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Yes, I Can Drive a Stick – Spooktacular Halloween Freebie

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Yes, I Can Drive a Stick – Spooktacular Halloween Freebie

Halloween Freebie - Yes, I can drive a stick

Which Witch Are You? The good or the bad one? I think I’m the good one as I bring you some last-minute free Halloween printable decoration. Even if this year’s party will be held over Zoom, you can still decorate your walls with some spooky printables. It is why I decided to refresh the most bewitched one!

Bewitched free Halloween printable decoration!

I like designing posters because I think they are really universal decoration. They are perfect both for a seasonal office accent and the house party knick-knack. This Halloween poster is easy to print and available in three different sizes – A4, A5, and US Letter.

For Personal Use Only.


What types of decorations are your favorites? Above all, do you even decorate your house for seasonal occasions like Halloween? I would love to know that so please let me know in the comments below!


If you are looking for more Halloween Freebies, make sure to check our free printables library


Looking for something specific?

If you have an idea for printable, let us know in the comments! We are always looking for inspiration. If you decide to print today’s Halloween poster, make sure to share photos of your decorated room with us via Instagram or Twitter.

Word + Quiz: compendium

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Word + Quiz: compendium

1. a publication containing a variety of works

2. a concise but comprehensive summary of a larger work

Nineties nostalgia is of course nothing new — the pop-cultural landscape has long been littered with hallmarks of the early part of that decade, like flannel and “Jock Jams”-worthy athleisure, and the revivalist sounds to match. But time marches on, and so, too, does that roughly 20-year cycle of the old becoming stylishly new again. And now the halcyon, almost-forgotten pop artifacts of the late ’90s — boy bands, winking futurism, inordinate amounts of glitter — are being dusted off and refurbished by today’s younger stars.

The fashion and design worlds got to this future nostalgia first. In 2016, Evan Collins started a popular Tumblr called the Institute for Y2K Aesthetics, which one write-up described as a compendium of “Baby G watches, Britney Spears cradling a robot dog, a shimmering pink bean-shaped Walkman, [and] inflatable backpacks.” Last July, GQ ran a piece about why, suddenly, “Y2K-era gear became the hottest thing in the vintage-clothing world.” Bold, label-obsessed and often future-fixated, the style of that window of time between 1995 and 2001 was the result of, as the writer Erin Schwartz noted, a “jumble of excitement and anxiety about the spread of technology at the turn of the millennium.”

Creepy

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Creepy

Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 2021.

What story does this image inspire for you?

Use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem inspired by this illustration — or tell us about a memory from your own life that this image makes you think of.

Post it in the comments, then read the related article to learn more — or check out our full list of Halloween teaching and learning ideas.


About Picture Prompts

• Find all our Picture Prompts in this column.
• Have an idea for a Picture Prompt? Tell us about it.
• Teachers, discover more ways to teach with our Picture Prompts and learn how to use our free daily writing prompts for remote learning.

Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Weekly News Quiz for Students: Trump’s White House Return, Vice Presidential Debate, Nobel Peace Prize

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Weekly News Quiz for Students: Trump’s White House Return, Vice Presidential Debate, Nobel Peace Prize

How well did you follow the news this past week? How many of these 10 questions can you get right?

What Has Television Taught You About Social Class?

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What Has Television Taught You About Social Class?

Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 2021.

Has television given you an education about how people of different social classes live their lives? Or have you learned to be wary of the way shows portray real life?

In the Opinion essay “Everything I Know About Elite America I Learned From ‘Fresh Prince’ and ‘West Wing,’” Rob Henderson writes about the role television has played in his life over the years, beginning in his youth:

At first, I thought class was about money. “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” taught me that it wasn’t.

I started off in what most people think of as America’s lower class. I was given up for adoption when I was 3; I spent the next four years in seven foster homes. When I was 7, I was adopted and subsequently settled in Red Bluff, Calif., a working-class town, population 13,147, median household income $27,029. Two years later, my adoptive parents got divorced; after that, my adoptive father severed ties.

