English Composition 2 (ENGL 1102) at UoPeople

Ever since I was a kid, I loved writing. In fact, I wrote short stories of my own growing up. So, it was natural for me to love English Composition 2 (ENGL 1102) at the UoPeople. If you've taken English Composition 1, then this course might feel redundant to you. The class was relatively small, with only 15-18 students. My instructor was absent most of the time, though. She never introduced herself formally or let us know her educational background. I understand that as long as they're a good instructor, I'm okay with whatever their qualifications are. However, a bit about themselves, where they're from, etc. would've been great. Anyway, we didn't see much of her in the course, but she was accessible when you sent her an email and she provided constructive feedback on the Learning Journals. It was the beginning of COVID-19 when I took this class in very early 2020, perhaps she had too many things going on in her life, so I don't blame her for her absence from the Discussion Forums. In fact, some instructors are like that; they want students to engage with one another without their presence. However, the instructor must be around to see that students remain civil. In my Microeconomics class, I saw some heated arguments between students, and the instructor in that course never showed up to stop it. 

In the course, each week, you read a story or an article and write about it in the Discussion Forums. You've to write a research paper in this class with a title, abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, results, conclusion, and reference list. So, for the Written Assignments and Learning Journals, you've to write each component of the research paper every week. For the last Learning Journal, you've to put everything together and submit all your research paper components to your instructor. I felt even though the course load of this class was minimal, the research paper involved a great deal of research rightfully. This course also allowed me to utilize my writing prowess freely as my Discussion and Written Assignments mostly ranged from 750-1000 words. My research paper crossed whopping 3000 words, which is probably the most extensive assignment I've written at this school thus far.

The Graded Quizzes and Final Exam were a piece of cake. Their focus was primarily on APA citations, so make sure you've mastered end references and in-text citations for paraphrasing and quotations by now. In my opinion, it's the only course at UoPeople so far whose Final Exam was poorly made. It was so terrible that I felt sorry for taking it. The final had so many repetitions that it was ridiculous. The same questions were asked verbatim like 2-3 times in the 40 questions given to you to finish in an hour. I ended up getting an A+ in the course, but I feel that the UoPeople could've made a better final to test students. After all, what is more satisfying? A challenging test you did well on or an easy one you aced?

It's a wonderful course in a nutshell, but you'll need to work hard in it if you didn't take English Composition 1, and if English isn't your first language.