ACSC finished!!
I just posted about finally finishing The Sparrow. That book took me a shockingly long time (over a month!) to finish because at a quarter of the way through I stopped reading for pleasure to buckle down a finally finish ACSC.
In typical over-optimism, my personal deadline has wavered over the past month. I had the deadline of 15 Mar set by outside forces because that is when my 3-month extension to the 18-month program expired. I decided I wanted it complete before my birthday March 4th. Then the end of February seemed like a good goal to give me a few days leeway before my birthday. At one point I thought I was making such good progress that I revised and said to myself "I bet I can finish before 15 February." Ha! That didn't happen.
I tested on 26 February. I had actually finished up the readings two days before and spent the night before studying and getting to sleep at a reasonable hour. THAT was unusual. For all of my previous tests, I pulled a near all-nighter the night before testing. For most of them, I didn't manage to finish up the last of the readings and I only studied for a couple of hours before the test. Fortunately the correspondence class suited my learning style in that I can retain much of what I read and I test well.
The left me three days to finish my final project. On the evening of the 29th (last chance to meet my deadline), I returned to my office after dinner to work on the project. I was dismayed to discover that it was much more difficult and time consuming than expected. I didn’t devote much time the next day. I devoted a lot of time to it on March 2nd, a Sunday and my unofficial day off. Frustratingly the final project was a strategy game where I had to develop an ATO, an Air Campaign Plan, and I have no experience with that sort of thing. My job for the Air Force is to keep the communication network running. I know very little about aircraft and air strategy. Additionally the "game" was rather user unfriendly. In my professional opinion the user interface could use a lot of improvement. I "played" two days of the "war" on Sunday and I learned a good bit, but I wasn't making as much progress as I liked. I finished up on Monday after spending about 4 or 5 hours on it. It was the day before my birthday and I didn't want it hanging over my head on my birthday. It took me another three game days (AKA rounds) to finally meet the criteria to be declared a winner. I have to give it to them though - I did learn a lot about building an ATO. I learned more about how it might be really done by playing that stupid game than I did in all those reading about the doctrine of how it is supposed to be done.
Finishing ACSC lifted a large weight off my shoulders. Completing it is essentially a requirement to be promoted to the next rank. And I took far too long to get it done. I could have, should have, started when I was first selected for promotion in about April 2005. I really should have worked on it during my on my last deployment because as it turned out I had a lot of free time on my shift to work on it. I finally enrolled in the course after my return in May 2006. (One year lost already.) I did a bit of work on it in August 2006, but I was too busy with other stuff to keep at it. I finally got really working at it in February of 2007 inspired by a friend who started the moment she was eligible while she was also trying to plan her wedding and her move to Hawaii. She had every reason to procrastinate, and she didn't. She plowed through it in about 6 months managing to complete it before her wedding and move. I did make great process through July until I started my Army training. I could have finished it up then because as you may recall I had a lot of free time but again I made excuses and did not use my time wisely.
So ...
I finished ACSC almost 4 years after I could have started.
I finished ACSC almost 21 months (1 year and 9 months) and after I enrolled in it. (The normal deadline is 18 months.)
I finished ACSC about a year after I really started working on it even with months of breaks from studying in that time frame.
Procrastination did not serve me well in this event. I hurt my chances to attend ACSC in residence by not having it completed it by correspondence. Oddly enough the Air Force tends to select people for the residence course who have completed in correspondence course because those people have shown that they have the drive and interest. I have one more chance, a third and last look to be selected to attend the in-residence, coming up. I also hurt myself on my last performance report because without having completed it, my bosses were not allowed to recommend me for the next class after ACSC in residence.
... But I'm done and hopefully I can learn a lesson from this that I will actually be able to implement in the future. Procrastinating didn't make it any easier. Procrastinating didn't allow me to suddenly find free time for. I still had to make the time for it; I was just under more pressure to get it done when I finally got around to it, and I lost some opportunities because of my delay. Lesson learned; now I just need to take it to heart.
In typical over-optimism, my personal deadline has wavered over the past month. I had the deadline of 15 Mar set by outside forces because that is when my 3-month extension to the 18-month program expired. I decided I wanted it complete before my birthday March 4th. Then the end of February seemed like a good goal to give me a few days leeway before my birthday. At one point I thought I was making such good progress that I revised and said to myself "I bet I can finish before 15 February." Ha! That didn't happen.
I tested on 26 February. I had actually finished up the readings two days before and spent the night before studying and getting to sleep at a reasonable hour. THAT was unusual. For all of my previous tests, I pulled a near all-nighter the night before testing. For most of them, I didn't manage to finish up the last of the readings and I only studied for a couple of hours before the test. Fortunately the correspondence class suited my learning style in that I can retain much of what I read and I test well.
The left me three days to finish my final project. On the evening of the 29th (last chance to meet my deadline), I returned to my office after dinner to work on the project. I was dismayed to discover that it was much more difficult and time consuming than expected. I didn’t devote much time the next day. I devoted a lot of time to it on March 2nd, a Sunday and my unofficial day off. Frustratingly the final project was a strategy game where I had to develop an ATO, an Air Campaign Plan, and I have no experience with that sort of thing. My job for the Air Force is to keep the communication network running. I know very little about aircraft and air strategy. Additionally the "game" was rather user unfriendly. In my professional opinion the user interface could use a lot of improvement. I "played" two days of the "war" on Sunday and I learned a good bit, but I wasn't making as much progress as I liked. I finished up on Monday after spending about 4 or 5 hours on it. It was the day before my birthday and I didn't want it hanging over my head on my birthday. It took me another three game days (AKA rounds) to finally meet the criteria to be declared a winner. I have to give it to them though - I did learn a lot about building an ATO. I learned more about how it might be really done by playing that stupid game than I did in all those reading about the doctrine of how it is supposed to be done.
Finishing ACSC lifted a large weight off my shoulders. Completing it is essentially a requirement to be promoted to the next rank. And I took far too long to get it done. I could have, should have, started when I was first selected for promotion in about April 2005. I really should have worked on it during my on my last deployment because as it turned out I had a lot of free time on my shift to work on it. I finally enrolled in the course after my return in May 2006. (One year lost already.) I did a bit of work on it in August 2006, but I was too busy with other stuff to keep at it. I finally got really working at it in February of 2007 inspired by a friend who started the moment she was eligible while she was also trying to plan her wedding and her move to Hawaii. She had every reason to procrastinate, and she didn't. She plowed through it in about 6 months managing to complete it before her wedding and move. I did make great process through July until I started my Army training. I could have finished it up then because as you may recall I had a lot of free time but again I made excuses and did not use my time wisely.
So ...
I finished ACSC almost 4 years after I could have started.
I finished ACSC almost 21 months (1 year and 9 months) and after I enrolled in it. (The normal deadline is 18 months.)
I finished ACSC about a year after I really started working on it even with months of breaks from studying in that time frame.
Procrastination did not serve me well in this event. I hurt my chances to attend ACSC in residence by not having it completed it by correspondence. Oddly enough the Air Force tends to select people for the residence course who have completed in correspondence course because those people have shown that they have the drive and interest. I have one more chance, a third and last look to be selected to attend the in-residence, coming up. I also hurt myself on my last performance report because without having completed it, my bosses were not allowed to recommend me for the next class after ACSC in residence.
... But I'm done and hopefully I can learn a lesson from this that I will actually be able to implement in the future. Procrastinating didn't make it any easier. Procrastinating didn't allow me to suddenly find free time for. I still had to make the time for it; I was just under more pressure to get it done when I finally got around to it, and I lost some opportunities because of my delay. Lesson learned; now I just need to take it to heart.