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

uopeople.edu

381–390 of 483 posts

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

#381
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At large tech co that pays well, writing is very important for career progression: 1. You often have to write design docs to communicate what you are making and gather feedback. These documents if badly written won't be as well received. 2. At many companies, you have a million things to work on, so in a way, you get to choose who you work with at some level. If someone communicates badly to the point of annoyance, i…

I am at "large tech co" > 1. You often have to write design docs to communicate what you are making and gather feedback. These documents if badly written won't be as well received. In my company this is entirely up to the culture of the org. Some parts of the company will require it. Other parts treat it as a formality (i.e. few will read it). And other parts don't require it at all. > At many companies, you have a m…

Sounds like a great, healthy company to work for. /s

> You write too much. No one will read what you wrote" - almost always delivered after I write an email that has 4+ paragraphs.

Writing well does not mean writing a lot. Often it can mean the opposite. The same thing written plainly in fewer words is often better than the opposite. Apply Occam's razor to your writing and shave away the extraneous.

Also 15 years isn't that long of a career time, and eventually, you want to get to the staff engineer level where the promotion committee dynamic applies. Also at big tech co similar promo packet stuff happens for sr. management too.

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

#382
post #53

I've graduated from this university with a bachelor's in Computer Science last year. Overall I had a good experience. I found the curriculum to be on a weaker side. I was interested in various things about computers when I was young, so it felt like I knew half of the material. While studying, I was working at the company part-time. At the normal study pace, you should be ready to put up to 30 hours per week when tak…

>In reality, it took me half of that time. Usually 10 hours per week.

I got a bachelor in a normal university while having a full time job in the last two years. I see no issue about this point.

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

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presume that my accomplishments stand on my own, and the only thing getting in my way is that I don't qualify for a VISA under NAFTA. What I'd need would be a > Baccalaureate or Licenciatura degree; or Post-Secondary Diploma or Post Secondary Certificate and three years' experience. Now you and I know this is pretty much just a sheet of paper, but what's the cheapest/easiest way for someone who already has profession…

> but what's the cheapest/easiest way for someone who already has professional accomplishments to get that sheet of paper? WGU might be that. it can be incredibly cheap (compared to your average bachelors degree) if completed quickly and I believe it's regionally accredited, so I imagine it qualifies you. Now what a hiring manager will think of it is debatable.

WGU only admits people already living in the United States. I'm not sure if it has a citizenship or residency requirement.

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

#384

Hello to HN in general and those who know more about the University of the People. I have a question... I've been a Web Developer for 7+ years. I'm in my mid-30's. I never graduated college, and definitely went for the wrong reasons. I'm fully employed, but I've always wanted to land an engineering degree (software engineering most likely), and I'm wondering if this University would be a good option. I know little ab…

It really depends on your goals. If you're simply wanting to complete a degree or learn more about the field (like myself) then it's a great opportunity. If you're looking to pursue pure CS research, it might be better to go elsewhere.

There are plenty of students around your age range. There are plenty who attend school full-time (2 courses per 8-week term) while also working full-time. Some are also raising families in the process. So, definitely feasible.

If you have more specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

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

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't word this in a non-snarky way, but it's a genuine question: Why do you believe that college can teach making subjective decisions?

Because moral philosophy and epistemology have been a thing for well over 4,000 years, and college could easily teach the basics.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'teach the basics'. Certainly, college can provide the texts and an environment where other people are interested in the same subjects. If that's all you mean I agree, though it's far from the only institution where that's possible.

The trouble, I think, is that making ethical judgements requires wrestling with ethical conundra oneself, and that is not something a professor with 300 undergrads to teach can provide any useful guidance to the majority of them for. The idea of accurately assessing performance is even more unrealistic. Maybe it's a function of the kind of university I attended, but the vast majority of my fellow students who were taking these 'subjective' courses were simply gaming a rubric in their writing. And this is true even of those who were genuinely interested in the subject matter, they saw it as a price of admission.

Which seems to me like an impediment to actually learning what was traditionally taught on more of an apprenticeship than an industrial model. If your own undergraduate experience was different, I'd be curious what your university did differently.

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

#386
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different to the following? "Using counterfeit money is arguably OK because some of the people who use it might need it, or see the need to earn a living as a needless waste of time as long as there's idiots who'll accept fake currency".

The issue with counterfeit money is that it devalues the worth of all other money. But given who holds the majority of the money being devalued, given the extent that money is already being devalued for the benefit of some at the expense of others, and given that the idea of taking a relative to wealth portion from the group for the benefit of the poor is a form of redistribution the group already engages in regardle…

Plenty of people can construct arguments that breaking the rules are acceptable when they do it.

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

#387

In all fairness, UoPeople has afforded me the opportunity to get an American education that is accredited and also transferable to other regular universities without leaving my home country. The most interesting part is the numerous scholarships available can be easily accessed regardless of wherever you might come from.

Why do you need scholarships for a free university?

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

#388
post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would someone ask? The information is available. And if I see a degree from a university I don't recognize and then discover it's unaccredited, sure, that's a red flag. You can't get employment in my industry without a degree from a regionally accredited university.

What industry are you in? I guess it isn't CS, because you don't even need a degree here. And the context of this thread is CS.

Software Engineering, and in my industry you have to have a degree. You simply won't get hired otherwise.

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

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because moral philosophy and epistemology have been a thing for well over 4,000 years, and college could easily teach the basics.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'teach the basics'. Certainly, college can provide the texts and an environment where other people are interested in the same subjects. If that's all you mean I agree, though it's far from the only institution where that's possible. The trouble, I think, is that making ethical judgements requires wrestling with ethical conundra oneself, and that is not something a professor with 300 unde…

> making ethical judgements requires wrestling with ethical conundra oneself, and that is not something a professor with 300 undergrads to teach can provide any useful guidance to the majority of them for.

I don't remember a lot from my undergraduate course on Ethics, but I do recall that literally in the first lecture, the professor presented us with questions about things like how should one behave or treat others, and then presented us with "edge cases" that directly challenged what most of us had answered.

As a young person, it's very easy to think that our problems are novel and unique, and the ethics course very clearly showed that many of these problems are millennia old, with people having given names to better-realized versions of what most of us think of as the way we should behave, and that people have spent lifetimes of work writing and arguing about the ramifications and "edge cases" of such philosophy.

I feel like the biggest benefit from the course was not any particular ethical guidance, but rather the challenging of our beliefs, and the realization that these things _are_ hard, and are not something we can trivially answer with something that fits on a Hallmark card.

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

#390
Hi, I recall my first day at UoPeople, was like a small paradise. The module was exceptional, not until I met realism in form Plagiarism and bias peers it was a knock down. Some Professors are a bit unkind without understanding the background and nature of some student. It's treating all animals the same way without considering their innocence, size, situation and intention.

Howbeit, I 'have enjoyed the company and experience with good and positive professors and students. Thank you for raising the bars of education and professionalism

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