When I was 15, I got my first job, as a dishwasher at a pizza restaurant, and on breaks, all my conversations with co-workers eventually turned to the topic of money. We would fantasize about what we would do if we suddenly had it: vacations, cars. In high school, we’d hear rumors that so-and-so was rich, because their parents had a second house or a boat. We all thought that money was the important thing: If you had it, you were “rich” — which for us was indistinguishable from “elite.” If you didn’t, you weren’t.

This was true, to an extent. But it wasn’t the whole story. How did I learn it wasn’t? From television.

Mr. Henderson explains how television shaped his values, calling it “a constant and lifeline”:

Today I’m a Ph.D. student at Cambridge University. As someone who has had to navigate a long journey through a variety of social milieus — first foster care and my hometown, then the military, then Yale — television has been a constant and lifeline. It’s been both entertainment and social guide, teaching me the language and the ways of thinking I needed to move fluidly, more or less, from one environment to another.

Along the way, I’ve learned about the complicated ways that class interacts with taste, and what different social classes view as desirable. What I’ve come to realize, as I reflect on different influences in my life, is that the television I’ve watched has made me a different person than I would otherwise have been; choices I’ve made have been guided to a large degree by what TV has taught me about what constitutes a good life. Looking back, I can see that my decisions stemmed from a set of values — but whose? I thought I was building the life I desired, using fictional stories as a road map. Now I wonder how these stories shaped what I desired all along.

The essay concludes:

In the show “Mad Men,” the rags-to-riches protagonist Don Draper also watches movies and television to help blend into the world of New York’s upper class. It works well enough, but even so, he can’t quite smooth all his rough edges: In one episode, for example, Roger Sterling, Don’s boss, invites himself over to the Drapers’ house for dinner. After a few drinks, Roger says to Don, “By the way you drop your G’s every once in a while, I always thought you were raised on a farm.” Don, visibly uncomfortable, changes the subject.

For me, too, watching television took me only so far. I still didn’t quite fit in when I finally went to Yale. Though I didn’t drop my G’s, people on campus were fluent in a language I still could not speak. I remember being bewildered the first time I heard another student describe a joke I’d made as “gendered,” for instance — I’d never heard that word before.

But going to Yale also meant I no longer needed television to learn how to fit in among elites — I could learn from them in real life.

Recently, I was at an academic program in Washington, D.C. There, for the first time in my life, a stranger mistook me for having come from a wealthy background. “I’m not rich,” I said. “I just watch a lot of TV.” I said it as a joke, but it really wasn’t. My “bingeing to belong” approach wasn’t foolproof, but it helped. TV helped me to understand people who were worlds away from how I grew up. It gave me an understanding of the ingredients of social mobility. What I can’t quite disentangle is whether it taught me how to get what I had always wanted or taught me what to want.

Students, read the entire essay, then tell us:

  • Mr. Henderson intuits that his values were shaped by television shows. To what degree does this also describe your experience? How has TV shaped the way you see the world?

  • What shows have given you insight into different social classes, communities or cultures? Can you recall ever drawing upon what you saw on TV to help you navigate a situation in real life? If you were writing a similar essay about your own life, what shows would you include?

  • Mr. Henderson explores how TV helped him learn about people who were worlds away from how he grew up. But does television ever get it wrong? Does it ever promote stereotypes, inaccurately portray communities or gloss over important social issues? What shows come to mind when you think of TV’s distortions, exaggerations and unreliability? Why?

  • The Op-Ed doesn’t mention any reality shows, like “Keeping Up With The Kardashians,” “The Bachelor” or “Survivor.” How would you say reality TV relates to the essay’s theme? Is reality TV ever instructive? Or, despite the name, is it often less realistic than other types of TV shows?

  • Mr. Henderson concludes his essay with this line about television: “What I can’t quite disentangle is whether it taught me how to get what I had always wanted or taught me what to want.” What does this line mean to you? How, if at all, might it relate to your life?


About Student Opinion

• Find all our Student Opinion questions in this column.
• Have an idea for a Student Opinion question? Tell us about it.
• Learn more about how to use our free daily writing prompts for remote learning.

Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Lesson of the Day: ‘“Everything Is Closed Down.” The Lack of Youth Sports Is a Crisis.’

