<story><title>University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs</title><url>https://www.uopeople.edu/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>BeetleB</author><text>&amp;gt; But if you can&amp;#x27;t do the middle-class job because you can&amp;#x27;t write, the piece of paper will only get you so far. It may get you an entry-level job, but you probably won&amp;#x27;t get much in the way of promotions. So even from that perspective, plagiarism isn&amp;#x27;t helpful.&lt;p&gt;Where do these mythical jobs exist where being able to write well is a requirement for career growth? Certainly not at engineering companies.&lt;p&gt;I &lt;i&gt;wish&lt;/i&gt; what you said were true, but in my experience, &amp;quot;being able to write and communicate well is critical in the workplace&amp;quot; is one of the top lies taught to me when I was at university. We had to take a regular writing class, and a technical writing class to graduate with an engineering degree. And when I get to industry, I see no signs of people practicing what they&amp;#x27;re taught, and it doesn&amp;#x27;t hold anyone back.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Edit&lt;/i&gt;: I should say my experience is more about writing than communicating as a whole. People do need to be good speakers&amp;#x2F;presenters. But writing? Not really.</text></item><item><author>AnimalMuppet</author><text>But if you can&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; the middle-class job because you can&amp;#x27;t write, the piece of paper will only get you so far.  It may get you an entry-level job, but you probably won&amp;#x27;t get much in the way of promotions.  So even from that perspective, plagiarism isn&amp;#x27;t helpful.</text></item><item><author>khawkins</author><text>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.</text></item><item><author>infogulch</author><text>The problem with plagiarism isn&amp;#x27;t best characterized as some sort of power struggle between teachers and students via bullshit assignments.&lt;p&gt;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 you plagiarize every assignment you rob yourself of your own training of this critically important competency.&lt;p&gt;Plagiarizing some work doesn&amp;#x27;t really hurt the work, it hurts &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item><item><author>themodelplumber</author><text>&amp;gt; could not grasp the idea of plagiarism being unethical&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Since then I&amp;#x27;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 students who seem to match the sort of person you describe. This was a huge shock at first.&lt;p&gt;The more I learned about these students, the more I learned about the sheer variety of perceptions involved: One person&amp;#x27;s fairness concept is, to another person or group, a latent power dynamic which ought to be questioned.&lt;p&gt;Or, this person&amp;#x27;s concern for the big-picture ethical questions is this other person&amp;#x27;s small-picture roadblock in an economic problem which seems more urgent with each passing moment. You want a big picture? Can you justify it in seconds, with something that&amp;#x27;s not simply a subjective perception or largely-covert moral construct of your own?&lt;p&gt;Yet another person&amp;#x27;s assumption of perpetually commonly-understood contract is another&amp;#x27;s baroque exercise in cleverness and flexibility. It&amp;#x27;s the sneaky laser dance from _Ocean&amp;#x27;s Twelve_, and _that_ kind of challenge is, psychologically speaking, extremely energizing for them. Don&amp;#x27;t think they didn&amp;#x27;t notice how things work in the &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; world! (When these two see each other face to face--so to speak--there are harsh outcomes)&lt;p&gt;Anyway--sorry to hear about your experience &amp;amp; thank you for sharing so that others can be more educated about their choice of institution.</text></item><item><author>dart600</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;I did enjoy meeting people from all walks of life, all over the world. However, I also saw a grossly wide range of educational professionalism in the students. In the introductory mandatory writing course, for example,there were a number of classmates whom could not grasp the idea of plagiarism being unethical. With a plagiarism assignment graded by those peers, it was difficult to not feel like higher educational learning was moving along for oneself at a progressively intellectually challenging pace.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>brobdingnagians</author><text>Yes, writing is important. I have coworkers who struggle at writing, and it takes mental overhead to try to understand them. It hurts their ability to communicate clearly, think clearly, and to be taken seriously. I have clients who struggle to write well; I was just barely looking at a legally binding document that is incomprehensible in places and would have serious repercussions on those using it. That is bad. Society is better when we are truly educated to think and to communicate. We can be enriched by each other when we understand each other. Writing coherently helps us think coherently. That improves our lives more than a degree certificate ever will.</text></comment>
