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Jedi Knights Course Offered By Queen's University Belfast
Starting in November, Queen's University Belfast will offer a course that will use the psychology of the Star Wars Jedi Knights to teach students communication skills and personal development. The university's publicity material reads 'the course "Feel the Force: How to Train in the Jedi Way" teaches the "real-life psychological techniques behind Jedi mind tricks"' and promises to explore 'wider issues behind the Star Wars universe, like balance, destiny, dualism, fatherhood and fascism.' The course is very affordable but the droid fees are outrageous.
This is not the comment you're looking for.
Move along.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Start a happiness pandemic
That is just awful.
IOW. Learn how to be a con artist using this fictional philosophy as a framework.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I was planning on writing a snarky comment that the students would be better served studying the religions and philosophies that George Lucas ripped off his pop-culture understanding from but the Idle interface has given me something new to bitch about. How long ago did this thing roll out of their collective asses and why does it still look this awful? They should just heel this turd down the shower drain and be done with it.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
These aren't the skills you're looking for.
I think they need to look at the han solo character first, if they're looking for psychology. The Jedi order sounded like a great idea, until we met the Jedi council...
Jedi training worked so well for Anakin Skywalker after all...
Is there a 'How to make a lightsabre' lab?
(and make sure to follow up 'Coping with Accidental Autoamputation 201')
Course material week 1: Lucasfilm business plan
1. Create 1 fantastic movie using lots of unknown talent very well suited to the role and breakthrough special effects.
2. Follow up with second epic film with weak ending
3. Complete the trilogy with not so brilliant film. Basic plot still brilliant, but add Ewok side plot for marketting
4. Build up marketting empire. Sell toys and licenses to computer games. Revel in the special effects success of the first 3 films. Spend spare cash on special effects empire and loan out for other films.
5. When marketting empire wanes, executive produce 3 crappy equally spaced prequels.
6. Produce bad cartoons when it turns out that your usual talent is less animated than the animations.
After each step above Profit!!!
Next week: Hookers and blow. How to maintain a family friendly facade.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Parliment is rushing back to London to vote on dropping their accreditation!
Brett
I sincerely want to sign in. This is a one day course and costs a little. I would call it a public lecture, if not the price.
As a fan of StarWars I would gladly pay my money for the opportunity to learn more of Jedi philosophy and how it can be applicable in our life.
You do know that Belfast is in Northern Ireland, right? This is a British college, not an American one.
That said, I don't disagree with you at all.
I'd like to enrol in the Han Solo School Of Seduction.
(He's a master! He hits A2 soo fast).
I record my sleeptalking
Yes, I should have been more clear. I was transitioning into the notion that we in America are constantly doing the same thing at our colleges and universities (I see it all the time at my college), but I, erm, kind of skipped over the transition, heh. Sorry. :)
Of course he didn't know that! Didn't you read his comment?
So you put on a blacked out helmet and the prof shoots you with a taser which you try to block with a staff?
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
"When the student is ready, the application form will appear"?
-FL
a straight A previous graduate of the class returns and slaughters everybody
when asked about the appropriateness of this event, the professor shrugs and mumbles something about trying to be more kid-friendly
and that maybe he should have had an outside advisor look over the syllabus first, rather than just furiously typing it out in one evening and posting it without any peer review
when asked for feedback at the end of class, most students evaluated the class thusly: "showed a lot of promise at first, but failed to capitalize on goodwill and got rather lukewarm and stultified at the end"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You know, unless they start them training out young the Jedi council won't approve them to be trained. Also Master Yoda won't approve if he senses much fear in students. If these requirements are not met, chances are they will turn to the dark side and use their hate and anger instead of logic and reason.
I also heard rumor that Harvard and Yale have started their Sith Lords training course for those who don't fit the Jedi criteria.
There is also a "Using the Force for Dummies" book that is being written so the drop outs of those courses can still use the force even if they fail college.
As for me, I am a space pirate ninja from 4096 AD, I already have psionics training that far exceeds what the force training can do.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Sure it is a BurgerFlipper degree
No, it is a one day course.
Universities love serving up shit like this because it's an easy way to get funding for having lots of students without having to have pesky stuff like chemistry labs and professors that know a thing or two.
Not really. This is a one day philosophy course. I'm beginning to suspect you may not have read the article, or at least understand it.
Perhaps this is at least stupid enough that it gets the attention of parliament etc to rethink the role of universaities.
Parliament decided to make students pay for tuition through the nose long ago - anything that allows universities to raise cash will not be looked down onby the government. And.. I don't think this is stupid. I really hope this attracts people who'd otherwise discount any form of educatoin as viable.
a more wretched hive of scum and villany...
Sig this!
Case in point, when a professional educator didn't realise Belfast was in Ireland (or at least didn't read it thoroughly) :P
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Bull. You weren't paying attention, didn't read the TFA, went off half-cocked, and made an ass of yourself. Don't make it worse with a pathetic, transparent excuse.
