My Experience at Atlantic International University

This has been a journey that began on the 6th of January 2011.

I have always wanted to read for a Ph. D, in Statistics. The year I was turning 60, I felt that this was a goal I had to achieve. Because of my age and the accompanying entrenched habits and social circles, I did not want to leave the comfort of my home and relocate to colder climes. Those are the habits of youth. I decided to read with a virtual university a campus mundi. I promptly found it in the AIU.

The shock was when I was told as one of the first assignments to design my own curriculum. Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I visited the website of my Alma Mater, the University of Calgary. I saw the graduate courses they were now offering. I then visited web sites of other North American Universities and did the same. Then I decided to design a rigorous programme that would help me understand my discipline in greater depth.
The demand that I do a bit of self introspection from the start was a blessing. I examined myself and the need for the doctorate and its use to my society, my country and the world in general. I put everything in its proper perspective and got serious.

I enjoyed interacting with my tutors. Most of them were very encouraging souls. I appreciated the prompt response to my assignments, the patience with which they waited for my assignment, the gentle reminders. It spurred me to produce quality work.
In my assignments, I therefore learned a lot of theory and applied it all to my country and my continent.

The seminars gave me exposure to other disciplines. It taught me to relate all disciplines to each other. Now I know that the world teems with possibilities. There is not one correct answer, there are many. I adopted a new philosophy that “if I can imagine it, visualize it then I can create it.
I am a different person and I got a new lease of life in my sixties.