PG Cert for free. Maybe.

Hello!


I spotted this - when I looked at it, the fee was $0: https://woolf.university/academics/degree/f12f8c1c-46ac-4eac-a4a9-30e6c6a43388. I did not do any recherche if it is a typo, but maybe someone here wants to!


Best regards,
Mac Juli

 

Can't argue with the price. I can, however argue about the school. Woolf U. is accredited by Malta. It is legal but not accredited in four other jurisdictions - Switzerland and three US states. Woolf, despite this mixed status appears to act as a broker for courses and programs of other schools.

Woolf U. "validates" some of these programs of other schools - in the style of some MexiCostaraguan schools or the now-imploded University of Wales Consortium. I'm not sure of exactly how much validity these validations have. Or what evaluation you'd get for a Woolf degree or cert. in North America. Then again - this cert. is FREE so how much can you really care?

Thread on Woolf here: https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/upgrad-offering-its-own-degrees.62391/#post-593472

 

@SteveFoerster

(1) Woolf is accredited in Malta. It has licenses in 3 US states but no US accreditation. It also has a license in Switzerland but no Swiss accreditation. I don't like schools that are accredited in one place and unaccredited in FOUR others. YMMV. My take: This thing lacks transparency. Again, YMMV. Make sure Malta is on your degree or yes - you might have quite a time persuading an evaluator. You might anyway. I think they'd "have" to give an "accredited" equivalency to a degree of a school that's duly accredited in its own country -- but evaluators are not completely predictable in any country, including US and Canada. e;g UK-NARIC /ENIC's refusal to evaluate US Nationally Accredited (old definition) degrees. Evaluators can. and frequently do, change rules or make new ones.

(2) I conflate those three locations, Mexico, Costa Rica and Nicaragua in this instance, because there are schools offering degrees that they shouldn't in all three countries and the schools all co-operate together. Cross-validations, dual & triple awards etc. Same sort of word-combo as a now-dead term, "Panlibhonco" passports - those from countries that were, once upon a time, very friendly, for a fee, to non-nationals wanting to secure a second passport. Such passports were readily available- and perfectly usable - from Panama, Liberia, Honduras and Costa Rica. That was sixty years ago. I haven't heard the term in over half a century. I'm thinking those old "rules" have changed markedly in that time.

(3) My word "Mexicostaraguan" refers to a network of maybe a dozen schools in Mexico, Costa Rica and Nicaragua who co-operate together in a rather unorthodox manner, involving dual /triple awards and cross-validations - and are known to award offshore degrees that they often do not have their homeland authorities' permission for. It is not, as you insinuated, a general pejorative for Latin American schools "from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego." You, Steve, inferred that totally on your own.

That's all I have to say about Woolf and my apparently objectionable neologism. Except this. The certificate is free, but your time isn't. No money, but they say it's 30 ECTS, representing 750 hours. 750 hours of your time is worth ... something. Where I live, even at minimum wage, 750 hours is worth $11, 250. Make sure that to you, the cert is worth the investment in time.

 

that may be true if the training was useless or obscure. This one seems like a reasonable set of stuff one needs to become an effective entry-level full stack dev. An EU- accredited 30 ECTS cert on top of it? This looks like better value than ENEB, and that thing has plenty of takers. In fact, I am familiar with most of this stuff, but a bit rusty overall and light on the front end. In slightly different circumstances, I could have taken it up. In fact, in my youth, I did a whole stack of free, largely meaningless TekMetrics certs; in my twenties, I would definitely took this thing up.

 

Like I said - people should make sure it's worth their time. You're a knowledgeable person in this area and to you, it appears it is. I'll accept your judgment that it is worth the time. If others come to the same conclusion, it's worth it for them.

 

And Panlibhonco? I looked it up - just to prove it exists / existed. It does / did. As panlibhonco and panhonlibco. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Panhonlibco#English

It refers to four countries and was coined as an all-embracing term for these countries' shipping flags, in the days when 'flags of convenience' were those of Panama, Liberia, Honduras and Costa Rica. They still may be - I'm not sure. And, as I noted, the acronym applied also for "passports of convenience" that were liberally issued by these countries, back in the day.

