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University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

uopeople.edu

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Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#231

Post by mathnmusic »

idoby wrote: post #217
pugio wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer: Most of what I say here has caveats and qualifications – hard to capture full nuance in a comment's space.) One of the distinguishing features of computers is easy simulation. Humans learn well by direct, tight, interaction with a system – poking at a thing to see how it works. Tight feedback loops are how we quickly build intuitions. Explorable Explanations [0] are a great extant example of what I mean,…

Literally all of these ideas are ones I've had for years in the education space. I'm glad someone is actually doing them.

You might also be interested in what I'm building at https://learnawesome.org : A rich learning map of educational resources, augmented with tools like spaced-repetition or notes with bidirectional-linking and project-based learning cohorts with peers and mentors.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#232

Post by mathnmusic »

ncfausti wrote: post #96
pugio wrote: post #71

I took a semester of courses from UofP. It had a wonderful diversity of ages, genders, and nationalities. Interacting with those people through peer assignments was interesting, and I applaud what they're trying to do. Ultimately, however, I found the entire thing way too tedious - full of the classic "make-work" and silly hoops. The level of pedagogy was very basic. I dream of (and am actively working towards) a day…

I've been thinking about this as well. There is so much potential given the vast number of free and incredible resources online. Lmk if you're interested in working on something together.

I started building this last year with the same realization: https://learnawesome.org

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#233

Post by eikenberry »

cguess wrote: post #103
eikenberry wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't restricted to untraditional schools. At least one of our local state universities have stopped accepting credits from the community colleges due to the practice of transferring for the final couple years. Might be something similar going on here. It might be that they want the degree to represent the full 4 year experience at the school or it might just be the money. The cynic in me prefers the latter.

A degree says something about the student. I completely understand why universities would not want to accept credits from school below their own qualification level. If they confer a degree to a student that student is representing the university's education quality to everyone that hires them or works with them. Spending three years at a community college and expecting the credits to transfer to a major university m…

I agree except for the fact that these are both state run public schools, part of the same state school system. Citizens should be able to switch between them freely based on the needs of the time and how they wish to pursue their education.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#234

Post by stormdennis »

dart600 wrote: post #33

Hi. I attended this school and then got accepted to another more standard institution, which I applied at the same time to. The new institution, learning I had been attending U of the P, promptly told me that U of the P credits would not transfer. Universal transferability in question, I opted out. I did enjoy meeting people from all walks of life, all over the world. However, I also saw a grossly wide range of educa…

The saying goes: copying from one person is plagiarism, copying from many is research.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#235

Post by djpr »

Zircom wrote: post #57

So this seems like a good time to ask, does anyone have experience with University of London's online degree and how US employers feel about it? I've been eyeing it for a couple years now and was wondering if anyone either has experience directly with this program, or at least can speak more to how US employer's feel about degrees from overseas. https://london.ac.uk/sites/default/files/prospectuses/comput... https://…

University of London includes among the most prestigious colleges in the world: King's College of London, London School of Economics, and Goldsmiths. They have been doing distance learning since for decades, if not longer if I remember correctly.

The one thing to note, at least when I took it in early 2000, is that its tough. I signed-up for their business/finance program and it was quite the course workload.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#236

Post by tgv »

factchecker01 wrote: post #2

Is UoPeople completely free? Are there any costs? While we have removed most of the costs associated with attending a university, we do still have some fees to help us keep UoPeople running, and take care of all the admin and processing work we have to do for all of our students. To cover these fees we ask for: A one time non-refundable application fee of $60 and, For undergraduates: an assessment fee of $100 per cou…

It's not free if you want a (partial) degree: https://www.uopeople.edu/tuition-free/processing-fees/

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#237

Post by bonoboTP »

themodelplumber wrote: post #40
dart600 wrote: post #33

Hi. I attended this school and then got accepted to another more standard institution, which I applied at the same time to. The new institution, learning I had been attending U of the P, promptly told me that U of the P credits would not transfer. Universal transferability in question, I opted out. I did enjoy meeting people from all walks of life, all over the world. However, I also saw a grossly wide range of educa…

> could not grasp the idea of plagiarism being unethical I remember experiencing this at a private religious university. At the time, my hyper-religious mind was blown to see students outright cheating in the Testing Center. Since then I've been exposed to additional perspectives on plagiarism. It is an extremely deep and nuanced topic. A few years out of school, I ended up mentoring and then teaching college student…

It depends, like many things, this is very nuanced.

In my time at university, I knew many capable and bright people who cheated once in a while, but only in well-picked cases, not as their general policy. For example if there was a mandatory bullshit subject, or something that they regarded as worthless waste of time etc. and rather spent the time on the important things.

I think it's a very naive shielded "good boy" view of the world that there is some simple rigid moral rule like never lie, never cheat etc. It may work in a benevolent environment like rich protective parents and never dealing with adversity. One has to develop one's own sense of justice.

This can be easily misconstrued. The point isn't to believe in nothing, be exploitative and selfish. Rather, be mindful and don't just blindly follow someone's bullshit. Indeed much of the purpose of education is to kill this ability and to certify the capability for blind obedience and jumping through hoops without ever questioning it.

One guy I mentioned in the above parts is actually really honest in general and sometimes I wonder how he gets away with it in corporate environments, saying straight nos, not putting up with colleagues criticizing him for working too fast etc. I've usually been much more careful but he's more successful. And it's an art of picking your battles, refusing bullshit, sometimes openly sometimes secretly (at least don't lie to yourself), sometimes making a stink, sometimes just complaining to fellow students, knowing the unwritten lore of which courses are unofficially considered "cheats allowed" by most talented students and probably the teacher included.

