THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PEOPLE (UoPeople)

HELLOW everyone. 

Here is a brief of this new university that is aiming at pulling down the walls of poverty and cultural impediments. (I shared something on that in another network about it a fortnight ago.)

UoPeople was founded by Shai Reshef in 2009.

Mr Reshef is an Israeli entrepreneur but who was also educated in USA.

The two streams offered are Computer Science and Business Administration, the two streams that are in demand in the world today.

You can complete a bachelor’s degree in both fields – or if you want a shorter programme, try the associate degree.

NO TUTION FEE

The fascinating thing about this programmes is (as Mr Reshef said in his ted.com talk … Check ted.com), NO TUITION FEE is charged.

There are five (5) terms – where students can study anywhere and anytime.

EXAM FEE

The only fee a student will pay is the EXAM FEE of US$100 (K285) – for each course taken.

Lecturers in top universities around the world are also invited and offering their notes for free for the students of UoP.

COMPUTER SCIENCE PROGRAMME

I have looked at the CS courses and I can say the courses are standard – as would be in any top university in the world.

Students will learn:

-      Programming 1

-      Programming 2

-      Computer Systems

-      Databases 1

-      Databases 2

-      Web Programming 1

-      Web Programming 2

-      Operating Systems 1

-      Operating Systems 2

-      Software Engineering 1

-      Software Engineering 2

-      Operating Systems 1

-      Operating Systems 2

-      And so on.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

For more information, go to http://uopeople.edu/ …

You can download a catalogue which has information about the courses and other stuff.

NOTE: This is a privilege for those who cannot get into university due to lack of money. (That was Mr Reshef’s main aim when he founded UoPeople. He wanted to make university studies accessible to as many students as possible. He wants it to be a right, not the privilege of a few.)

But note that some students would need to upgrade their high school knowledge to prepare them for the programmes offered by UoPeople.

CS courses may need you to upgrade your knowledge in Maths to handle concepts taught there.

I had a conversation with a Maths tutor a fortnight ago and he said some students struggle in CS (particularly in programming) because they lack the essential Maths knowledge.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND PASSION

YOU can learn knowledge and skills in a training programme, or at college.

However, how much passion you have for a task depends on you responsibly stoking the flames yourself – so to speak.

How feverish it is going to eat you up will depend on you too – how much time and effort you are putting into the task. If you do not put in the time and effort, you will lose it.

If you have no passion at all, find someone else who has the passion about what you are doing (or want to do) and learn from him/her.

Passion is contagious too – like most habits.

You stick around with someone who is passionate about what you want to master, and you will soon become passionate too.

(If you stick around with people who do not have the passion, your wish will slowly quiver over time into nothingness.)

When you have caught the passion from someone else, your responsibility is for you to spend time regularly to keep the fire burning, so to speak.

Your teacher will not be with you forever.

If you keep the passion up, you will pass it on to others who may want to follow the same path as you.

If you do not keep it up, you will lose it.

And the other aspiring people will not have the chance to catch it from you.

WHEN YOU KNOW YOU HAVE PASSION

THE truly creative person who puts in the time and effort will have those moments where s/he would like to run from work back home where s/he can get back to the writing desk to pen more lines, or continue working on the tune s/he started the day before.

S/he can continue the effort for one hour or two hours or more and still find the energy and urge to continue to go on – and then realises s/he must stop or s/he will not stay awake for work the day after.

If you have come across such moments, it means you are passionate about what you are doing.

And be mindful – as one bestselling author said recently, “The success or failure that follows when you try selling your work is inconsequential!”

In other words, your world is creating stuff – because you were born to create stuff, not merely use what others created.

Whether the created stuff will be marketable today, tomorrow or in a decade’s time must be of no concern to you.

So, the message is: Continue with your passion regardless of the benefits!

(NB. If you think that is too tough, then you might change the type of stuff you are creating, and apply your creativity to something else, where you can easily market your products. And that may require you to learn new skills. If you want success, then start learning.)    

USING YOUR SMARTPHONE TO LEARN AND CREATE

AS someone who desires to learn and master different skills, make use of the capabilities your smartphones have.

Here are suggestions:

1. Download language (French, German or Spanish) video/audio clips that you can play and let them run will you are busy doing something else.

2. Download videos of speakers on different topics you are interested in and let them run while you are doing something else, or just relaxing.

(Ted.com, the website, is full of videos on different topics – languages, education, writing or drones.)

3. Download creative music work (like the progression of guitar chords captured on a camera) and when you are somewhere else, play the file and listen. And try to – in your mind – or with another musical instrument, add another layer to the music.

If you keep on doing that for weeks, you can have parts for the guitar, lead guitar, flute/violin and keyboard done up.

The point again is: Technology – like a reasonable smartphone - is making it very easy for us today to LEARN or CREATE stuff.   

A LION HELPS YOU WIN

(Leading on from the Lion and Cat comparison from yesterday.)