My self-coined "Mexicostaraguan" applies solely to certain "Universities of Convenience" in three countries that co-operate in dual / triple awards, cross-validations and award degrees to foreigners offshore, for which they do not necessarily have the permission of their countries' authorities. I suspect officials may turn a blind eye because the foreigners' money helps keep tuition low for their own nationals. And those schools appear to do a good job, teaching on their home turf, and awarding degrees to locals for which they DO have permission.

I know of no universities operating this way in Tijuana or Tierra del Fuego. YMMV.

 

"Tijuana"? Just remember the Toads from there...

 

I can't. No recuerdo. Too much tequila, maybe. Wait a minute... oh, THOSE Toads.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tijuana_Toads#: Never watched 'em. Never heard of them before today.

But if you see an ad for "La Universidad del Doctorado de 90 Días" (University of the 90-day Doctorate) in Tijuana .... or anywhere else, all bets are off.

 

The "Tijuana Toads" were a cartoon from late 60s / early 70s, aired in my youth in Germany. Liked them!!

 

Me? No. Have barely time to pull up my shorts (Bonus points to anyone who knows from which American novel this was inspired)!!

 

This would be so easy for me to get, but I've aged out of tech; plus, I hate JavaScript with a purple passion. C++ makes sense. Java makes sense. JavaScript makes me want to fight the air, LOL.

 

Charles Bukowski - Post Office. Some random German fan of his quoted this to me, ages ago. Gummipunkte bitte!

 

JS is a mess. It is in every browser though, and therefore relevant.

 

I do have a few comments on this. First, it's awfully incomplete for a "PG in Computer Science". It is an IT program, narrowly focused on a full-stack web dev role (don't get me wrong - it's a reasonable and fairly in-demand role). My guess is it's called this because Woolf already has an outline of a program with this name accredited. Second, a program like this could use a databases class. I hope one of the classes (back-end, likely) has at least an intro to writing queries. But I would have supplemented this sequence with some proper DB instruction. On the other hand, it's nice they have foundations stuff and don't dive right into JavaScript. Hopefully, this is enough to prevent grads from writing some of the horrible code that often results from lacking fundamentals.
Overall, a worthwhile little thing.

 

I like it!! - However, I can see why a wise man (not Charles Bukowski!!) said: “JavaScript’s global scope is like a public toilet. You can’t avoid going in there, but try to limit your contact with surfaces when you do.”

 

I'm a graphics junkie. Only coding I like is for graphics applications. I find JavaScript can do impressive things in not-that-many lines. One-page photo editors, paint programs etc.

The first program that made me really love JS is an app someone wrote for his daughter, who had mental challenges and also suffered from low vision, IIRC. A drawing program - Beauty, simplicity - and perfect for the purpose. No "Land of 1000 buttons." I was awestruck.

And yeah. Android, Windows, Apple, Linux - it doesn't care. As long as there's a browser, you're good to go.

 

I earned a diploma 20 years ago that says I can program in C++. Well --- MAYBE I could do it then -- but not now. Not one bit of the course was on graphics so I read up on my own. That part seemed messy, with add-on libraries and very lengthy coding. I never really did anything with it. Other languages were easier for what I wanted to do. Databases etc? I didn't CARE. I'd use what was already made.

Java? Simply no experience. I had some little bit with Python and there was a hybrid called "Jython." It was Python, re-written in Java instead of the usual C++. IIRC Jython programs ran using the JRE (Java Runtime Environment.) It used normal Python syntax and Java-specific code could be mixed in. Very complex I thought.

One thing it was bodaciously good at was music - and music composition apps. I had some samples with the programming environment. I don't use it any more, because the version I had only ran on Windows. Maybe I should look. As I remember, it was free - and available for download from a University in Switzerland.

I'm old, now. I like simple, colorful stuff. Just like when I was a kid. The kids' sites for learning JavaScript have really neat graphics and always an add-on library that's easy. This is MY play-time!!!

 

Yes. Dmitry Baranovskiy - Does @Stanislav know him? Quoted here by Terry Hillis:
https://javascript.plainenglish.io/javascript-002-scope-25dc0d194781 Do I get more Gummipunkte?