XAMK Tourism Diploma

[SweetsugarNL]

Thank you so much.
Sounds good!

[rachel83az]

The next two courses for the diploma just dropped: Intercultural Competence and Tourism Risk Management.

Intercultural Communication is fully self-paced. I have until the end of the course (May 9th) to complete everything. Since it literally just opened, I haven't gotten very far yet. But it says that there are videos and articles for each section. There are forum discussions, and quizzes that can be taken as many times as needed to get at least 75% (15 points). Each section only opens once you finish the previous section's quiz with 15 or more points. It looks like the quizzes don't actually count towards your grade. Section 5 has a writing task that has a due date before May 9th. There are 100 possible points in this course and the minimum passing grade is 51. The final exam is worth a whopping 65 points out of 100.

Tourism risk management is pass/fail. There are 4 topic tests + a final test. It is not completely self-paced because each section needs to be completed by a certain date. Each quiz/test allows two attempts. The exception is the final test where you only get one attempt. This one looks pretty interesting but there is a lot of reading to get through. One of the things you're supposed to read for the first section is https://www.iso.org/standard/65694.html and this doesn't exactly make for light reading. https://www.visitfinland.com/ is more fun and https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/to...ks-tourism seems much more interesting than an ISO standard.

More information forthcoming once I get further along in/complete these courses.

[innen_oda]

The writing task in section 5 for the Intercultural Communication task doesn't look too difficult (only 1000 words):

Interview another course participant on his/her experiences on cultural adjustment/culture shock.

Two of the criterium do require reference to theories covered in the course though, so it's not going to be a matter of totally winging it at the last minute:

- Identification of variables that seem to help ease the adjustment process
- Describe the transition he/she experienced while comparing their experience to one or more of the models presented in the theory part (the stages of culture shock, Bennett´s DMIS, U-curve, W-curve etc.)

The essay is only worth 20 points, but since you can't access the final exam without first submitting the essay, the essay is a compulsory element of the course (though you could submit a blank document, I guess).

[rachel83az]

By the way, Cross-Cultural Management is not the greatest course ever. Each topic consists of a 1 or 2 hour video, a PowerPoint slide, and a quiz. You get 5 attempts to answer the quiz correctly. The audio for the videos isn't unfortunately pretty bad. The lecturer doesn't have a good microphone and there is a lot of static-y noise. Lots of crackling, popping and hissing even when he is not speaking.

Marketing Management is much the same. The videos for both are still watchable, but not fun.

Both courses also expect a video presentation that is worth 30 points out of 100. You can technically pass both with a grade of 3 but you'll only get the best grade of 5 if you submit a video.

While neither of these courses are required for the Tourism Diploma, they are tangentially related so I feel like it's a good idea to at least try to finish them.

[rachel83az]

Update: I have learned that if you install Adobe Connect and watch the Marketing Management and Cross-Cultural Management lectures through that, all of the hissing, popping, and crackling is gone. There is apparently some weirdness in the web player that creates this issue. Compression issues, perhaps? I didn't want to install yet another app on my computer but this is totally worthwhile!

[rachel83az]

I finally went to go look up what Finnish grades actually mean. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_g..._education

Marketing Management and Cross-Cultural Management both allow you to get 70 points out of 100 without doing a presentation on YT. This equates to a 3. A 3 is a B-. I can totally flub the video and still get a B! That's not bad.

This makes me feel a lot better about my potential grades at XAMK.

[rachel83az]

So, I am 90% done with my Risk Management and Intercultural Competence classes. The essay/writing assignment for Intercultural Competence isn't that bad. But we are also supposed to make a sort of idea board using Padlet.com and I don't like that. Depending on how the essay gets graded, I could still wind up with 80+ points (a grade of 4). I'm at least guaranteed a 2 because I got more than 60 points on the final exam. I should probably make at least a halfhearted attempt with the Padlet assignment so I can get a 3.

I would be completely done with Risk Management except the final exam doesn't unlock until May 1st.

On the 1st week of May, I'll have a bunch of XAMK courses starting. These are unrelated to the Tourism Diploma but are business-related.

[rachel83az]

If you wanted to join the Tourism Diploma but were unable to do so, they have the next group of 20 ECTS available here: https://www.xamk.fi/en/open-amk-courses/...ects-cr-2/

[samk]

Hi,
Can anyone post an image of the XAMK Diploma ? Im a bit curious about how the diploma looks.

[rachel83az]

Sorry, it's still ongoing so there is no image to post just yet.