<story><title>University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs</title><url>https://www.uopeople.edu/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>BeetleB</author><text>&amp;gt; But if you can&amp;#x27;t do the middle-class job because you can&amp;#x27;t write, the piece of paper will only get you so far. It may get you an entry-level job, but you probably won&amp;#x27;t get much in the way of promotions. So even from that perspective, plagiarism isn&amp;#x27;t helpful.&lt;p&gt;Where do these mythical jobs exist where being able to write well is a requirement for career growth? Certainly not at engineering companies.&lt;p&gt;I &lt;i&gt;wish&lt;/i&gt; what you said were true, but in my experience, &amp;quot;being able to write and communicate well is critical in the workplace&amp;quot; is one of the top lies taught to me when I was at university. We had to take a regular writing class, and a technical writing class to graduate with an engineering degree. And when I get to industry, I see no signs of people practicing what they&amp;#x27;re taught, and it doesn&amp;#x27;t hold anyone back.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Edit&lt;/i&gt;: I should say my experience is more about writing than communicating as a whole. People do need to be good speakers&amp;#x2F;presenters. But writing? Not really.</text></item><item><author>AnimalMuppet</author><text>But if you can&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; the middle-class job because you can&amp;#x27;t write, the piece of paper will only get you so far.  It may get you an entry-level job, but you probably won&amp;#x27;t get much in the way of promotions.  So even from that perspective, plagiarism isn&amp;#x27;t helpful.</text></item><item><author>khawkins</author><text>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.</text></item><item><author>infogulch</author><text>The problem with plagiarism isn&amp;#x27;t best characterized as some sort of power struggle between teachers and students via bullshit assignments.&lt;p&gt;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 you plagiarize every assignment you rob yourself of your own training of this critically important competency.&lt;p&gt;Plagiarizing some work doesn&amp;#x27;t really hurt the work, it hurts &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item><item><author>themodelplumber</author><text>&amp;gt; could not grasp the idea of plagiarism being unethical&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Since then I&amp;#x27;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 students who seem to match the sort of person you describe. This was a huge shock at first.&lt;p&gt;The more I learned about these students, the more I learned about the sheer variety of perceptions involved: One person&amp;#x27;s fairness concept is, to another person or group, a latent power dynamic which ought to be questioned.&lt;p&gt;Or, this person&amp;#x27;s concern for the big-picture ethical questions is this other person&amp;#x27;s small-picture roadblock in an economic problem which seems more urgent with each passing moment. You want a big picture? Can you justify it in seconds, with something that&amp;#x27;s not simply a subjective perception or largely-covert moral construct of your own?&lt;p&gt;Yet another person&amp;#x27;s assumption of perpetually commonly-understood contract is another&amp;#x27;s baroque exercise in cleverness and flexibility. It&amp;#x27;s the sneaky laser dance from _Ocean&amp;#x27;s Twelve_, and _that_ kind of challenge is, psychologically speaking, extremely energizing for them. Don&amp;#x27;t think they didn&amp;#x27;t notice how things work in the &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; world! (When these two see each other face to face--so to speak--there are harsh outcomes)&lt;p&gt;Anyway--sorry to hear about your experience &amp;amp; thank you for sharing so that others can be more educated about their choice of institution.</text></item><item><author>dart600</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;I did enjoy meeting people from all walks of life, all over the world. However, I also saw a grossly wide range of educational professionalism in the students. In the introductory mandatory writing course, for example,there were a number of classmates whom could not grasp the idea of plagiarism being unethical. With a plagiarism assignment graded by those peers, it was difficult to not feel like higher educational learning was moving along for oneself at a progressively intellectually challenging pace.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jimmaswell</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;being able to write and communicate well is critical in the workplace&amp;quot; is one of the top lies taught to me when I was at university&lt;p&gt;Definitely. Communication full of casual txtspeak and&amp;#x2F;or broken English all over. I suspected my first job&amp;#x27;s recruitment emails to possibly be some kind of scam at first because they were made in 3 different fonts in the same email with random words capitalized or colored various colors for emphasis, of course full of broken English - and I&amp;#x27;m not talking about just terms like &amp;quot;do the needful&amp;quot; which are valid Indian English, that&amp;#x27;s fine, but even evaluating as that language so much of the communication is just terrible and nobody seems to care. I guess it works out fine and ultimately doesn&amp;#x27;t matter much but it still feels unprofessional.</text></comment>