"A teacher once told Trinidadian Patrick Patrong he would never amount to anything," reads the dek to a August 1, 2011 Trinidad & Tobago Newsday article. "That moment marked the beginning of his long-running dissatisfaction with traditional academia."

Yet despite his dissatisfaction Patrong found a way to keep his career dream alive (he wishes to become Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister), and he seeks to impart his hard-won insights to his anyone who will listen. Indeed, it appears that he has found a terrific forum in which to do so: University of Phoenix, the industry leader in private-sector higher education.

Transplanted to the state of Virginia, Patrong works as a University of Phoenix instructor. The career fit has been a precise one. "Patrong is known for creating magical experiences both in and outside the classroom," the Newsday article reports.

Patrong has found the latitude that University of Phoenix affords its instructors to be nothing short of inspiring. He understands that a flexible pedagogy is the one most appropriate to the mutable and fast-paced 21-century workplace, and he does his utmost to put this understanding into practice.

Instruction ought to inform, certainly. But there's no reason why it can't also entertain. To this end, Patrong "added juggling and magic tricks to his ... presentations." Audience response was so overwhelming that he made this gimmick a permanent part of his instructional method.

Himself an outsider to academia in its classical staid form, Patrong esteems highly the nontraditional approach toward postsecondary education embodied by his employer. "He enjoys the non-traditional approach at University of Phoenix, where the focus is on educators who are practitioners," the Newsday article reports.

Having discovered the virtue of nontraditional education, Patrong stands as an unqualified success story. Whether students choose to study at University of Phoenix, or at such prominent competitors as Kaplan University or Liberty University, a promising future awaits them.