University of the People is changing the way we face our educational system. Firstly by showing that education is freedom and should not be the privilege of a few. Secondly, by showing that the traditional educational model is outdated and not enough to keep up with the changes of modern world. It is accredited and I saw some people saying the level is very basic. Well, it might seem like that, but it really gives one the basics they need for a given degree. In today´s world it is impossible to expect to learn everything in the class. It is more important to know how to filter and deal with the astonishing amount of information we can get in a safe, critic and ethical way.
University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs
471–480 of 483 posts
Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs
#472Earlier quoted context omitted.
In theory, it would be good to have a part of our educational system which teaches people how to think. But what does that look like? I'd say that boils down to two things: logic and evidence. The vast majority of philosophy classes are absolutely garbage at teaching either of those things. Sure, in theory, logic is part of philosophy, but in any of the philosophy classes I've taken, we didn't talk about logic. The t…
I agree completely on your critique of profit motive at universities, and think it particularly applies to state-owned institutions. There is a false notion that profit is an automatic good, when that is clearly not the case. There is more to critical thinking than formal logic, I'd argue. The classroom format of a typical humanities college course has a lot to do with this. For example I would argue that a person wi…
> There is more to critical thinking than formal logic, I'd argue. The classroom format of a typical humanities college course has a lot to do with this. For example I would argue that a person without any background in the classics and some basic theology is going to struggle to get much from Paradise Lost. It's dense, difficult, and you have to know some things going into it to pick up on the nuances. But 30 people discussing it collaboratively 2 or 3 times per week, with the expert professor's guidance when they stumble on certain parts makes for a lot of interesting discussion. Thirty different people will pick up on thirty different bits and pieces in every classroom session.
Well, if you look at literary criticism, there are a bunch of different ways to do it. The oldest ways, such as authorial intent or historical criticism, aren't that divorced from history as described in my previous post, or from just normal old formal logic. But a lot of the ways popular now, such as Marxist criticism or feminist criticism, are forms of reader-response criticism. In the worst cases, this sort of criticism can be used as a pulpit for professors to pass on their ideologies, which is deeply problematic--rather than teaching students how to think for themselves, it's teaching them to think like the instructor. In the best case, it can teach students how to evaluate literature in relation to their own goals--but I would argue that this is just an application of formal logic. The reality, in my limited experience, is neither of these extremes--classes I've taken and my friends have taken have mostly been "these are some of the ways people have thought about literature"--it's more about passing on information than about teaching how to think.
As I've said before, there's a lot of value in giving people information, I just don't think it supports the "college is about teaching people how to think" narrative.
That said, I'll give two caveats here:
1. My own formal training isn't in literary criticism, and beyond some general-ed requirements and second-hand experience from friends/partners in literature programs, I have very little experience here. My impressions here may very well be off-base, which is why I didn't mention literary programs in my previous post. A notable bias in my previous post is that I talked most about the fields I'm most familiar with.
2. Up to this point, I've basically been speaking about teaching facts versus teaching how to think as if they were two different, mutually exclusive things, but it's worth noting that that's not quite true. It's true that simply giving a student a fact doesn't teach them how to evaluate whether something is a fact, but if you give a student enough facts, eventually they come across discrepancies and begin to experience cognitive dissonance. Over vast swaths of facts resulting in a few discrepancies, a student will eventually begin to come up with their own framework for evaluating discrepancies, and hopefully that framework will look a lot like formal logic and evidence collection. I'd argue that this is a very, very inefficient way to teach students how to think, but eventually I think it does work.
Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs
#473Earlier 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.
The cynical anti-intellectualism in this thread is bracing. All part of the zeitgeist I guess. News is fake. Science is fake. Schools are barriers. Everything is subjective, objective reality is nonexistent. How do we have productive disagreements going forward?
Could you please define anti intellectualism by your standards?
To me, anti intellectual notions would be just if the initial intentions of a discussion were based on a very rich topic and were dissolved in some manner. I beg a brief and graceful peer review for the poor submissions that likely seek solace in the isolation of a virus infected planet.
And at end. In my intention to post, I was solely being altruistic, informing whomever reading that if they were to read this article and consider getting a degree from U of the P that they should consider the risk. Just a gesture. However, I think my writing style might have been misunderstood as some semblance of pseudo intellectual attempt or such. Do know, for the record,that as the 1st to reply to the post, my intention was to inform.
