OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Choosing an Organization Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Identify an organization and situation you want to study over the remainder of the course.
2. Describe the organization and situation.

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Describe your organization.

The overarching organization as the United States Army. But within that, the
organization was a Military Intelligence School to become a 35F – a Military Intelligence
Analyst. The course was 24 weeks long and during those 24 weeks there are 5 major tests
and you only get two attempts at each test. If you fail the same test twice you get
recycled. This is a huge deal because you can spend six months at training, fail a test, and
then have to restart the training from the beginning. This means you are forced to leave
your current Company, which for my was Charley Company, and are forced to move to
the sister company and start over with new recruits. If you fail a second time, you are
kicked out of the job and given a new job that you are not allowed to select.

2) Describe your role in the organization (it can be internal or external).

I was soldier that had just graduated basic combat training and was attending Advanced
Individual Training (AIT). I was a private assigned to 2nd platoon Charley Company. My
entire role while at AIT was to be a student. I was attneidng a military school that was
prepping me to integrate into big army at my first duty station.

3) Describe the situation. (see the Canvas instructions for details, especially about how
your situation will be analyzed from five different perspectives over the next five
modules)

I was probably 15 weeks or so into the course and had successfully passed the first three
tests with great scores on my first attempt. It came time for test number 4 and it was on
enemy courses of action. I felt very confident while taking this test. You have roughly 3
hours to complete a test and I used every bit of it. The following day when I got my test
back my instructor, SFC Tiddwell, returned my graded test and I saw that it had three
grades on it. Two of them were high grades, but both of those were crossed out. The only

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 grade not crossed out wa a failing score. The tests were graded from 0-5. In order to pass
you needed to score a 3 or higher. I could see that the first person that graded my test
gave me a 4.1, which is a fantastic score. The second person that graded my paper gave
me a 3.5 which is still another great passing score. Both of these grades, however, were
crossed out. The third person that graded my paper gave me a 2.9 which is a failing score.
My two instructors, SFC tiddwell and Mr Mcwhite, told me to stay behind so they could
chat with me while the rest of the soldiers took a quick break. They explained to me why
my paper had so many grades on it. The lead instructor for the site picked two people per
class to randomly grade to make sure that everyone is being fair. I just happened to be the
one chosen. Both of my everyday instructors gave me passing scores and knew that I was
familiar with the course material but the lead instructor dinged me multiple time for small
errors in power point for things like lines over lapping and arrows touching. So she had
failed me, and now I was under a lot of retake and pass the test in 2 days or I would be
getting recycled and have to start the course over. I remained at the school house until
they would kick me out until it was my re test day. The issue with the re tests is it is done
during normal instruction hours so you’re almost falling further an further behind because
you’re missing your next tests material. I remained focused and took the test for a second
time. A day after I met with my two instructors again and they gave me my paper back.
The highest score you can get on a retake is a 4, and they gave me a 4. They even had the
lead instructor grade the paper as well to make sure that their was not any bias on
grading. I was incredibly releaved and thankful that I did not havce to start my entire
training cycle over again. The fail rate for the course was very high and I had already
seen a number of class mates get moved to different companies and start over.