You University: The College of the Future

About You University

You University was started in 2107 by our first President, Earthian Lucretia LePlante, following the final migration from Earth to local planets. LePlante recognized the need for a unifying school designed primarily for the purposes of learning, not merely gaining a degree, and with the help of various academic associations, was able to establish the first campus of YoU University on Mars. Within two decades, YoU had expanded to include various other local planets and boasted a yearly entrance rate of over 5,600 individuals from nearby systems, including 2,000 on actual campuses.

Now, YoU is the primary college for all local planets, producing almost 37% of all graduates within eight light-years from Mars. Students have gone on to represent their planets in the Planetary Council; lead missions into uncharted space; become galactically acclaimed writers, inventors, scientists, and doctors; and even preside over Googlenet, Inc.

YoU’s methodology is about learning for the sake of learning; about enjoying the path to a degree and your career of choice; and about valuing intelligence and learning even after school is over. For You University students, school is never over…and that’s actually a good thing.

Home

Welcome to You University, the school designed to give you the best academic experience tailored to your own educational needs! You University has been profiled in The Princeton Review’s 2158 rankings for Best College Experience, Most Accessible Professors, and Happiest Students, placing it in the top five interplanetary college systems.

Interested?
It only takes five minutes for your application to be processed, and only thirty more for our DeanBot to ascertain, based on your application, the best way for your education to continue. No student is left behind at You University; no learning style rejected.

Welcome to YOUR school!

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YOUR BOOKSTORE

Notes

None of this is real. This project was created by Tamar Chatzinoff as a Macaulay Honors College Eportfolio for Professor Ugoretz’s class, AlternateWorlds: Imagining the Future of Education, Spring 2010.

…And if by 2150, Earth is destroyed by a nuclear war, Google does take over the Internet, and Apple has its own city? Well, I guess I can say “I told you so.” 😀

YOUR LIBRARY

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Virtual Reality

Our Virtual reality chambers are among the most sophisticated in the galaxy, developed by leading VR companies specifically for college students to gain the experience they need. Campus and off-campus students will receive passkeys to the chambers upon entrance into the school, and will be issued a new one at the start of each semester.

Science
Our virtual reality chambers include laboratories where you can work with some of the greats of the past, including scientists, doctors, and other researchers from over one hundred civilized planets, and learn from them about their archaic discoveries. In addition, students will be able to converse with and learn from professors and researchers of the present, experimenting with technology and genetics too dangerous for students to handle in real-life situations.

History
Many ProfessorBots encourage students to journey through history in virtual reality, exploring the past as it assumed to have been and studying the differences in the various versions presented. Students can also build their own “characters” of historical figures, experimenting with anachronisms and the development of society over time.

The Arts
Students can speak with some great artists and act alongside others, even putting themselves into a book or movie to better understand it. Musicians are encouraged to try out an array of instruments; artists are encouraged to paint sceneries in the peace of a virtual reality program; and students can perform on stage with other students around the galaxy, in front of an audience comprised of both their peers and virtual reality critics.

Entertainment
Students are permitted to spend a limited amount of time in the chambers on other pursuits, traveling through space or time or building a reality of their own. There is little that can’t be done virtually, and the entire world is at your fingertips.

Explore
Not everyone is cut out for the career path that he, she, or it begins on, and the virtual reality chambers are the perfect way to find that out. By using the chambers, you can work at your career of choice, as well as trying out different careers to see if you’re better suited for them. In addition, students in their later years are required to spend time in a virtual reality internship that will be monitored and graded by a ProfessorBot.

Our Faculty

Although we rely primarily on MultiBots to do our work efficiently, YoU also has a faculty of nearly three thousand sentients determined to use all the creative skills at their disposal to ensure that you have the perfect college experience. Unique seminars are offered in which some of our most illustrious professors lecture using the methods of old, some of which are still used today by our ProfessorBots. These lectures are also offered in various locations across the galaxy, not only on our campuses, and are open to non-students as well.

When it comes to ProfessorBots, our primary concern is that they are a proper fit with their assigned students. ProfessorBots can be adjusted to match the college experience you need, selecting their style of teaching from any known discipline and modifying them to tailor to your needs. Student may not tamper with their ProfessorBot’s programming; however, they may issue a formal request for recalibration and the ProfessorBot will be modified within twenty-four hours of the request.

