My experience in UPOU has been really fun and convenient. I have more than enough time for myself and my studies with 4 hours of daily travel out of the way. Taking notes was never a problem because it’s so easy to go back and read online or download the modules.
Initially I thought of having no classmates to talk to in person was a huge downside because it eliminates little opportunities to make friends through trivial interactions. Sending someone a personal message after finding out mutual interests through social media will never be the same as catching someone watching a show on a mobile device and starting a conversation face to face.
I can’t really tell who I’ll get along with for the rest of the school year, but I can easily tell who I won’t get along with if I have talked to them in person. Some things just aren’t the same when done online and most of the time the reactions and responses are very different. It’s incredibly hard to judge a person through a profile picture alone or even if you take into account all the photos they have posted.
Though recently I’ve been looking at it optimistically. There’s absolutely no peer pressure for me when it comes to anything since I’m not forced to go with the flow just to get a long with my friends and their friends. No unplanned food and travel expenses, no going home late because of after class hangouts, and no more people I can’t say no to when it comes to prop making responsibilities.
When I weigh the pros and cons, I can live with the cons, I’m free from a lot of things that inconvenienced me when it comes to socializing.
There were other things that took a while for me to get used to and still currently have trouble with from time to time. UPOU has a lot of websites and telephone numbers. I have to keep track of multiple accounts and passwords as well as know who to contact for specific concerns. I almost missed registering for a proctored exam once because I didn’t know the correct website for OSAS. Recently my UP email account was disabled for more than a week. I called FICS hoping to get an immediate solution that could be provided over the phone. I was redirected to the registrars, and the registrars told me to email myportal@upou.edu.ph instead. Knowing that there was an email address for email concerns listed on a pamphlet given to me during orientation, I sent an email to miso@upou.edu.ph as well. After more than a week I got a reply that I had to send my concern to another email address. My assignment 3 was all for nothing because my email got disabled all of a sudden and the designated email concerns address couldn’t help me either. I wish there was an easier way to navigate through the numbers, email addresses and websites.
MMS 100 corrected my false understanding of multimedia’s definition. I always thought that it was anything digital when in fact, it is actually an interactive combination of two or more media modalities.
Compared to my other subjects, there are things I became fond of and really enjoyed in MMS 100. You can read the modules at your own pace unlike my other courses that open and close based on their weekly scheduled. In my other courses there’s no reading in advance nor going back once the modules close after the week has passed. For quizzes, they have schedules like the other courses, but here, you can review your answers afterwards. I can’t stress enough on the desire to find out what questions I answered incorrectly. In my other courses, even the final attempt doesn’t let me review after submitting and being graded.
As part of our MMS 100 requirements, I had to exercise my writing ability through the eportfolio and this UPOU blog. My childhood was breaking toys open and attempting to put them back together until I learned to create things on my own. I’m still not confident with my writing ability because I haven’t read a lot of books and I didn’t exactly enjoy writing. Thankfully blogs can be written as you speak.
Have you ever thought of having an awesome weapon or costume from a show you’ve watched or a video game you’ve played? Well, I remember the time I wanted a 3d maneuver gear from the anime Attack on Titan.
Paper and cardboard, they’re like really thin slices of wood. I’ve seen people make insanely detailed objects with them. I made airplanes, I don’t mean your regular folder paper airplanes. I treated them as steel frames and panels when I made replicas of a Lockheed SR-71. I rolled tubes of paper and combined them together with clear tape and masking tape. If it isn’t obvious yet, I really loved the stealth beast that could go as fast as mach 3, the SR-71.
So what are these things that I love creating? They’re things that I like. Weapons, items, costumes from shows I’ve watched or games I’ve played. Things that I could only dream of having. Things that may or may not exist. It’s fun taking something from fantasy and holding them with your own two hands.
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