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Lesson of the Day: ‘“Everything Is Closed Down.” The Lack of Youth Sports Is a Crisis.’

Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until September 2021.

Featured Article: “‘Everything Is Closed Down.’ The Lack of Youth Sports Is a Crisis,” by Kurt Streeter

According to several experts, despite a glut of sports on TV, there is a lack of youth leagues and teams during the coronavirus pandemic that could cost us for years to come.

In this lesson, you will consider how the pandemic is affecting youth sports both now and, potentially, long-term. You’ll then investigate the power that sports have in your community, and look closely at how athletes and teams are adapting.

Did you watch the Lakers win their 17th championship this weekend? What were your favorite moments?

What do you know about what made it possible for these games to happen safely in the first place? As Jared Dudley, a forward for the Lakers, told The Times, this is “one of the worst, strangest years” in the history of professional basketball. The article says:

Nothing about the 2019-20 N.B.A. season was normal. There were tragedies and triumphs, setbacks and highlights. When play finally resumed in July after a four-month hiatus brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, it began in a so-called bubble: a self-contained, spectator-free campus at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., as the league — at no small cost — fought to the finish line.

Do you think it was worth it for the players to spend those many weeks in the “bubble” to make playing safe? If you were a player, would you have done it? Why or why not?

Before you read the article below, think about the youth sports in your community, where precautions like daily testing, which have cost the N.B.A. an estimated $180 million, are not possible. Answer these questions, in small groups or as a whole class if possible:

  • Which youth sports in your school or community have been canceled entirely as a result of the coronavirus pandemic? Which have been scaled back or changed? How are athletes and teams adapting?

  • How do you think these changes are affecting the athletes and teams, as well as the community at large? What long term effects do you think the pandemic may have on youth sports and athletes in your school or area? Why?

Read the article, then answer the following questions:

1. Who is Tyrone Riley, and why is he worried?

2. Why do “sports barely exist at all” right now in communities like Watts? How much does your community resemble this one?

3. Why is this “a moment of historic crisis,” according to the director of the Sports and Society Program at the Aspen Institute? What does the program’s nationwide survey show?

4. Do you feel about a sport the way that Aaron Teklu, 17, describes the role of basketball in his life? If so, how has this sport changed your life?

5. How is the pandemic-fueled decline in youth participation, according to Rich Luker, “just one piece of a larger puzzle”? What may be the long-term ramifications? Do you think these may apply to your school or community as well?

6. Why do you think this journalist chose to end the article as he did? How does that last line play on a theme and structure that he had used throughout the piece? How would you answer his final question?

Option 1: Investigate and Document the Power of Sports in Your Community

Tyrone Riley says he “knows to his core the power that sports can have in changing lives and bringing communities together.” Do you share that feeling?

How can you celebrate the power of sports in your school or area during a time when that power is threatened? What stories can you gather from athletes, coaches, parents or others about teams or athletes that show how sports can change lives and bring people together? Have you come across any new stories about how athletes are adapting now — like, for instance, the way that high school soccer is being played this season in Massachusetts? How is your community trying to hold on to the power of sports, even given the hurdles?

Investigate an aspect of this that interests you by interviewing a range of people currently involved in one or many youth sports. Then, create something to showcase what you find, whether a short video, an article for your school paper, a podcast, a photo essay, a graphic or even a live outdoor or virtual event. Knowing that many experts believe that what’s happening to youth sports right now could impact an entire generation, how can your contribution help?

Option 2: Design Your Own Fitness Program

Early on in this pandemic, we asked, How are you staying healthy and fit? Even if you don’t consider yourself an athlete, it’s important to have an exercise plan. What have you been doing so far? What, if anything, does your plan lack? One source of information for making sure you’re staying fit is Well, a Times health site. Take a look at Move, one section of the site, for advice from sneaking in exercise while on Zoom to using yoga to relax. What will work for you right now? Why? How will you help yourself to stay accountable to your plan?

About Lesson of the Day

• Find all of our Lessons of the Day in this column.
• Teachers, watch our on-demand webinar to learn how to use this feature in your classroom.