Campus Life

Although many opt to take classes over the universally accessible Googlenet, more and more students are traversing planets to enroll in one of our many YoU campuses galaxywide. We now have locations in over two hundred cities on over twenty planets and space stations reaching as far as Sirius B, and several affiliates in more distant space, beyond the Orion Arm. Free translators are provided to those without them upon entrance to the dormitories, to facilitate easy communication with your peers.

The Dormitories
Dormitories are set up in various locations and built to give you privacy even in a college setting designed for numerous students. Each dorm room houses four students, each with a private enclosure with adjustable walls that can be raised to the ceiling or any other length, depending on students’ preferences. Each dorm room also has one iStudent console per student, allowing students to complete their day’s assignments and classes without ever leaving their rooms.

YoU also recognizes that it is necessary for students to emerge from their rooms and socialize with others on occasion, and in addition to class, dorm students are required to spend a minimum of eight hours a week on the field, either in the gymnasiums, laboratories, or any of the campus-specific field locations*.

One meal a day is offered on campus, and each dorm has a fully functional kitchen. Students who only eat still-living foods must alert the college of their special dietary needs and they will be given a pass to special eating area.

*Virtual reality chambers are not an acceptable alternative.

Events
Sports events, school formals, and student body discussions vary by campus. Please check with your local DormBot or sentient Dormitory Supervisor for details.

Organizations
Students are encouraged to take part in any non-academic projects that are offered or organized by the Division of Student Affairs. YoU advocates College Students for Community Service (CS²)’s work on developing planets, as well as the Association for the Prevention of Xenophobia and Xenocism (APXX). Smaller-scale charity work is also encouraged and commended. Visit the YoU Student Division for more details and a comprehensive list of all student activities on each campus.

Academics

The Classes

We know what you’re wondering: how can they possibly design classes personalized specifically to each person? Back in 2141, our administrators were wondering the same thing. But with the development of the DeanBot and the ProfessorBots, we’ve created a system that will allow each student to get our full attention and his, her, or its maximum learning experience.

The Professors

On the first day of orientation, each student is assigned a ProfessorBot modified for student-compatible emotional temperament, sophistication of language, interaction skills, and apparent creativity. Each ProfessorBot has up to twelve individual personality and appearance settings to give you variety in your different classes.* Following the 2148 Jovian Power Failures and the Great MultiBot Uprising of 2156, each team of sixty ProfessorBots are now monitored by one sentient professor, four Teaching Assistants, and ten Tech Fellows. Your academic and personal safety is our primary concern.

*A friendly reminder: ProfessorBots are programmed to be compatible with you; however, they have no true emotions or romantic inclinations. If a ProfessorBot reports that a student is making romantic or sexual overtures toward it, the ProfessorBot will be replaced immediately.

The Curriculum
Once you have taken your aptitude and achievement tests, students will be given the option of having their curriculum chosen for them by our RegistrarBot or, if they choose to deviate from the area best suited for them, will work directly with a sentient professor to build a curriculum.

At You University, extracurriculars classes do not exist. Credits are awarded for any classes developed via a professor or ProfessorBot, regardless of how small, new, or unusual they may be. Last year, Mok’chon Felda (Gliese City Campus, Class of ’61) proposed six new Gliean-specific classes that are now available for students both local and distant. Akira Oyoskie (New New York Campus, Class of ’60) has worked side-by-side with several of our professors to design a class that will allow students in the Sol System to safely study the radioactive ruins of the planet Earth. If a student wishes to take a certain class, he/she/it will take it. It’s our YoU guarantee.

The Classrooms
Students on campus will be given the unique opportunity of taking joint classes with 5-10 students, in which one ProfessorBot is programmed with the knowledge and teaching styles of each student in the class’s personal ProfessorBot so as to give students the group experience without the detriments of ancient college classrooms. For the full anthropological experience, students will be permitted to sit in on “mock classes” in which a sentient teacher lectures to classes of twenty or more students, but no credits will be awarded for these classes.

Off-campus students will be allowed to participate in virtual classrooms where they can converse and discuss classes with other students across the Orion Arm of the galaxy. Virtual conversations are filtered and censored when necessary, and we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to xenocist slurs.

Course Materials
Each off-campus student is required to purchase an iStudent console* prior to the first week of classes. You University also offers an upgrade from the older Chihuahua, Rottweiler and Dachshund editions to the new Golden Retriever (newly Flash-capable!) version.

Textbooks and other course material may be bought and downloaded from our bookstore website for low prices and the latest editions. Subscribe to their newsletter for the newest, best deals! Your RegistrarBot will also let you know which books can be found online, free of charge.

*Available for shipping from Jobs City, Mars.