The world is complicated, but for shielded kids with underdeveloped social skills it can be hard to learn how widespread "rule bending" is in real adult life and how much this is basically known, expected and part of life.

Again, this is not to say be selfish and disregard others. Rather, think for yourself, know when something is bullshit (there is lots of fancy official institutional stamped-and-signed authoritative bullshit out there, often coming from people who know it's bullshit but either don't care of feel their hands are tied).

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#238

Post by Melting_Harps »

themodelplumber wrote: post #40
dart600 wrote: post #33

Hi. I attended this school and then got accepted to another more standard institution, which I applied at the same time to. The new institution, learning I had been attending U of the P, promptly told me that U of the P credits would not transfer. Universal transferability in question, I opted out. I did enjoy meeting people from all walks of life, all over the world. However, I also saw a grossly wide range of educa…

> could not grasp the idea of plagiarism being unethical I remember experiencing this at a private religious university. At the time, my hyper-religious mind was blown to see students outright cheating in the Testing Center. Since then I've been exposed to additional perspectives on plagiarism. It is an extremely deep and nuanced topic. A few years out of school, I ended up mentoring and then teaching college student…

> At the time, my hyper-religious mind was blown to see students outright cheating in the Testing Center.

Then you would have lost your mind during some of my upper division STEM courses, where the normal class average is in the mid 40% on the high end and high 30s most semesters. We had a class average of ~83% in one of them, and when the professor was in total disbelief about how blatant they were being (several didn't even try not to get 100%) he got upset and decided to stop re-using the previous year's exams that were circulating amongst the Frats/Sororities and the class average dropped back down to low 30% for the last 2 Midterms and finals. This personally helped me as I got my average to a B+ range after my Lab scores were included.

Academia, be it online of IRL, it always going to have that element of corruption, there has just been so much money to be made that it drew the worst from other sectors into its administrations. Eric Weinstein goes into the depth about the artificial scarcity within STEM that was created in the US to favour a 'race to the bottom' approach to wages since the the 90s, and he went to both MIT and Harvard!

My best professors were often disillusioned and jaded after having been in Academia for a few decades, one even having to petition and protest to the Dean of their departments to be paid for having taught back to back Summer courses during the budget cuts. A person who went to Oxford for his BSc, no less...

All of this is taking place while hearing about some high ranking official or executive is in the process of being disgraced for having plagiarized their Masters or PhD thesis decades ago, which begs the question how the hell did it pass back then? Don't they all have to go through dissertations defenses and have academic advisors who are PhD or Post Docs in the very same department?

I won't even talk about the administrative led favoritism and vetting they did for foreign students during my time there, either.

I'm a proponent of of Online Learning in general, especially as its disrupting the Brick and Mortar University exploitation model; you can now get a Masters in Electrical Engineering from CU Boulder entirely via Coursera for $20k with installments and Financial Aid available where applicable, whereas that's not even the total cost of a single year of Undergraduate studies there. Which really sucks for incoming students, but could be a net boon if they can start reaching the undergrad degrees in time now that most Universities are having to do that due to COVID.

I just think its worth keeping in mind that this institution (academia) doesn't deserve to be regarded anything more than the corrupt money-pit that it is, which occasionally avails itself to allow brilliant minds to excel in their field, after having exploited them to publish and use their labs until the can make a name for themselves and operate outside of it. I just think about the wasted Human capital, talent, and drive that you only have when you're young, naive and idealistic and determined to make make a difference in the World.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#239

Post by bryanrasmussen »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #119
khawkins wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is under the assumption that you see college is a program of self-betterment and not busy work for receiving a degree that says you can have a middle-class job. It feels like even the universities themselves see it as the latter these days.

But if you can't do the middle-class job because you can't write, the piece of paper will only get you so far. It may get you an entry-level job, but you probably won't get much in the way of promotions. So even from that perspective, plagiarism isn't helpful.

If you have the skills to get the degree with 8 hours of work per day or to get the degree with 2 hours of work per day, getting the degree with the 2 hours of work does not mean you will not be able to do the job which will require you to do the 8 hours of work when you graduate.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#240

Post by Melting_Harps »

a-nikolaev wrote: post #149
infogulch wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with plagiarism isn't best characterized as some sort of power struggle between teachers and students via bullshit assignments. The purpose of learning to write is to make yourself a formidable communicator. If you can independently analyze a new topic to learn something new and apply the results of those learnings towards a particular goal, you can be amazingly effective in everything you aim for. But if…

I think, plagiarism also harms the character. If instead of doing things right and put effort, you cheat, eventually you learn that doing things right does not worth it. And then it becomes a personal trait, so to speak.

> I think, plagiarism also harms the character. If instead of doing things right and put effort, you cheat, eventually you learn that doing things right does not worth it. And then it becomes a personal trait, so to speak.

Welcome to the underlying systemic problem with some of Society's more critical institutions.

Fraud and corruption have become institutionalized, and lying and cheating are just the name of the game.

Explain to me how Banks got away with what they have if not fir this very root issue; blow up the economy because of reckless, risky investments: Bonus, bailouts, and golden parachutes for all.

Default on your student loans, utility bill or car payment? We'll ruin your credit for all of your miserable existence, while you slave away anyway because the former cannot be expunged.

I'm so glad I borrowed from family and friends instead of banks or the State. It was hard paying them back, but if I had to choose a creditor of last resort I think I made the right choice.

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