Graduating Soon! Ask me questions!

[cozykamura]

There seem to be many misconceptions regarding this school. As a student here studying for a bachelor's in computer science and having completed 12 courses, I would like to share my experience and clarify some of these misconceptions.



Addressing Peer Grading

UoPeople seems to be phasing this out; most of the courses I took were graded entirely by the instructor (This includes discussion forums, which were also graded by instructors). If a course did have peer grading, it usually didn't account for much (generally less than 15 - 20% of the overall grade).



Addressing the Qualification of Instructors

UoPeople seem to be very proactive in weeding out bad instructors. Speaking from personal experience, I had a nonresponsive instructor in one of my courses. They didn’t reply to any of the questions in the "Ask your instructor" section and were generally absent from the course. Observing this nonresponsiveness, I wrote an email complaining about it to my program advisor; this resulted in the instructor’s removal from the course. Their replacement was much more proactive in dealing with students' issues.

Additionally, I have looked up every single instructor I have had. While most of them were from non-OECD countries, they generally had degrees from well-accredited institutions in their respective countries and also had strong teaching experience. For example, my instructor for the college algebra course was someone who teaches at SVNIT in India.



Addressing the Blatant use of Chatgpt and similar tools

I am not gonna lie to you; ChatGPT is a big problem at UoPeople, and when you start, you will find most students abusing it; however, as you progress and get into higher level courses, like 2000 level or 3000 level, the number of students abusing AI substantially decreases. Also, very few (hopefully more in the future) courses have a video assignment, where you create a PowerPoint presentation and then record yourself presenting it; this assignment is graded by your instructor and usually accounts for 15 - 20 % of your overall grade.

Moreover, UoPeople seems to have also taken a few steps to curb the blatant abuse of AI; they use originality.world to check every assignment a student submits for plagiarism, and instructors are generally proactive in grading down any entirely AI-generated assignment (bit*hing on Reddit by the plethora of not-so-innocent Redditors can attest to that).

Finally, I would argue that it's kinda unfair to call UoPeople a Chatgpt-mill when the entire education system is suffering from AI abuse. I am around the age where most of my friends attend brick-and-mortar universities, and I can tell you that AI abuse is as rampant, if not more, at those places.



Addressing the Regional Accreditation

I have been with Uopeople for the entirety of 2024, and during that year, uopeople enacted significant changes to secure their RA. WASC representatives even held a Zoom call with UoPeople students last year, for which I was present. I can assure you that most of the criticisms that you can think about uopeople were conveyed during that call. The decision that WASC made to grant Uopeople its initial regional accreditation came with full knowledge of everything (even some often exaggerated things) about Uopeople.

This is great! I can attest to all of it on the Business side. Thank you. I am so happy with my decision to study at UoPeople.  And if an HR manager asks about the “interesting name,” I will have a prepared story of Shias mission and why I chose to study there.  In full truth, I just didn’t have the money to “check the box” no matter how much I wanted to achieve that goal. This route, with a partial scholarship, I was able to get it done for $1,300 and pay it over a year of taking courses. I know people prefer to accelerate, but judgement comes along with that too.   I have associates with a grad date of 2023 and bachelors with a grad date of 2025. Flows like normal.  Overall, you get out of it, whatever it is you put into.

Yup, I agree, it's not an easy university. The coursework they give you is intense, and if someone is solely relying on ChatGPT or similar tools, then they aren't going to make it far.