Season's greetings to you all, how are you all doing? How is the break so far, hope everyone is enjoying the break.
I welcome you all to my write-up on my feedback which we were asked to write about by the steemit crypto academy moderators, which is about an individual's experience on steemit crypto academy, I will be writing my own point of view on my experience on crypto academy so far.
SEASONS I PARTICIPATED IN THE CRYPTO ACADEMY
I actually started participating in crypto academy weekly beginners courses at the beginning of season 5, it wasn't easy to be eligible on taken the weekly courses in the community because of the high requirement, for example, the reputation that is required for a beginner to be to do beginners course is 50 at the end of season 4, but before the resumption of the season 5, the rep shoot up from 50 to 55 rep for beginners, for intermediate the rep shoot up from 55 to 60, for advance users have to have at least 65 reputation which is way higher and it isn't easy to get your reputation to that level so along the line you find out that those that are eligible for the academy course at the end of season 4 were not eligible at the beginning of season 5 because they don't have the required reputation, same goes for the required SP.
For me to be eligible for the academy, I had to work harder on the fixed courses that were provided for those that are new to the academy which also helped me a lot in meeting up the required SP and REP needed in joining the academy last season.
WHAT WORKED FOR THE ACADEMY
So far the academy has done a great job, I believed almost all users gained from it because as a person even I only started last season but I can assure you that what I have learned and earned so far in the academy is greater than what I have learned, earned before joining the academy.
What will be listed below are what I believed that have worked and made the academy what it is today.
Weekly courses: In my own opinion, I believed that the weekly courses that were released make the academy more challenging and also more interesting because it pushed all users to do their best on each of the courses which also makes all users do more research on each course that was assigned for each week.
The professor grading: One of the wonderful things that makes it more interesting is the grading system of each course you do, one a course the grading is 10, on each course every user has to have at least 5/10 to meet the average mark for you to be curated, this kind of situations makes all users strive for the best on each course they are writing on because if you get less than 5 it means your work will not be voted on and it makes users work harder and research more on every course.
Striving for Top 3 on every week course: One of the interesting things in the academy is the bonus you get when you were able to meet the professor requirement for you to be on the top 3 list, this makes all users excited and also makes them compete with each other because being among the top 3 is limited to only the best 3 of the week, this makes all users work harder on the course and also makes them research deeper.
Break after every season: I love the idea of the academy going on break for a few weeks after every season because with the break all users were able to take their time to reminisce on everything they have learned for that season, this also gives al users time to prepare for the coming season, to gather all the motivation they need so that they will not be left behind.
WHAT DID NOT WORK WELL FOR THE ACADEMY
They are a few things I believed did not work well in the academy especially this last season, which I will be listed below.
Steem power up requirement: As I have mentioned earlier it wasn't easy joining the academy because of the high requirement needed especially for those that are new to the platform, in case of the SP requirement, in my own opinion I believe that the 150 SP requirement for beginners to join the weekly courses is way too much because not all beginners will be able to meet up this requirement because most of the beginners are those that are new to the platform, they literally most of them don't have up to 150 SP which means even if they have the require Rep because of the low SP they will have to forfeit few weeks before joining and the more you delay the harder it is to join the academy because of the monthly power up requirement.
Monthly Power up requirement: One of the things i believe doesn't go well in the academy is the issue of powering up at least 150 steem every month, to be sincere i believe that the idea of club5050 which is users powering up half of their earning is wonderful because with that the platform will grow more stronger faster but the issue of monthly power up of 150 steem or above every month is not ideal because not all users will be able to afford it and some users don't even earn up to that and some users won't be able to keep it up especially those that are new to the platform, because they litrarily don't know their way around the platform yet, for example like my case they was a course i did which was not marked because i didn't power up 150 steem that month and it's not like my withdrawal is above my power up but because of the fluctuation of steem price makes it harder for me to keep up with the power up and this makes me to forfit few weeks courses which is a big loss to me.
Beginners course: Another thing I observed that is not going so well is the kind of courses that are assigned for beginners, I believe that the courses that are assigned to beginners is too hard because as we called it, is supposed to be beginners course not intermediate or advance where they have literarily known most of the things to be thought in the academy but most of the beginners are a newbie to the idea of blockchain entirely, some of them have never done any trading before so this means that the kind of courses that are been thought in the academy most of them won't be able to learn anything from it because the courses are most advanced, it's beyond their level of understanding. And also the issue of drawing chart and so on, all this can only be done by users that know one or two things about trading, and most of the beginners know nothing about it which means that even if the majority do pass the course but at the end of the day the idea behind the academy is lost, most users are just striving to pass the course because of the money that is involved not because they learned anything from the course, you finds out that some users result in paying someone else to help them draw the chart which kills all the idea behind creating the academy community in the first place.
