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A master’s in supply chain management
Lt. Col. Randy Nickel and Maj. Andrew Budzien are the Marine Corps service members who were selected to attend the supply chain fellowship program this academic year. Nickel, a supply officer who has served for almost 28 years, and Budzien, a logistics officer who has served for 14 years, said the fellowship experience has been extremely valuable.
Budzien said he particularly enjoyed the case studies and simulations to show how they could apply what they learned to their work in the Marine Corps.
“It was fun to bounce ideas off our group members and tackle a problem as a team,” he said. “In the case of the real-world examples, you actually get to see the results, you know the solutions that were applied, and you get to see how you stack up.”
Nickel highlighted a prescriptive analytics course he completed that is part of the graduate certificate in business analytics he also will receive.
“The methods being taught on the software we used to do data analysis and data mining techniques can absolutely be applied in the military,” Nickel said.
Nickel and Budzien are writing a research paper that explores the challenges of executing supply chain logistics and distribution in the island chains of the Pacific Ocean.
“The entire Marine Corps is looking at the challenge of executing supply chain operations and distribution in a contested logistics environment,” Nickel said. “The Marine Corps and the Navy together aren’t going to be able to solve it alone. We need all the services and the capabilities that those services bring, as well as industry best practices along with new technological capabilities to develop solutions to this problem.”
A master’s in adult education
Nelson and Sgt. Maj. Dana Richmond are among the fellows who spent the past year at the Army Sergeants Major Academy. Richmond said the curriculum in the program made her think outside the box.
“It provoked critical thinking, and it enhanced collaboration with peers and classmates,” she said. “It just highlighted how we didn’t know about how people learn and why people do things the way they do. It opened our eyes to a lot of different learning processes.”
After her next duty, teaching the Sergeants Major Course, Richmond would like to work in K-12 education or teach in higher education.
Nelson said a course on distance education design gave him the chance to create a lesson on a learning platform, and he hopes to use that knowledge to create his own about processing grief. Overall, he said, the master’s program has prepared him to teach adults.
“This Penn State program has deepened my understanding of all the different theories of education and learning that will help make me a better instructor and identify different students’ needs,” Nelson said.
Find out more about what military students can expect learning online through Penn State World Campus.
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