Learn more about what motivates current Michigan Public Health online students

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Learn more about what motivates current Michigan Public Health online students

Michigan Public Health students come from a variety of backgrounds, but all are driven by a collective mission to help people and improve overall public health. Michigan Public Health students are innovators and collaborators; they come to Michigan knowing the School of Public Health provides its students with the knowledge and training that will allow them to make a real impact. 

Students like Dr. Robert Davidson want to create positive change with their Master of Public Health degree. He says “I would like to positively impact the health of larger populations of people compared with the one-on-one role I have played throughout my medical career. I want to build a foundation of public health over the next two years [in this master’s program] to make me a better advocate for policies that improve the health of populations.”

Current students in the online MPH and MS degree programs have been excited to share their motivations to pursue graduate work with Michigan Public Health. Many also note the ways in which they’ve already seen benefits in their careers and personal life as they move through their coursework. If you’ve ever considered earning your degree in public health, you might find that their stories are not that different from your own. Learn more about the many paths to public health our students have taken in the articles featured here: 

Read about Hanady D, an online MPH student who has been an infectious disease physician for the last 18 years, but chose to pursue her MPH because “you realize that as a physician, you cannot really be disconnected from the other services that can eventually influence the outcome of your patient. You really have to be engaged in terms of their social situation.”

Hear from Chris C, an online MPH student who became interested in public health when he started to recognize some of the disparities in care within his own community. He explains, “too often, if you’re at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum, you do not get the same care as others because of income, race, or other factors. If you’re not some ‘preferred’ group, you’re not given access to the same level of care and I’d just like to be able to fix things like that.”

Chris R, an online MPH student has used his background as a nurse to inform his study of public health. Chris notes that “public health shares a lot with nursing. Nurses have that up-close relationship, and public health professionals—[which includes] many nurses—have a wider view. Nurses are taught more and more to see the “big” pictures [of overall health care]—population health, reducing unit waste through better practices, being mindful of key performance indicators in health care.”

Michigan’s School of Public Health has two online degree options: the online Master of Public Health in Population and Health Sciences degree and the Master of Science in Population and Health Sciences degree.

Both degrees in Population and Health Sciences share an emphasis on providing students with a foundational public health education. This generalist approach allows them to address complex challenges and pursue innovative, lasting solutions to improve the health of communities. At the core of the Population and Health Sciences curriculum is an aim to strengthen a population-level approach to today’s pressing public health issues. 

Read more about the differences between the MPH and MS and find out which program is right for you here.

 

Live2Coursera: Coming Soon as a Zoom App

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Live2Coursera: Coming Soon as a Zoom App

By Shravan Goli, Chief Product Officer, Coursera 

In August, we launched Live2Coursera to help instructors quickly move online by integrating Zoom lectures into their private courses and content libraries on Coursera. While this helped address the initial challenge of transitioning instruction online, internet connectivity and access to devices still impede learning for many students. 

Today, we’re excited to announce that Live2Coursera is coming soon to the Zoom application marketplace unveiled today at Zoomtopia. The free Live2Coursera Zapp helps reduce the digital divide in higher ed by offering flexible viewing and download options—instructors will be able to teach remotely with confidence, knowing that all of their students can access their lectures anytime, anywhere. 

Instructors can enable the Live2Coursera Zapp to easily record, share, and upload their Zoom lectures to Coursera. Students can view lecture recordings within Zoom or download recorded lectures from Coursera via mobile or PC in the format best suited to their bandwidth—high resolution video, low data video, or audio-only. 

Using the Live2Coursera Zapp:

Instructors can access the Live2Coursera for Zoom application (Zapp) directly in the Zoom environment.

Before recording, instructors should fill out the email and video title fields. Instructors can also check the box next to “Email video to everyone invited to this meeting” to automatically send an email to students containing a link to the recorded lecture on Coursera. 

Once instructors are ready to begin recording their lecture, they can click on “Start recording to Coursera.” After the lecture is finished, the video link can be shared directly with students via email or within Zoom.

In Zoom, learners can access “Recently added” videos and watch directly in Zoom.

Through the shareable URL, they can view the video online on Coursera or download it for offline viewing on mobile or PC. 