Hey, least now it could be legitimate to tell a girl that you are studying to become a Jedi.
"educatoin" indeed
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Exactly why it is terrible. Serving the lowest common denominator is just a celebration of mediocrity, something higher education is supposed to not be. This as bad as standardized performance exams like the SAT and ACT or quotas in just ruining anything worthy in higher education.
for this course, requisit is yoda-speak ... yes .... mmmmm
Wookie Porn
Bah!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Call it a Buddhist seminary.
Put identity in the browser.
When its time to receive the grade for the course, you will see an A, but every employer you send the grades to, won't.
Or is that redundant?
Hey now, no need to be nasty. They need to be counted too.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
I think it's just marketing. How many other classes at Belfast University make it onto /.?
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
another religion being taught in schools...
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
there are soo many great onliner responses to this story I cant even begin to come up with something witty. I do have to admit...I got a bad feeling about this....do you think the professors will have sudden feeling of thousands of voices crying out in pain then suddenly silenced all at once on exam days???
Joe Investor
Your comment reminded me of this comic.
Offtopic? Come on mods! It's the idle section!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
In other news, George Lucas was overheard mumbling "fucking geeks."
"I'm beginning to suspect you may not have read the article"
You are new here, aren't you?
Yes, that's right. Ireland. GP didn't say 'The Republic of Ireland', just 'Ireland'. What island is Belfast on? Great Britain? Iceland? Honshu? Perhaps Madagascar? No. It's in Ireland. If it wasn't in the north of Ireland, it wouldn't be called 'Northern Ireland', now, would it?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
In the same way that there's a difference between USA and Canada.
God: An invisible friend for grown-ups.
one would think to cover all of those topics through 6 films would require a week to achieve any depth and the rigor you would expect from a university course.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
A one day course? I think a day-trip to Belfast is in order so that I can put 'Jedi Knight' after my name instead of BSc.
which is totally what she said
"Edumacation... it's pronounced edu-ma-cation"
"Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
6 films? I thought it was 3? Wait.. something is coming to me.. argh no! The horror! Make it stop, make it stop!! FAAAATHEEEEEEEEEEEERRR!!!
What 6 films would those be?
which is totally what she said
Exactly my thoughts.
...
:-)
First was "Hang on - 'idle' - why the hell are they modding".
Nanoseconds later - "Wait, why don't they disable modding for idle?"
Hot on the heels of that - "Well, if a mod is stupid enough to waste their points in this section, isn't that a good thing?"
So it all works out - anyone stupid enough to waste their modpoints here would be incorrectly modding in the rest of slashdot, so perhaps it's best that we let them mod in here to keep their effect "out there" to a minimum
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
You must be new here.
There we go, fixed that for you.
In Soviet Russia, Jedi knights queen!
I, for one, welcome our Jedi ove.. meh, forget it.
which is totally what she said
I take the rest of Slashdot just as seriously as I do with the Idle section :)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
If your going to base what you teach off a fictional story, you may as well base it off a cool film rather than a boring old book.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Jar Jar Binks practice dummy.
6 films? I thought it was 3? Wait.. something is coming to me.. argh no! The horror! Make it stop, make it stop!! FAAAATHEEEEEEEEEEEERRR!!!
What 6 films would those be?
I never got into Starwars. I prefer the 1 Matrix film.
I always wondered what it would be like if they made that into a trilogy.
Maybe he was thinking of Belfast, TN.
Hey so: 1) All of the "there is no try, only do" b.s. in Star Wars is stolen from EST, which allegedly destroyed Doug Englebart's company back in the day. 2) George Lucas is allegedly a facist, and Star Wars kind of sucks. It was awesome when we were 3-10 years old. Real science fiction is in books.
Yeah, that was a great movie! Just imagine all the stuff they could do if they made some sequels!
Hey, when is that movie Wall-E coming out? The adverts looked pretty interesting, I have to say.
which is totally what she said
If this is a joke, it went right over my head. If it's true, I can see some value in it. I was reading a lot about Daoism when the most recent series of movies came out. A lot of what Yoda had to say was in line with a lot of Daoist and Buddhist philosophy.
" I'm beginning to suspect you may not have read the article, "
Snicker
But did anyone else have a giant ad for the "Scientology Video Channel" directly underneath the story? Complete with the tagline of "Get the Facts?" Methinks maybe the /. editors may also have fallen to the Dark Side.
Droids?! We don't allow their kind in here!
They're just trying to churn out a bunch of presidential alumni actually.
No big deal. At my university (University of California, Santa Cruz) we had a class called "Queer and Transgendered Issues in the Star Trek Universe."
Makes you wonder why Kirk and Spock were always so chummy...
But instead I'm going in to Toschi station to pick up some power converters.
Now all they need to do's hurry the fuck up and invent lightsabers and they can charge what they like!