IF you want to win a game, find a lion of a captain to lead the team.

In my view, Brad Fittler and Johnathan Thurston are the best lions in Rugby League – they call and roar on the field.

The lions help keep the spirit of the team up.

Simple cats cannot do that.

MY THOUGHT: THE CAT AND THE LION

MY THOUGHT: THE CAT AND THE LION … The cat and the lion are in the same family, Felidei.

However the cat meows and is small – the lion roars and is big.

The cats usually run from dogs.

The dogs usually run from lions.  

THE BEST TEACHERS

I WAS thinking about this lately. The best teachers are not the ones who never had problems with learning.

They are the ones who may have struggled with (or even failed) a concept or subject but never gave up and put in the effort which saw them overcoming the hurdle.

Because they know what it is like to go from failure to success, they can make many more success stories in the lives of their students.

Someone who never really struggled with learning will not make a good teacher.

(The same goes for good parenting also. The best parents are not necessarily the righteous ones but those who struggled and then make their life better by putting in the effort. They will be better teachers to their children or others that they are in charge of.)

CONFIRMATION OF AN ASPECT BY A MASTER

IF you are a writer (or an aspiring one) and are putting in the hours and effort, it is likely that you will learn many things “by experience”.

Learning a bit from different books on writing fiction or non-fiction – or whichever you are concentrating on - from books by successful writers may help you polish up your work to be publishable.

The experience of putting in the effort and hours will also teach you things that no book will.

It is interesting that I learned something (I will not mention it now) in the years of writing creative fiction and reading books by masters like F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Harper Lee and Pearl Buck, to name a few.

That aspect of writing that I learned by experience was confirmed by one of the masters. As far as I am concerned, that aspect has never been mentioned in any book on writing, or by any contemporary writer.

And then I realised that the master who confirmed that for me died in 1966, long before I was born.

That is an amazing moment in a working writer – or a creative person, in general.

I mean: You plod on and two or three years later, you read a book that was written long before you were born and it mentions the very aspect you thought should have been mentioned but was never by contemporaries, for reasons unknown.    

YOUR GREATEST ASSET IN EXAM

Your greatest asset in exam is not luck!

It is your preparation. Soldiers do that – they always prepare for an operation. Doctors do it. Sports men and women do that too. And good students always do that!

So, before going for an exam, prepare well.

Spend sufficient time each day on each subject – and in each subject, go over different topics, not only the ones that you love.

In your preparation, if possible, SPEND ONE HOUR on two or three different subjects EACH DAY. That is, ONE HOUR hour for English, ONE HOUR for Maths, and ONE HOUR for Business.

Then pick up another two or three subjects on the next day and do the same. Spend ONE HOUR on each of the subjects.  

You know, you only do Grade 12 exams once in life.

You will not do it next year, or the year after. For some of you, it is this year – 2015!

So, prepare well and give it your best shot!

For those who believe in God, you will not do it just for you and your family.

It will be for His glory too. So prepare well for His glory.

BEST WISHES TO ALL GR 12 STUDENTS SITTING THEIR EXAMS

FOR this month and the last, I was busy helping my nieces in two different centres in the country with some remedial work. Their friends got word of that and came too with them to be helped by the work I prepared.

My regret is that I should have spent more time with them.

However, the lessons learned will pave the way for remedial programmes in 2016 and beyond to help the others who are coming up the ranks, so to speak.

And with that: I WISH THEM AND ALL WHO ARE SITTING THEIR EXAMS TOMMORROW THE BEST!!!

One thing I told them was: “You aim for a mark before you walk into an exam room. (You must aim for something.) And when you sit to do your exam, aim to obtain something better than the mark you set, or thought of, earlier.”

(There is no science in this. Experience shows that those who think like that get what “they think up”. It is still a mystery!)

LEARNING BY USING TECHNOLOGY

I APOLOGIZE for being away from this site for a long time.

Work as well as additional duties, took my time away that I could not post as regularly as I wanted to.

Anyway, this particular theme has been on my mind for some time. It is to do with learning.

LEARNING ASSISTED BY TECHNOLOGY

Once it was hard to learn certain topics.

However, with the advance of technology, it is now easier to learn all sorts of subjects – playing a musical instrument, learning a foreign language and even learning Calculus.

Many universities are also putting their lessons/lectures online – as well as their worksheets and corrected assignment questions.

While most people are becoming obsessed with technology that is related to social media, ensure that you – a learner – continue to advance your learning with the help of technology.

INTEREST IN LANGUAGES

My language interest (in French, German and Spanish) is made easier with lessons that are offered on YouTube.

You can download the videos there and visit other sites where you can work on concepts in grammar which can in turn complement what you are learned on YouTube.

In a social network, I have observed that a lot of people are interested in learning foreign languages (like French, Spanish or German) and the points listed above are the very points I give them – apart from others.

(NOTE: I will make a post on learning a foreign language in a later post.)