Purposes Behind UPP

Name: Kassem Al-Hellani Reflection paper Purposes Behind UPP It is important for any student to know another language and especially English language because it is universal. I thought that this is the only aim of the University Preparatory Program (UPP), but I was wrong. In the first semester at UPP, we have learned many things especially because we are new students, and in my opinion, UPP instructors achieved their goals which are adapting the university atmosphere or the city atmosphere, learning English language and learning other beneficial subjects. One of the aims of UPP was adapting the university or city atmosphere. I am from Bekaa, so it seemed hard to me to live in the capital and continue my education and especially for the first semester, but UPP helped us to do that. First, UPP tasks weren’t so hard, and they didn’t require too much time, so I found enough time to go across the university and discover what I want and what I need to discover, and sometimes I went outside the university to Hamra and many other places to recognize them. Second, making friends is an important thing during my education, and this what I found in UPP. I knew many friends and especially those who share me the same scholarship. Third, UPP helps me to know more about my majors in AUB and more about scholarship and how I can register online for the courses. In addition, during this semester I attended many events, and I liked them, and I also volunteered in many activities which I also liked, and they left a big impact on me. The role of UPP doesn’t end here because I’ll have in the next semester new discoveries and new thing to do, and I’ll have a leadership training in the break between the two semesters, so it was really a preparatory program because I won’t face the obstacles that the new student will face. UPP gave us many chances to adapt in AUB atmosphere and to be ready for education. Another aim of UPP was teaching us English language. English language in UPP divided into many sections. Each section has its role and its instructor. In the reading section, I learned an important concept in English, and it is reading and understanding what I read, and I also learned a lot of vocabulary words and the most useful ones, and I should mention that the instructor was so helpful with us, and he was the one who encourages us to learn this language. In the speaking and listening section, I learned how to speak English but not fluently, but I was enhanced in listening skill because of the movie that the instructor was shown us, and I consider them as the most beneficial ones for me. The structure section was an important section even though we took it two hours per week, but it taught us the basic rules and how to build sentences and then connect them. Because we were complaining of the silly and boring exercises of the book, the instructor gave us more supplementary exercises to solve them. I can’t describe how much importance was the writing section and how helpful was the writing instructor. Even thought our Moodle wasn’t active, the instructor connected us by email to supply us with the required materials and exercises. This skill is the most important because it gathered all the previous skills in the writing, so it was interesting to write what I wrote because I was using all what I learned in one exercise. Last but not least, all these skills were so important without any exceptions, and even though each section was specified to teach us specific rules, they were uniting to teach us English language. UPP wasn’t restricted in teaching u English language only, but it was teaching us many other subjects like Math, Science and IT. UPP will stand for one year, so instead of forgetting some rules in these subjects, we took some sessions in these subjects to refresh our mind especially for those who study scientific majors like me. We took also some new materials that are beneficial for the education later. As a conclusion, I didn’t find this semester boring because I had these subjects which are beneficial and entertainment. Finally, what I have mentioned from adapting to learning I can achieve them without UPP, but it will be harder, and it may affect my education, and even if we lose a year from our life, we will find it later in our education. I can’t imagine how hard my education will be without UPP.