But I am intrigued and inspired. How about we both try to post an article that invites our versions of intellectualism! Ready set go.
Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs
#474Hi. 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…
> Since then I've been exposed to additional perspectives on plagiarism. It is an extremely deep and nuanced topic.
There are deep and nuanced ways in which people tell themselves and others how ethical they think they are taking credit for other people's work.
It's not really something that is up for discussion whether it's bad. The rules are pretty clear, and for serious higher education the punishments are extremely harsh. And deservedly so.
What does it even matter what it says on your diploma if you cheated your way to getting it?
These people might pat themselves on the chest for being oh so clever in subverting the system or whatever, but what does it really mean? That you're good at cheating, unwilling to do the work, and gladly take credit for other people's work. In other words, being a useless turd.
You could have been studying astronomy, physics, math ... but instead all that you really proved is that you're good at cheating.
Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs
#475Earlier 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…
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.
> 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.
That's not really up for discussion though.
The degree itself will become utterly meaningless extremely quickly if we would actually generally accept that kind of reasoning.
The whole reason the degree is worth something is because it's perceived as a token of you having done the work and self-betterment etc.
It's not an empty token that allows you to have a middle class job. In practice it might be, but as soon as you openly accept that is just what it is, and only what it is, then you only get cheaters.
Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cynical anti-intellectualism in this thread is bracing. All part of the zeitgeist I guess. News is fake. Science is fake. Schools are barriers. Everything is subjective, objective reality is nonexistent. How do we have productive disagreements going forward?
> "How do we have productive disagreements going forward?" We are barely having any of those right now in the greater society. As long as we can't argue facts, objective-reality and do so without feelings, we'll continue descending into anarchy and divisiveness.
US is "the greater society" now??
Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Any science or truth exists only at the whims of the social order of the day. This is not objectively true but I understand what you're trying to say. I'm sad to hear that your experience of science and truth has been only that which society has given you, or at the least that you feel that others are only experiencing it in that way
This is a crucial argument. Do you have a link to something that supports your statement that “this is not objectively true”? I think it would help a lot in these debates.
Yeah it's called "The Barstool Experiment". Look it up :-)
The short summary is: Two people sitting in a bar, discussing how there is no objective truth, or that "science or truth exists only at the whims of the social order" and stuff like that, all day long. And then a third person comes along and smashes their brains with a barstool. In some variations, the first two people are a scientist and a priest. But the third person is just some dude with a barstool.
Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs
#478Earlier 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…
> Plagiarizing some work doesn't really hurt the work, it hurts you Except learning isn't really the reason most go. It's to get a well paid job at the end of it.
> > Plagiarizing some work doesn't really hurt the work, it hurts you
> Except learning isn't really the reason most go. It's to get a well paid job at the end of it.
There's no contradiction here.
Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs
#479Earlier 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…
>Plagiarizing some work doesn't really hurt the work, it hurts you. and a job well done is its own reward right? i think it's very pretentious to say that to a person who's attending school in order to improve their lot in life (because credentials count for so much); that what's more important than the credential is some abstract notion of improvement. you might as well cast it in terms of sin and salvation.
> a person who's attending school in order to improve their lot in life (because credentials count for so much)
If every person at the school had this reasoning, the credentials wouldn't count for anything.
The credentials only count for something if enough of the people graduating are actually fulfilling this promise of self improvement in the subject of their studies.
The cheaters are literally freeloading off the prestige of the credentials produced by the people who do put in the effort. If that group of people did not exist, the credentials would be useless to the cheaters as well.
Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs
#480Earlier quoted context omitted.
The math courses were surprisingly difficult for me, but in general, quite good. I spent way too much time on College Algebra (I kid you not, like 20+ hours every week--the pace is insane, they give you like 20-40 pages to read, and a number of assignments). I'm happy I went through them, but yea, MATH1201 was kinda difficult and MATH1280 was super boring (but not as difficult to be honest).
A fellow student at UoPeople here. I too spent an enormous amount of time on College Algebra. I did nothing but math, morning till evening, all day every day. I dreamt about math at night. And guess what? It was one of the best periods of my life. I fell in love with math.
Yep, same here... I also thoroughly enjoyed it, and was deeply dissatisfied with how easy was the final test, which for me tested very little. Seeing as they do not allow a calculator, that limits a lot of possibilities for problems on the test.