Ruth Chidyagwai, Bachelor of Business Communications

My life with the Atlantic international University has been such an experience. I have been truly motivated, encouraged and inspired. Like the OPRAH Magazine, when a friend recommended the magazine to me some years ago, I thought what was so special about this Magazine other than advertising some beauty products and Oprah herself. I read a friend’s magazine one day and I was so touched with the articles that related to our everyday life. Since then, I became a subscriber of the Oprah Magazine until today. I was touched by Oprah’s farewell show that she gave recently towards the end of May – it was such a touching moment. Oprah has inspired a lot of lives around the world. And so is AIU distance learning programmes. The AIU has been another eye-opener in my life. At one time I thought I would never be able to produce even a one-page story in terms of writing. I used to think if I did not do well at school those days when my brains were still sharp and away from today’s stressful life, what makes me think I would now start reading and be able to write on something. More so, a degree programme. I procrastinated on taking up these studies. Although I had been financially occupied as a single parent, I also took that as an excuse not to register with any university. But the truth is I had no confidence in my reading and writing capacity. I had been working for the UN since 2000, making it almost 11 years now. Things have also been very easy for me because I proved to be a very dedicated international civil servant of the UN. Then, I realized, it is so easy to climb up the ladder in the UN as long as one possesses a high quality of education. I, at times comforted myself by saying – “After all I have it all in life” I have a house with a swimming pool and a tennis court, I have a car – so why bother”. One day I had a sleepless night – I had been pondering on this matter of revamping my educational background. I worked with a friend from Zambia and we both had the same problem. One day we spoke seriously about the matter and we started searching through the internet for colleges that provided distance learning. At first I registered myself with an institution in South Africa, under the assumption that it was near home. However, the institution delayed dispatching my reading material. Their conditions rendered it difficult as well. There was also lack of communication on their front office. At this same time, I remained comfortable because I was still not very sure if I was ready to tackle it. Then one day I requested that I get a reimbursement from this particular institution and it took me about six months for me to get my money back. This time around, my colleague in the office had also been in touch with some friends in other missions who also recommended some colleges and among these institutions was AIU. I had gone through the AIU website before but I was not sure if it was a reliable University. I then went back to the website and this time took quite some time to go through the website and read all the conditions, rules and requirements. I then told my friend that I was going to register myself with AIU and I did it. My first message on the website was immediately responded and I quickly filled in the forms that came through my email and went through all the initial formalities through emailing and phones, The next thing I paid for both registration and my first monthly tuition fee. When I was asked to write some stories about myself – I wrote the requested pages with so much zeal and I did so well. When my results came I felt so proud of myself and I was encouraged. After submission of those initial personal assignments that were mainly related to my own personal life, educational and work background, AIU then recommended some four books that I was supposed to read and then write my own analysis of each book producing a 15 page paper of single line on each text book. Until now those books have remained part of my best memory and it was from those assignments that I realized I was capable of reading, writing and even criticize and analyze someone’s thoughts. “Yes I can” – I told myself one day as I saw myself sailing in the fourth book. After all these assignments, I dived into the course programmes that included among other things, Ethics, Strategic Management, Human Communication, Intercultural Communication etc. I did these courses with so much interest and enthusiasm because I was able to write all my assignments through reading a lot of reading material, my own work experience and through interaction with colleagues and local authorities on a daily basis.
The above could not have been achieved if the Atlantic International University had not put in place such excellent, flexible Andragogic Education programme. The programme makes it easy for one to study at your own pace and depending with your speed in reading and writing, once you reach the target at the completion of your assignments, projects and thesis one can graduate within a reasonable period. Furthermore, one can also take time to go through the whole programme – it is not like other colleges that will enforce difficult operations and conditions for its students resulting in huge financial losses and lack of learning interests. Besides, the college I had registered with initially required that students travel to that country twice in a year to write examinations – (“oooh like you are back to the desk again”). With AIU, adult and distance learning becomes a very interesting tool because it comes with no inconveniences and y