How demanding is the academic work load (class time, readings, papers, etc.) at ICAF?
All qualified students who successfully complete a war college program graduate with a Masters degree. Completing a Masters degree in only ten months means that there is a lot of work to do during the academic yearyou will be busy. Moreover, because ICAF combines both the study of national security affairs and national security strategy with an extensive look at resource issues related to national security, ICAF requires slightly more coursework than most of the other schools (on the order of perhaps one or two class sessions a week). The strategic challenges of the 21st century are many and complex with increasing resource constraintsthere is a lot to learn. You can expect to be in class every weekday morning. With a few exceptions, classes start at 0815 Monday through Friday. Electives are held on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, and many last until 1730 hrs. Monday, Thursday and Friday afternoons you either will have class or time allocated for research, paper writing, and classroo
What I can say with "how demanding the academic work load of the undergraduate students", it includes : enough time for on-line activities, additional budget for subscription of needed materials, additional academic support of mentors, guidance and counseling extended by advisers, understanding from parents, moral support from significant persons and more real friends from the web. With my experimental studies conducted to college students, I can vouch that they really need extra use of the computer mediated instructions. Majority of our college students now are more visual in their use of instructional materials. They also enjoy the social networking as a means of educating themselves, sharing their knowledge, skills, advanced information they gathered to their friends in various parts of their own country and across the world. They also consider this as significant in their school activities while they differentiate the use of textbooks, technology, and other visual materials presented in the web. This implication in the college education would make the college instructor to be adept too with these demands that students appreciate more. Hence, the demands for college work depend from their instructors’ strategic planning for these new trends in higher education. By then, the classroom conditions will be more challenging during their workshop, role plays and writing their manuscripts for research purposes. With 40 college student respondents, the following were found in a study conducted to selected colleges and universities in Region 02, Philippines. Using on-line and offline interviews by the author, Ms. Marsha G. Andres, an undergraduate research with me as her co-author and adviser, the table 5 was taken in this study conducted from June 2010 to December 2010.
From this result, a mean of 2.27 was confirmed using the internet as the main source of fanatic college learners in their learning styles; followed by the use of both textbook and internet with a mean of 2.19. Furthermore, using the statistic Analysis of Variance in three variable, the result of F is equal to 9.15 as compared to the critical value of 4.79 @ .01 degrees of confidence rejected the null hypothesis. This disclosed the significance of the use of internet from among other sources like textbook and both textbook and internet variables.
| 1. Use of Internet | 2.27 |
| 2. Use Textbook | 1.88 |
| 3. Use of both Internet and Textbook | 2.19 |
Another study which is also worth mentioning here was the study conducted by Ms. Gladys Andres, an undergraduate student taking the BSIT course. Her Table 4 was copied to relate the importance of computer mediated communications in supporting, motivating, and challenging the college students in their academic activities.
Table 4-Use of Computer Mediated Instruction for College Students
| CMC | Mean | Rank |
| 1. Chat | 2.47 | 2 |
| 2. E Mails | 2.37 | 4 |
| 3. Social networking | 2.50 | 1 |
| 4. Comments | 2.41 | 3 |
All the mean results were qualitatively interpreted as much use by the respondents and the highest rank among those included in the computer mediated communications, social networking top, followed by chat and comments. The result of t-test between chat and comments; chat and social networking, and chat and e mails were found to be insignificant. It concluded that there were no significant differences between all the computer mediated communications when they used in their support for studies in the college environment. From here, we can say that undergraduate students need a lot of academic support in their studies. They are visual in the sense that they preferred using the internet than other mode learning. In the sense that they only have enough time to use the internet after their day classes, parents become one of their problems in using the web. They lack enough understanding on the value of technology and they consider it as a problem on their budget.
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- How demanding is the academic work load (class time, readings, papers, etc.) at ICAF?
