While the coronavirus pandemic is keeping people indoors, students are continuing their studies through online classes from the safety of their homes. Global superstar Shakira is also keeping up with her schoolwork at home, as she celebrated her graduation from a Penn course on Thursday.
Shakira took to Instagram and Twitter to share a photo of her Coursera certificate of completion awarded to her after four weeks of taking Ancient Philosophy: Plato and His Predecessors, taught by Philosophy professor and undergraduate chair Susan Sauvé Meyer.
“I just graduated from my 4 week Ancient Philosophy course with the University of Pennsylvania (@Penn). I know … my hobbies are very impractical, but it took a lot of hours after the kids were asleep. Thank you Plato and predecessors for all the ‘fun’ over the past month!” Shakira wrote.
Coursera is an online learning platform that offers course, degree, and certificate programs from nearly 200 universities and companies. Penn offers 59 courses through Coursera in a variety of fields such as business, law, design, and robotics. All courses are free to view, but cost $49 to receive an official certificate of completion.
The philosophy course was first available on Coursera in 2016 and 70,246 students have since enrolled, according to the Coursera website.
Shakira’s husband and Barcelona soccer player Gerard Piqué posted a video to his Instagram and Twitter accounts on March 25 of the ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ singer watching and taking notes on the lecture.
Shakira reposted her husband’s video on Twitter and Instagram a couple days later with the caption, “Just a benign ancient philosophy course at @Penn to make the confinement productive. I have to be able to think about other things rather than Paw Patrol!!”
Penn students expressed their excitement by posting comments on Shakira's March Instagram video which ranged from, “We classmates [with] frickin Shakira," "Go Quakers!" to “She’s [about] to ruin the curve :(.”
Meyer told The Daily Pennsylvanian she was also excited that Shakira was taking her course.
“It was great to see she was taking the course but even greater to see she was taking notes and taking it seriously," Meyer told the DP. "It warms a teacher's heart.”
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