When downloading a lecture video, learners can choose from several download options, including high resolution video, low data video, or audio-only.  

We are excited to team up with Zoom to help instructors create inclusive and accessible online learning for all students.

Sign up to be notified when the Live2Coursera Zapp is available for download here.

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Announcing Coursera for Campus free pricing options and academic integrity upgrades

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Announcing Coursera for Campus free pricing options and academic integrity upgrades

By Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera CEO

The pandemic has been a catalyst for universities to make online learning core to the student experience. In March, we launched the Campus Response Initiative to give students and faculty free access to Coursera for Campus during pandemic-related closures. Since then, we have grown from 30 universities using Coursera for Campus to over 3,700, serving more than 2.4 million students who have enrolled in 21.4 million courses worldwide. As the crisis persists, higher education continues to face unprecedented challenges. 

Today, we are announcing long-term free versions of Coursera for Campus and upgraded features to address the mission-critical needs of higher education institutions globally. These new features allow universities to deliver academic integrity for credit-bearing online learning, improve student employability, and author private courses.  

With three offerings, Coursera for Campus is committed to supporting students and institutions in every stage of online learning:

  • The Student plan gives every university student free access to unlimited Guided Projects for hands-on learning and one course annually*. Like all learners on the Coursera platform, students can gain job-relevant skills at their own pace with mobile and offline access. They will also have access to the online help center.   
  • The Basic plan provides up to 20,000 free student licenses to every university. Every license includes access to unlimited Guided Projects and one course annually*. This long-term free offering includes basic plagiarism deterrence features and access to the online help center. 
  • The Institution plan provides unlimited Guided Projects and unlimited course enrollments for each student license. It also enables universities to author, grade, and manage for-credit online learning programs with enhanced academic integrity. 

The upgraded features of Coursera for Campus enable universities to: 

Deliver credit-bearing online learning with advanced academic integrity features

As universities look to build long-term online learning programs for students, they must ensure their experience meets the academic rigor of campus learning. Coursera for Campus now offers academic integrity features that enable universities to deliver credit-bearing online learning. 

Faculty can now administer secure, high-stakes exams and detect plagiarism in assignments on Coursera for Campus. It supports online proctoring with integrations like ProctorU and allows exams to be timed and scheduled. Over the next few months, Coursera will enhance exam security with third-party ID verification tools. For assignments, integrations with tools like Turnitin auto-detect plagiarism for both students and graders. Students can check their Similarity Score before submitting an assignment. Faculty can view all suspected and confirmed plagiarism incidents in Gradebooks. The platform also supports plagiarism deterrence by disabling URL sharing and copying of peer reviews.

Question Banks make it easy to author rigorous, custom assessments at scale. Faculty can create assessments with any combination of auto-graded multiple choice and manually-graded essay questions. They can privately author questions and randomize them based on learning objective and difficulty level. This feature will roll out widely by the end of the year. 

Improve student employability with job-relevant learning 

The pandemic has placed enormous pressure on job opportunities, and students need to graduate with high-demand skills to gain employment. Using Coursera for Campus, universities can help students gain marketable skills with Professional Certificates from industry educators like Google, IBM, Facebook, Intuit, Salesforce, and Amazon. Launched in March, Guided Projects give students hands-on experience with tools like Python, SQL, HTML, Jupyter Notebooks, Java, R, Tensorflow, and Google Analytics. Students can learn these skills in under two hours and apply them in interviews and on-the-job.

Skills development analytics in Coursera for Campus can help faculty track student progress and close employability skills gaps. They can also use skill-based Academies on Coursera to help students develop skill sets required for specific job roles.  

Build blended online learning programs with ready-made courses and private authoring tools

With online learning now core to the student experience, universities need an effective way to create and curate high-quality online curricula. In addition to 4,200 ready-made online courses from leading universities and companies, faculty now have access to the same powerful authoring platform as Coursera’s university content partners. They can efficiently build custom courses, hands-on projects, assessments, and even embed Zoom recordings with Live2Coursera. Strategies and resources for effective online teaching are also available on the Coursera Teaching Center. 

Over the coming months, Coursera will roll out a new curriculum tool that will help faculty curate Coursera content to fill curriculum gaps, teach new specialties, and focus programs on specific disciplines or difficulty levels. 

Coursera for Campus also offers administrative tools and LMS integrations that allow faculty to manage the end-to-end student experience in one platform. Student scores are auto-tracked in Gradebooks and custom filter analytics are available to drive performance insights. Faculty can also auto-enroll students in custom course sequences with fixed scheduling capabilities coming next year. 

Bridge the digital divide with mobile learning that can be downloaded and viewed offline

Coursera for Campus helps universities equally serve students, including those with limited connectivity, bandwidth, and devices. 70% of Coursera for Campus students used a mobile device for their learning during the pandemic. With mobile and offline learning, students can download courses, synchronize progress and quizzes, take notes with highlights, and calendar sync – all optimized for low data consumption. The platform also includes digital-first engagement tools to maximize learning effectiveness like bite-size videos, in-browser programming assignments, and Guided Projects for hands-on learning.

“The pandemic has been a punctuation moment in higher education. Faced with unprecedented urgency, educators are working hard to prepare for the ‘new normal’ of blended learning. At the peak of disruption, Coursera for Campus allowed us to serve impacted students of our Kunshan campus. We are excited to see it launch new features that are critical to providing academically rigorous and job-relevant online learning that both faculty and students would find valuable.” –Matthew Rascoff, Duke University Associate Vice Provost for Digital Education and Innovation

Higher education institutions worldwide have used Coursera for Campus to enable continuous learning, offer supplemental content to their degree programs, and prepare students for jobs and internships. Among them are leading institutions like Duke University, University of Michigan, Johnson C. Smith University, Africa Nazarene University, Southampton University, IIM-Udaipur, Symbiosis Institute of Technology, and Colegio de Estudios Superiores de Administración. 

“We chose Coursera to strengthen our existing course offering, infuse work skills into all elements of our teaching, expand our offering in the domains of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data literacy and be a global education brand. We’ve had outstanding training and support from Coursera in onboarding students. In just four weeks, more than 1,100 students have enrolled in over 4,400 courses.” –Dr. Stanley Makhosi Bhebhe, Africa Nazarene University Vice-Chancellor

“The pandemic disrupted the education system world over. While most educational institutions were not prepared for the challenge, identifying its impact early on, we devised a digital strategy and partnered with Coursera to take advantage of a wide variety of courses available on the platform. Coursera for Campus has enabled us to offer our students the most relevant high-quality content across topics, complementing their knowledge and skills for the new job market.” –Professor Janat Shah, IIM-Udaipur Director

The resilience that universities and students have shown during these challenging times is inspiring to all of us. With today’s launch, we are taking bold steps in enabling universities to create a more inclusive and job-relevant higher education experience for everyone. 

For more information about each offering, visit www.coursera.org/campus.

*Some course exclusions apply. 

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Dr Meenu Poonia: “I have already completed 138 Alison courses!”

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Dr Meenu Poonia: “I have already completed 138 Alison courses!”

“My name is Dr Meenu Poonia. I’m an international gold medalist in ju jitsu and I also play cricket at the national level. I work as an assistant manager at the Jaipur Central Co Operative Bank in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. I am also a writer and I have written almost ten books in Hindi. I have four postgraduate degrees from Rajasthan University.”

How did you learn about Alison?

Through the Alison Facebook page.

What was your first course on Alison, and why did you choose it?

My first course was the Diploma in Outdoor and Physical Education Studies. I chose this because I am very active.

What’s your favourite way to relax from studying?

 To relax, I like reading books. Books are my best friend.

Where are you working/what are you studying now?

I am working as an assistant manager in the Jaipur Central Co Operative Bank. I am also in my final year of studying my fourth postgraduate degree (in Public Administration) I have already completed three postgraduate degrees in English literature, Hindi literature and Sociology.

 

What’s next for you, in terms of education or work?

I plan to keep studying on a regular basis and to eventually complete 200 Alison courses. I have already completed 138 Alison courses!

What would you say to someone if they asked you about Alison? Would you recommend it and why?

Absolutely, I recommend Alison because it’s a very important platform for online study.