Born and (mostly) raised in Calgary, Karl has been taking courses on and off at AU since 1999. At one point, he changed his major from Computing Science to Computing Science because the new program requirements fit what he’d already taken better. Since then, he switched to English and graduated (w/Great Distinction he likes to add) proving along the way that it is entirely possible to complete an entire AU course within a three week period. If only he had done this at the beginning of the course instead of in the last extension.
This is not something he advises unless you are desperate, masochistic, or, ideally, both.
He is currently the managing editor of The Voice Magazine, where he tries to put his education to use helping other students as they provide content for The Voice
For many AU students, graduation, convocation, isn’t quite the big deal it is for our counter-parts at traditional universities. Sure, it’s important. Just like any significant milestone in our life is important, but for many AU students, a graduation doesn’t mark a significant change in their life, rather it just means they now have the… Read more »
I’m quite happy with the issue this week. We received two AU interviews, one with the Associate Vice President of Student and Academic Services, Dr. Alain May, and the other with an Assistant Professor in Sociology and Labour Studies, Dr. Tony Simmons. Both are solid interviews, and after some hemming and hawing, I decided both… Read more »
It’s a bit odd, when a disaster strikes, how many people are willing to help, and how far the help goes, yet, minus the disaster, we’re perfectly willing to let people suffer, starve, or far worse. What brought this to mind is the two new bursaries created by AU for victims of natural disasters. As… Read more »
This week, I came across an interesting bit of news on Facebook, about how the Alberta government is passing legislation that will require provincial agencies, boards, and commissions (ABCs) to not only be forthcoming to the government about how much they pay their executives, but will also give the government the ability to require that… Read more »
This week, the Council Meeting brought us a return of the echo chamber. I mean this in a literal sense, as once again the meeting was plagued with people’s voices echoing in the teleconference. You can imagine how distracting it is to try to speak to a group and being constantly interrupted by your own… Read more »
In a traditional university setting, right now would be the first month of a four-month study break. For AU students, the start of May marks that last push to make sure those final grades are in and being calculated in time for convocation, and, for many students, it marks their first attempt at an AU… Read more »
I’ve often said that one of the advantages of AU is that, as we’re dispersed, there’s no single event, like a school bombing or a rash of disease that will affect all of us. The flip side of that, however, is that whenever something major happens, especially in Canada, the odds are that it will… Read more »
We all know that AU is a distance university. What some might not know, however, is that even as a distance university, AU still runs some “normal” classrooms. In partnerships with other universities and colleges, AU has run on-site, grouped study classes for years. It was a very limited offering of courses, usually chosen to… Read more »
Being a distance council comes with some unique challenges, and some of those were apparent at the April 14th, AUSU council meeting. This was a very busy meeting as it had councillors from both the previous, out-going council, as well as the five new councillors-elect, who took over near the end of the meeting. The… Read more »
This week, we have the council connection report that looked at the meeting where the changes to AUSU Bylaws were approved, as well as changes to the Referendums and Plebiscites policy. AUSU members now have no binding powers over the organization or AUSU Council, with the exception of being able to choose Council during elections?elections… Read more »