CS or related Bachelors, which way to go?

[Mint Berry Crunch]

We've had users get the TESU BACS and get into OMSCS on almost entirely alt credit, including long time user davewill. The commonality seems to be years of relevant work experience, which you have. The BACS specifically requires you to get academic credit in OMSCS's prerequisites, where other degrees might not.

You need 30 regionally accredited credits for a TESU BACS. If you want to play it really safe (which is what I wanted), you should get some of these credits in the OMSCS prerequisite areas:

* Intro to programming
* Object oriented programming
* Data structures
* Algorithms (often combined with data structures)
* Linear algebra
* Probability
* Statistics

If you want to cover the UT Austin MSCSO's prerequisites, you can include these:

* Discrete Math
* Computer Architecture & Organization
* Operating systems

Oakton college offers all of these except OSes at around $550/class. I think at least some of them can be taken through ASU Universal Learner, which would be around $100/class cheaper.

For the WGU masters, they seem to only care if you have a bachelor's degree at all, so that's always an option.

My understanding is that GaTech also allows individuals to enter the program alternatively through the completion of some MOOCS

[bjcheung77]

Great stuff! Congratulations on your hard work and dedication to getting that math degree at TESU!

[hels-at-work]

Overall I transferred in 6.6 credits from community college, 78 credits from Sophia, and then completed the rest at SNHU. My first handful of terms I took one class at a time, but then for the last 3-4 terms I took 2 at a time and just crunched. Overall it was a pretty challenging but rewarding experience, and I definitely learned a lot that I've been able to apply to my work, which is very nice.

For Sophia, I was able to transfer in credits like so (SNHU 'area' on the left, Sophia class on the right):

Social Justice and Sustainability ACECS 000437 - Environmental Science
Social Justice, Humanities, or Sustainability SOPH0074 - Microbiology
College Composition I ACECS 000822 - Workplace Writing I
Research and Persuasion ACECS 000607 - English Composition II
Math Electives ACECS 000423 - Intro to Statistics
Ethical Thought & Equity CECS 000370 - Introduction to Ethics
Creative and Critical Expression ACECS 000580 - Art History II
Historical Perspectives ACECS 000405 - United States History I
Contexts in Shaping the Self in Society SOPH0078 - Lifespan Development
Exploration Electives ACECS 000217 - Human Biology
Major Courses SOPH0069 - Precalculus
Applied Mathematics Concentration Intro to Python Programming
Elective SOPH 00010 - Financial Accounting
Elective SOPH0073 - Anatomy & Physiology I
Elective SOPH0056 - Introduction to Chemistry
Elective ACECS 000701 - Intro to Relational Databases
Elective ACECS 000434 - Macroeconomics
Elective ACECS 000608 - Principles of Finance
Elective ACECS 000504 - Visual Communications
Elective SOPH0063 - Introduction to Nutrition
Elective ACECS 000185 - Intro to Information Tech
Elective ACECS 000672 - Intro to Web Development
Elective SOPH0077 - French I
Elective ACECS 000826 - Intro to College Mathematics
Elective ACECS 000511 - Introduction to Business
Elective ACECS 000278 - Project Management

Overall I think I did maximize my transfer credit, but ultimately I decided to take just about all of the core 'major' courses at SNHU, including the full Calculus 1-3 set. I also went for the Applied Math focus area, so I took some special courses for that as well. All in all after reimbursements from my employer I think my total out of pocket was around a thousand dollars.

As for next steps, I think grad school might still be on the horizon, though I don't expect to continue pursuing math, instead perhaps something along the lines of CompSci or even that one Ontology program at Boulder....

Anyways, thank you again to everyone for the help, I couldn't have done it alone!

[bluebooger]

> Social Justice and Sustainability ACECS 000437 - Environmental Science
> Social Justice, Humanities, or Sustainability SOPH0074 - Microbiology

SNHU has some weird transfer equivalencies

too bad all those other sophia courses came in as electives, but it looks like you satisfied all of SNHU's general education course requirements with sophia courses, that's good

> All in all after reimbursements from my employer I think my total out of pocket was around a thousand dollars.

I'm assuming your employer did not reimburse the sophia courses ?