Do you realy learn

[studyingcindy]

I've taken on-line, in class and tested out of classes. I've learned far more from the classes that I've tested out of than any of them. Why? Because I don't know for sure what is going to be on the test, so I have to cover all my bases. As far as short term memory. I've taken Algebra three times. Why? Because if you don't use it, you lose it. You can go to an Ivy League college for 4 years and spend thousands upon thousands of dollars, and if your job isn't in the field of your degree, you will forget. Also, the stuff becomes dated anyway. Think about it. The classes I take are far different from the classes my parents took. And the classes my kids take, will be different than what I'm taking. School to me will be a life long process to keep the competitive edge. My company really doesn't care where my degree is from, they just want me to have it from an accredited school. I'm going to a regular university, I just happen to take the majority of on-line classes because of the convienence to me. I hate sitting in a class (although I'm taking two classes in class this summer ). Anyway, what's important is that you are doing it. You are taking the steps to get your degree. And I can say, the people on this forum are an elite group of people. There are a lot of people out there that wouldn't DREAM of trying to test out of a class. Fear holds them back. Just the fact that we do what we do, to me says something about us. We can study a class for two weeks, and pass out of it. We saved thousands of dollars, and 100's of hours. Tell that to a future company that you plan on working for. Good luck to you

[cookderosa]

I think once you move beyond the "prestige" schools, there's little difference in the utility of regionally-accredited degrees. I haven't tried to transfer to a school in the South, but neither of the University of Alaska programs I'm applying to for my Master's has an issue with Excelsior.

From a employment utility perspective, my half-completed Excelsior degree was on my resume during my last job search. I turned down four offers in the same week I accepted my present position. I now work for a mid-sized independent oil company. I turned down two Native corporations, a state-wide newspaper chain, and a regional hospital chain that is frequently included on those Best Places to Work lists. While I have more than a decade of work experience, none of it was in the same industry as any of the jobs I was offered. Each potential employer was impressed that I was pursuing my education independently while working full time.

If you want to work for Ernst & Young fresh out of school, it may matter where you go. If you just want to do well for yourself and have drive, I think it matters a lot less.

>>

Excellent post. At the end of the day, there are really only a few distinctions between degrees. 1) Ivy or not Ivy 2) Accredited or not accredited 3) Regionally accredited or Nationally accredited The end.
HOW you earned credits is non-issue. Almost every college in America has alternatives to the one-size-fits all 16 week format (correspondence, online, telecourse, public broadcast, weekend, mini-semester, summer session, CLEP exams, AP exams, IB classes, etc) Most traditional colleges offer online classes, and many traditional colleges offer entire degrees online even though the college is a traditional college. I guess my point is that you can still do the "regular college thing" in a completely non-traditional format. You don't have to use the "big 3" to take advantage of the good information here.

Quality of education- learning- utility of degree- how long we retain what we learn in college....those questions are all too personal. I know perfectly nice idiots with college degrees who don't have a clue. I know perfectly nice bright people without college degrees. I know smart people who can't hold a job. I know college graduates who made bad choices and lost their licenses. I know dozens of people who quit college and went back to earn their degrees as an adult and are much more motivated at this stage of life. There really is no way to tell how YOU will do based on how others have used (not used) their degree as a stepping stone. <shrug>

[jake.fl.1987]

Thank you all for your wonderful input. Although a lot of you make comment about ivy leagu colleges. I have no desire to attend one. I would be happy to achieve a masters degree from state. In this case, FSU, UF, UCF, etc. And before some one says something about gators. I live in gainesville and am not a gator fan.

I am a first generation High school graduate / college. However my father is still my role model. He dropped out of HS got his GED and joined the navy. As a kid he was a single father (rare) of two children. We struggled but we made it. Now he has his mechanichal contractors license, his general contractors license, and medical gas license (I forget exact name, but he can run Oxygen lines in hospitals). We went from weeks where we lived in his work van to now living on 10 acrs, 2 garages, a green house, and a beutiful 3,500 sf house.

The reason he is my motivation is he achieved all this with not formal education. He worked as an A/C man and was very good. When I was five he took me to the book store. He told me I was allowed to get any book I wanted. I chose a book teaching how to use unix. While we where there he picked up an HVAC book. