Experience Letter
I commenced my studies at Atlantic International University in November 2009 majoring in economics and as an adult I thought it would take me more than two years to complete the course. My Planned graduation was November 2011, but I completed the course in December 2010 well ahead of schedule. When the college asked me to submit assignments based on some books they recommended me to read, I never understood what those books had to do with the field of economics I was interested in. They recommended books like Hidden Connections, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating poverty through profits, In defense of Globalization, Philosophy in Crisis: The need for reconstruction, How to change the world: Social entrepreneurs and the power of new ideas, and a movie What the Bleep do we know. In the end I realized that these books laid a firm foundation that helped me understand a lot of things that I never knew before. I came to understand what was going on in the world more than I understood the world from what I previously got from the electronic and print media. In fact I enjoyed working through all the assignments, and I particularly liked Hidden Connections, in defense of globalization and what the Bleep do we know.
Coming to the core subjects I took trouble to search course outlines of many universities in the world and compared them with the University of Zambia department of economics and Institute of Social Science (ISS) School of economics course outlines. These two are the leading economics Institutions in my home country. In the end my academic advisor Dr Franklin Valcin recommended that I settle for 13 courses which I did and completed the studies with 3.27 GPA; this is a remarkable feat for someone of my age. I enjoyed working through my courses and even courses like econometrics which I thought would pose problems did not actually give me such problems. At one stage I even accused my academic advisor for not guiding me properly when I could not
get my curriculum proposal right. He asked me to concentrate on my studies because there was a big difference in pedagogic studies and andragogic studies.
Payment terms are quite flexible, that even students from weak economies like my home country can afford. US $1 000 is almost ZMK 5 million in my country, that’s more than two months wages of most workers there. AIU only requires only US $300 per month and offers some scholarship to help you complete your studies without you applying for a scholarship. Really what more does one need? They don’t even pressure you to pay but one should bear in mind that that’s an obligation. Personally I have no regrets enrolling at AIU, I recommend AIU to my fellow adults. I had opportunities to do this course at Empire State College in New York, London School of Economics, and Must University among others. Due to excellent communication between staff at AIU and myself I settled for this university. Jeff Bordes even assured me way back in October 2009 that I would complete my studies in a short time because I spent most of my time reading. And surely I have done just that!
Fellow adults AIU is the place for you, take your chances am now preparing to specialize by moving to the next phase of study which is a masters degree, a qualification that would enable me to be a lecturer at Zambian colleges, my lifelong dream. All this will be made possible because AIU accorded the greatest opportunity of my entire life.
