With courses ranging from Crouching Taxes, Hidden Profit, to Self-Hypnosis for Self- Awareness, UNM's Personal Enrichment Program offers a variety of classes that provide practical knowledge for students looking to broaden their experience without the usual stress of seeking a degree.
PEP was designed as a branch of UNM's Continuing Education Division more than 75 years ago. Its curriculum has mostly catered to adults interested in exploring subjects in a structured setting without the pressures of final exams and GPAs. Anyone 18 years or older may enroll in PEP's classes, said Dora Delgado Raby, PEP's program manager.
"All of our classes are non-credit classes," she said. "There's no tests. There's no grading - it's just simply for the fun of taking a class."
PEP serves about 10,000 students a year, she said, and as much as 25 percent of them are UNM faculty and staff making use of UNM's tuition-remission program.
The program allows UNM faculty and staff to take the cost equivalent of eight credit hours free every semester, and four credit hours during summer sessions. Tuition remission funds can be applied to any UNM, TV-I or Continuing Education class, which range from $30 to more than $300.
For people who want to deepen their understanding of John, Paul, George and Ringo, PEP offers "The Music of the Beatles," a 6-week, $55 class exploring the 150 songs the Beatles composed between the years 1963-70. Chris Nolan, instructor, encourages students to bring their instruments and play along with "the greatest band of all time that celebrated the universal message of love," according to the program's Web site.
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Among other unique classes the program offers is an $80, 8-week introduction to private investigation. Patricia Caristo, a professional investigator with 30 years of experience in the field, introduces students to the daily activities of working private investigators and the ever-advancing scientific methods of criminologists. Caristo's class does not certify people to do professional investigative work, she said, though it does familiarize students with the profession who may pursue detective work later.
"My class is for people who are interested in becoming private investigators to see if they have an interest or an aptitude," she said. "It's for people who write detective stories and true crime stories who might want to use correct terminologies and procedures."
Interested students may go on to intermediate private investigation where Caristo, who has served for 15 years as director of a local nonprofit investigative agency, further develops the themes of her introductory class to include visiting an actual crime scene and analysis of criminal evidence.
"Intermediate private investigation is for people who truly are interested in the process of investigation," she said. "We actually work on an unsolved case, and in processing the information, one of the students could even come up with the information to solve the case."
Caristo said the knowledge and methods students acquire in her class are applicable to problems in other fields and professions.
"Some of (my students) work in fields where they have to do research, people who do interviewing or collect data," she said. "Intro to private investigation is for people who work in areas that require the thinking process of an investigator - gathering information, assessing it, preparing a report - there is a scientific process in investigation."
PEP courses are held in the Continuing Education building at UNM and in more than 50 off-campus facilities across Albuquerque in partnership with local businesses, public schools, parks and other public facilities.