HOW I WOULD IMPROVE THE ACADEMY
They are lots of ways the academy can improve which I will be listing some below.
To improve the academy, I believe the moderators have to pay more attention to the newcomers that are just getting into the academy that is the beginners, they have to make it in a way that all users will feel warm when joining the academy, because they are some users that were able to find a better ground to stand on steemit platform all with the help of Crypto academy, they were able to create better content every time because they were able to learn more from the academy, but as the courses became harder, it makes most users abolish the idea of learning and instead go with the idea of passing the course by any means, I believe the mission of creating this community is to help steemit users to learn more about the blockchain world and to be able to trade and adapt to the big changes that are happening all over the world.
I believe that if the admins can find a way to bring courses that they believe someone that has no idea about the blockchain world will be able to learn from for the beginner's courses I believe we will have more users joining the system all the time because most users spend lots of money to learn all that in some tuition class.Another issue I will like the admin to look after is the issue of monthly power up, I believe that this issue of monthly power-up is not realistic especially for the beginners, most of them are new to the system, so they haven't gotten strong enough and some of them are even fighting in getting a vote for the content they created some don't even earn of to 150 steem a month which means that they will be affected and won't be able to do any course in the academy because they didn't power up for that month, I believe those that will be able to do the monthly powerup are those that have been on the platform for a long time which means they have the capital to back it up.
The ideal issue I believe will work well is for all users to hold on to club5050, club75, and club100 for every content that was curated, with that it will be a win-win situation for everyone and the steemit platform will have a big boost from that and all users will also grow faster that way.
MARKING SCHEMES AND REWARDS
Marking Scheme: In my opinion, the academy marking scheme is perfect where you are graded for how good your work is, the mark you get on each course depends on how good your answers are to the question asked on the course, how good your markdown is, all this is just like you making a presentation about your work, what the supervisors will look at first in your work is how good your work markdowns and presentations are if your work looks rough no matter how good the content it will not be accepted.
The rewards: In my opinion, the rewards are good enough but it can always go with some improvement, for example like the rewards that the beginner professors get is really poor because of the amount of workload they engaged in, the work is more but the reward doesn't compensate on the amount of workload they do, so it will be a good idea if they are an increment on the rewards that the beginners professors get.
WHAT I ENJOYED AND WHAT I HAVE LEARNT
Well to me steemit opened up another world entirely for me because before I joined steemit, I have always been living in debt and life was really tough then though I am yet to be financially stable I can tell you that great things have happened to me since I joined steemit, the most amazing part of it all is __Crypto academy__because on this community I was able to fully utilized the word learn and earn because here I get to learn lots of things about the blockchain world, to be sincere with you all before joining this platform the word blockchain or crypto have always been a mystery to me though I've always wanted to learn what all that entails but I've always had the impression that those words are the new ways the young guys' scams, the reason I thought that way is because I've been a victim of been scammed. But ever since I joined the academy I was able to learn more about the blockchain world I am really happy to be here.
HAS THE ACADEMY INSPIRED YOU TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CRYPTO SUBJECTS? WHERE HAVE YOU EXTENDED YOUR CRYPTO LEARNING
Yes, the academy has been a great influencer for me to learn more about the crypto world, the courses that we engaged in every week in the academy pushed us beyond our limit for us to learn, also the courses that are been introduced every week of the academy helps to broaden our knowledge on crypto-related subjects because in each course that is been thought each of us is required to do our individual research on the subjects that are been thought and with that everyone will be able to know more about the said subjects, after that each user tend to make use of the knowledge that they just acquire to make use of it in the real-life, which shows that we were able to advance in our individual knowledge on each subject that is been thought in the academy.
For example, since I learned more about how the market pattern works in the academy, I have dedicated a special to learn more about the market pattern and indications.
Conclusion
I hope individual voices also count in the academy, I hope all I have talked about is helpful for the growth of the academy, I hope I was able to clear some doubt that the moderators might have concerning the issues they believed the academy has thank you.