homework, gets them to bed, and then begins her homework around 9:00 at night.  She usually can get to bed around 10:30 at night, and she studies every night.  She enjoys her online discussions, and she has been able to apply some of what she is learning to her job. She counts on Sundays to do massive work on her papers – except last Sunday was the twins’ birthday, so she didn’t do any work and did not submit her paper. Amaya figured she would finish it as soon as she could.

Yesterday, while her mother was carrying laundry to the washer, she slipped, fell, and broke her ankle. It was her right ankle, and she cannot put weight on it or drive.  Although she has crutches and can get around the home a little bit, she is now unable to grocery shop, do laundry, and cook. 

Amaya opted to stay in her course.  She has not told her professor or her advisor what is going on because she didn’t want to sound like a complainer.  She now has taken on all the household responsibilities, is working the same amount, and often cannot begin her homework until midnight.  She is beginning to fall behind and is hoping she can hang on and earn some type of passing grade.

 

Scenario #2:  Bob

Bob is 24-years old and married.  His wife is 6 months pregnant with their first child, and she is a librarian at the neighborhood elementary school.  Bob is excited to become a father!  He currently has a salaried position as an assistant manager at a large retail store he started working at when he was 16 years old, but the company will not promote him to any higher position (manager or above) until he has his degree in business. 

Even though his company is paying for him to go to school, he has begun his degree only because he feels he has to do it, and he resents being in school. He does the minimum work possible and spends as little time studying as he can. He didn’t like high school even though he graduated with a 3.3 GPA.

Recently, business at the store has picked up significantly, and Bob has been required to work longer hours.  When he finally got home last night around 8:30PM, he found his wife in bed, and his in-laws were there. He learned that his wife had been put on bed rest for the rest of her pregnancy, and his in-laws, who lived 10 minutes away, were there to offer support and help out with whatever they needed. 

Bob talked to his wife about dropping out, but she insisted that her parents would help her, so there was no reason to drop out.  She reminded him that he was barely studying anyway, so working the extra hours wasn’t that big of an issue.

 

Scenario #3:  Carlos

Carlos is a 30-year old who recently decided he was tired of working full-time in his family’s bakery.  He really wasn’t passionate about it but felt obligated to help out since it was the family business.  His parents, sensing his unhappiness, assured him they would be fine if he just worked part time there and supported him as he found a program he was interested in pursuing.

Carlos had always been interested in computer programming and started his online degree in that field.  His first class was an English class which made him nervous. Carlos has always struggled with writing – even in high school. Even though he put hours into his first paper, the score was not very good, and his professor suggested that he work with the tutoring center before he submitted his second paper. Carlos was insulted that the professor would suggest tutoring, and almost wrote an email to give the professor a piece of his mind, but then decided not to. 

Carlos told his girlfriend that he wasn’t going to get tutoring because he was certain he could earn a D in the class, and he would earn better grades in the next couple of terms when he started his computer classes.  Carlos figured the good grades from his future computer classes would balance out the grades from the classes that required a lot of paper writing.

One day he received a phone call from his mother. She was at the hospital.  His father had suffered a small stroke and would not be able to work for a while.  She needed him back full time at the family business until his father was able to work again.  Carlos immediately went back to work full time, but decided to stay in his class.  He emailed his professor and told him what was going on.

 

Scenario #4:  Dolores

Dolores is 50 years old, and the last of her children has recently moved out.  She and her husband are now empty nesters.  Her husband has encouraged her to do something for herself because she was a stay-at-home mom who dedicated 30 years to raising her family.  Dolores has always wanted to continue her education, but she is afraid that she has been out of school for too long to do well now. 

She also is not technologically-savvy and only recently has she learned how to email.  This week, her husband created a Facebook account for her, and Delores is learning to use it.  Because Dolores and her husband live in a very rural area, driving to the nearest college takes 45 minutes one-way.  As they live in the northern part of the United States, Dolores does not want to drive in the snow and ice.  Even though she was very hesitant, she decided to pursue her degree online. 

During the first week, she called her advisor 10 times with questions.  She called her professor 6 times. Between her professor and her advisor, she was able to complete all her assignments and understood the content. When her husband came home one night, he found Dolores in tears because the computer stopped working.  Her husband found that the power cord had come loose and the battery had drained.  He fixed the problem, and Dolores was able to finish posting. 

That night, Dolores shared that she just didn’t think she could do this.  “Who else has to make 16 phone calls in one week?  I couldn’t even determine the power cord had come loose!  My professor and my advisor must think I am an idiot!”  The phone rang.  It was her son, and he shared the news that his infant daughter was going to need surgery to correct a birth defect.  Even though it was fairly routine surgery, he asked if Dolores could come stay with them and help out, especially when the baby came home.  Dolores agreed to go stay with them.  Her husband reminded her that she could continue her studies because her course was online, and even though she was nervous about it, she agreed to try.  She called her advisor to let her know what was going on.  Her advisor told Dolores to tell her professor, but Dolores did not.  She was afraid that 6 phone calls in one week was too many already.