Enjoy!
Is college worth the cost?
Monday, March 17, 2014
I finished my first StraighterLine course!
Hello y'all,
So, Introduction to Religion is now behind me, and I can begin spewing forth opinions. Yippee!
For a quick overview: StraighterLine offers online college courses, but not degrees, and you can take classes to either transfer credit or for personal enrichment. Ultimately, I'll transfer everything over to WGU.
I moved pretty quickly through the material. For each unit, there was a "lecture" for each topic, and there was a test every other unit, plus a midterm and final. The lectures were self-paced and a lot like power points, with a mix of narration, text, images, and review quizzes. Speaking of the narration, it seemed awfully expressive for a robot, and awfully inexpressive for a human. (If it turns out it was a human and she reads this, I apologize).
The self-pacing was very nice; I could skim through subjects I was familiar with (ie: Christianity and Judaism), and spend longer on things I struggled with (sifting through Sanskrit terms that all have entirely too many letters).
Coming from high school, it was so liberating just to have lectures and tests, without time-consuming assignments to get bogged down in!
The final was taken through ProctorU, a remote proctoring service. They match you up with a friendly technician who spies on you through your webcam to make sure you aren't up to anything fishy. My only real complaint was that SL didn't do a great job explaining how that all worked, and I was a bit bewildered and had some delays.
I graduated with an 80% overall, without that much effort.
My other objection is one that I'd have with pretty much every other world religions course. It's not that they try to be impartial and fail, but that they succeed. I think the only way to really understand what members of a religion believe and what it means to them is to learn about it from one of them. You will get a much better idea of Christianity from reading C. S. Lewis than Wikipedia. An impartial course will be happy to tell you names and dates, but has a hard time explaining the actual, far more important, spirit of the thing. It will inform you that Pentecost occurs 50 days after Easter, but has a hard time conveying the importance of the Holy Spirit in guiding our lives.
Well, that's enough blathering. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
So, Introduction to Religion is now behind me, and I can begin spewing forth opinions. Yippee!
For a quick overview: StraighterLine offers online college courses, but not degrees, and you can take classes to either transfer credit or for personal enrichment. Ultimately, I'll transfer everything over to WGU.
I moved pretty quickly through the material. For each unit, there was a "lecture" for each topic, and there was a test every other unit, plus a midterm and final. The lectures were self-paced and a lot like power points, with a mix of narration, text, images, and review quizzes. Speaking of the narration, it seemed awfully expressive for a robot, and awfully inexpressive for a human. (If it turns out it was a human and she reads this, I apologize).
The self-pacing was very nice; I could skim through subjects I was familiar with (ie: Christianity and Judaism), and spend longer on things I struggled with (sifting through Sanskrit terms that all have entirely too many letters).
Coming from high school, it was so liberating just to have lectures and tests, without time-consuming assignments to get bogged down in!
The final was taken through ProctorU, a remote proctoring service. They match you up with a friendly technician who spies on you through your webcam to make sure you aren't up to anything fishy. My only real complaint was that SL didn't do a great job explaining how that all worked, and I was a bit bewildered and had some delays.
I graduated with an 80% overall, without that much effort.
My other objection is one that I'd have with pretty much every other world religions course. It's not that they try to be impartial and fail, but that they succeed. I think the only way to really understand what members of a religion believe and what it means to them is to learn about it from one of them. You will get a much better idea of Christianity from reading C. S. Lewis than Wikipedia. An impartial course will be happy to tell you names and dates, but has a hard time explaining the actual, far more important, spirit of the thing. It will inform you that Pentecost occurs 50 days after Easter, but has a hard time conveying the importance of the Holy Spirit in guiding our lives.
Well, that's enough blathering. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
Friday, March 14, 2014
Article: A Higher Education Avalanche is Coming
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130316093956321#.UyMu5118CRQ.email
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Month in Review: February
And the dinky month of February has flown by. By the time you feel entirely confident spelling it, it's over. Alas.
Well, here's the breakdown of how this month went for me, and how March will hopefully go:
Well, here's the breakdown of how this month went for me, and how March will hopefully go:
- CLEP: US History and Biology are now behind me. Huzzah! I was supposed to take College Algebra, but I decided to put it off because it scared me. Un-huzzah.
- StraighterLine: I am now enrolled, and I've almost finished my first class (World Religions). I've worked on Spanish a little bit, and I still have a DIY biology lab to contend with.
- This Blog: Eh, not so much. I only posted two things, one of which was an article written by somebody else.
- Literature Class: We had our first meeting, and it went about as well as could be expected. Their still getting to know the curriculum and each other, and I'm still trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing.
- Driving: I've gotten out a couple of times, and it's gone pretty well (except for the time when I'd lost my glasses and I couldn't read the signs… uh, you don't want to know).
- Creative writing: I've been struck by an idea so weird, that St. John the Evangelist would find it mildly discomfiting. But I like it! I haven't done much with it, but I'm cautiously optimistic.
Time Marches on (teehee), and here are my goals for next month:
- CLEP: College Algebra. You don't scare me! Well, not much.
- StraighterLine: Take the religion final, keep chipping away at Spanish, and tackle biology.
- This Blog: Hopefully the blogfairy will be visiting.
- Literature Class: up next, The Hobbit!
- Driving: more of the same.
- Creative Writing: Like I said, cautiously optimistic.
Thanks for reading!
Saturday, March 1, 2014
What I'm actually doing: the basic idea
Hello friends,
It has occurred to me that, several weeks into this blog, I have yet to provide any useful explanation of the titular weirdness.
But, fear not! The situation shall be remedied! Grab tight to your spinny office chairs, and keep all arms and legs inside the vehicle until the ride has come to a complete stop.
I'm working towards a business degree from Western Governors' University, and I'm getting my gen-eds through CLEP and StraighterLine.
Now, all of these merit more detailed explanations of themselves in general, and what I'm doing with them in particular. However, their websites already have (admittedly bamboozling) explanations, and I am rather lazy. I'll be back with more details soon, but in the meantime, have fun with the hyperlinks.
Aloha!
It has occurred to me that, several weeks into this blog, I have yet to provide any useful explanation of the titular weirdness.
But, fear not! The situation shall be remedied! Grab tight to your spinny office chairs, and keep all arms and legs inside the vehicle until the ride has come to a complete stop.
I'm working towards a business degree from Western Governors' University, and I'm getting my gen-eds through CLEP and StraighterLine.
Now, all of these merit more detailed explanations of themselves in general, and what I'm doing with them in particular. However, their websites already have (admittedly bamboozling) explanations, and I am rather lazy. I'll be back with more details soon, but in the meantime, have fun with the hyperlinks.
Aloha!
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