About TheCourse Hybrid Class

The subject matter required to pass the project management certification exam cannot be taught in less than about eight days. That is the length of TheCourse classes conducted at Virginia Tech and throughout the US Government with the exception of the US Dept. of Education, which has chosen the hybrid edition.

We initially designed the hybrid program at the request of Capital One. It requires firming up the student roster a month or more in advance, in order that students can complete the online edition of TheCourse in advance of the four-day class. We have conducted it numerous times at Capital One beginning in 2005, and 93% of those who took the PMP examination passed it first time. It has also been conducted several times for Department of Education.

The following paragraphs are copied from our winning proposal to the Department of Education, responding to their RFP which asked for a 4-day 'boot camp' class:

The company has extensive success conducting TheCourse in a 4-day format at a variety of contract sites and a university environment. Students frequently take and pass the PMP® certification examination the following day.

The above paragraph, if it stood alone, would tend to trivialize the examination. While none of the material in the exam is difficult, the challenge is in its breadth. Roughly 65% of the exam questions are related to 42 PMBOK® Guide processes, which in itself is broad, ranging across scope, risk, and quality including a good deal of statistics, etc. The other 35% includes ethics and professional responsibility and a great deal of ‘standard’ general management material that students may have learned at some point, but need a refresher to pass the exam. Still other exam material, for example the formula for calculating the Point of Total Assumption of a US Government cost-incentive fixed-price contract, is neither in PMBOK nor has ever been heard of by most students.

In short, there is a great deal of material to absorb. While it may be possible to teach shortcuts to pass the exam in four or five days, students cannot “gain a thorough, comprehensive knowledge” of the subject matter as required by FSA in four or five days. Accordingly, our boot camp class is supplemented by two critical tools:

  1. Each hybrid class student receives a six-month license to the multi-media online edition of TheCourse, preferably a month in advance of the classroom course. This serves two purposes:
    • It exceeds the PMP pre-requisite for 35 hours of training, and can be cited on the exam application if desired.
    • Students may review all the course material as much as they wish, before and after the class.
  2. Each student receives a license to our test engine (TheTest™), a month in advance when feasible, containing approximately 500 exam-like questions. TheTest was designed to emulate the PMP examination. For example, it selects questions at random, but in the same distribution among the six testing categories as the exam. Students may take timed tests of up to 4-hours, or browse the questions, answers, rationale and citations as much as they wish.

Course Material

Each student is provided with:

  • A six-month license to TheCourse™ Online. A demonstration is available at www.TheCourse.us/online.htm.
  • A license to download and install TheTest. A demonstration copy of TheTest is available from www.thecourse.us/TestInstructions.htm.
  • A copy of a Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 3rd Edition.
  • Workbooks totaling approximately 500 pages, containing a hard copy of the instructor’s presentation material, 500 exam-like questions distributed throughout the course material, and a class project with nine exercises.
  • Access to our online library of some 36 related academic papers. (See www.TheCourse.us/Students/Index.htm)
  • An ‘Answer Book’ containing answers, rationale and citations to the 500 questions in the workbooks. It also contains note paper and tear-out sheets for marking answers.
  • Access to our bulletin board for communications with instructors and students.

Instructors

Several instructors have been qualified to conduct the intensive class and are prepared to travel within North America.

Rates

Return to the main On-Site page to link to rates, or to contact us. Hybrid classes are subject to travel time and cost.

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