New Student Orientation — Week 1

👋 Welcome to Orientation!

Hi! I just completed my second week of the new student orientation program at University of the People and let me tell you that I really loved it so far.

In this article I will share with you what I learned, my experiences and thoughts on Week 1 of the New Student Orientation.

I hope you like it! 😃

✨ Let’s Begin!

In UoPeople, three weeks before the first day of your first term you will be automatically enrolled in a New Student Orientation course.

💡 Note: This orientation is optional but highly recommended to familiarize yourself with the platform (It helped me tremendously so far!).

If you are new to online learning, this orientation will be a really nice introduction to the platform and to the dynamics of an online learning experience.

Key Elements of Week 1

During this week you will learn about these main topics:

📆 The Learning Week

At UoPeople, the learning week goes from Thursday to Wednesday. New content is release every Thursday and assignments must be submitted before next Wednesday. Time management is extremely important to meet these deadlines (Stay tuned for an article on time management! 😉)

🕑 Time Allocation Per Course

UoPeople recommends allocating a minimum of 15–17 hours per week for each course (and even thought I have not started my first course yet, I can testify that I really think this is accurate since the content we learned during orientation has taken me approximately 4–5 hours per week of reading and note-taking).

💡 Note: Since this is an online learning experience, you are in complete charge of how much time you dedicate to a course and how much deeper you want to dive into each topic. This can be a little bit complex when you have work and family commitments so it is very important to create a steady schedule and try to keep it intact every week (this is what I will try to do!).

The most amazing thing about online learning is how flexible it is. We can learn at our own schedule but sometimes setting a little bit of structure helps us stay on track to reach our goal.

Think about how YOU would distribute those 15 hours. 5 hours 3 days a week? 9 hours during 3 weekdays and 6 hours during weekends? YOU are in charge of your education now and it’s really important to have the discipline from the beginning to complete your studies.

💻 Moodle

Your online classroom is built using a platform called Moodle. You will learn about Moodle, how it works, its features and who you can contact in case you need support (This can be very helpful if you have a technical issue just before a due date! 😵).

📚 Online Libraries

As a UoPeople student, you have access to 2 online libraries with millions of specialized journals, books and articles for FREE:

• LIRN (Library and Information Resource Network).
• JSTOR.

💎 The American Learning System

You will learn about the american learning system, how universities are structured from the president and vice president to professors and students.

I personally loved this section because I learned so much about the system.

I didn’t know many internal aspects of universities such as a Provost (A Vice president in charge of the academics) and much more!

For non-native English speakers, you will also read a glossary with very important terminology that you will definitely need throughout your studies.

Goal Met! I finally learned how students are classified by year: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior & Senior from first year to fourth year respectively! 😃

☎️ University Offices

You will learn about all the offices in the University such as the Program Advising Office and the Financial Aid Office (and many more!), how to contact them and their main purpose so you know who you should contact in case you ever need assistance.

✅ Course Registration & Number of Courses

You will learn how to register for courses using the student portal and how many courses you can register for depending on your current status and GPA (Grade Point Average).

• If you are taking English Composition I to prove your English proficiency (Like me!) you can only take this course before starting UoPeople’sFoundation Courses.
• If you are taking UoPeople’s Foundations courses, you can take a maximum of 2 courses at a time.
• If you are taking courses for your Degree, you can register for up to 3 courses if you have a GPA greater than or equal to 3.00 (Grade Point Average is measured from 0.00 to 4.00). Otherwise, you can take 1–2 courses. (1 course is considered part-time).

Note: Remember that each course might need more than 15 hours per week of studying and researching. You can sign up for 1 course if you think you can’t dedicate 30 or 45 hours per week to UoPeople during a term.

😵 Dropping Courses

You can drop a course on your first week and it won’t show in your transcript (Grades you receive at the end of the term).

You can withdraw a course from the first day of week 2 until the last day of the week 4. A “W” will appear in your transcript but it won’t be counted for your grade point average.

⭐️ And Now…

These were the main aspects of Week 1 for my orientation. I just finished Week 2 and I will post an article on the topics covered (Stay tuned and Follow the Publication to Learn More! 😃).