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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

#71

Post by pugio »

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 where the computer's potential as a new educational medium is fully realized, rather than the current parade of attempts at transplanting a brick and mortar classroom into a remote asynchronous delivery system.

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

#72

Post by uopeoplestudent »

mehrdadn wrote: post #61
fortran77 wrote: post #56

I looked at their CS degree. Just one semester of Calculus?

Link: https://www.uopeople.edu/programs/cs/degrees/computer-scienc... Their data structures & algorithms course: https://my.uopeople.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=45606&chapterid... I'm more worried about the the apparent lack of basic algorithms (Dijkstra? DP?) than not having more semesters of calculus.

Algorithms is a separate course.

https://my.uopeople.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=45606&chapterid...

Note that this syllabus is somewhat out of date. The second textbook link is a bad link. I can't find any material on the (unofficial) CS Discord about updates to the course.

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

#73

Post by themodelplumber »

infogulch wrote: post #49
themodelplumber wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

> Power struggle between teachers and students via...

Uh, did I say that, or were you intuiting? Not exactly a learner's approach :D

> Plagiarizing some work doesn't really hurt the work, it hurts you.

Except when it benefits you? This is the subjective perception I was talking about. That their mindset differs does not instantly make them wrong, especially when you can throw a dime out the window and hit an educated professional who falls short of the best (heaven forbid the "perfect") ethical standard.

Ethics is, and should be, hard. If you put words into my mouth, is your position ethical? This stuff requires the ability to stick around, listen, learn, and stay in the game, moreso if you plan to claim the high ground.

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

#75

Post by mehrdadn »

uopeoplestudent wrote: post #72
mehrdadn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link: https://www.uopeople.edu/programs/cs/degrees/computer-scienc... Their data structures & algorithms course: https://my.uopeople.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=45606&chapterid... I'm more worried about the the apparent lack of basic algorithms (Dijkstra? DP?) than not having more semesters of calculus.

Algorithms is a separate course. https://my.uopeople.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=45606&chapterid... Note that this syllabus is somewhat out of date. The second textbook link is a bad link. I can't find any material on the (unofficial) CS Discord about updates to the course.

Ah, it's not on the curriculum, it's an elective: https://www.uopeople.edu/programs/cs/degrees/computer-scienc...

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

#76

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#77

Post by themodelplumber »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #52
themodelplumber wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The problem is that these people will plagiarize their previous employers' code when working on your codebase and your code when they move on to their next employer or will also plagiarize FOSS code without worrying about the niceties of licensing. Their perceptions are one thing but the legal reality makes these sort of people hazardous to employ.

Except when their boss hired them because they're clever and can solve extant work problems (huge workload) via a happily-localized scope of concern. I've seen this easily placed back on the employer. Non-FOSS versions happen in various industries all the time.

You can make the argument that legal teams exist to relieve the very potent pressure of this uncomfortable situation for those on both ends. There are truths here that flow right up to the top and all the way to the bottom. Attacking those perspectives is too hard. Better in some ways to set up social norms around it. Thus, lawyers, the concept of win-win negotiation, etc. Just when your anger is boiling over you learn that the C-levels want you to drop the moral crusade.

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

#78

Post by throwgeorge »

airstrike wrote: post #63
throwgeorge wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> in order to improve their lot in life (because credentials count for so much); Those credentials only matter insofar as they describe the likely caliber of the alumni that come from that particular school. Being a terrible student isn't going to help the value of your degree a whole lot...

truly all of the people that receive college degrees and out earn their high school analogues bring so much value to their degrees... i think you have the causality backwards.

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

#80

Post by d0gbread »

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…

Are you willing to share more about what you're working on? It sounds interesting.

One language app I tried for a few minutes was a VR app that put you, for example, on a train, and you had to have a relevant conversation. It was cool, not sure how effective because the GearVR I used at the time made me sick too quickly.

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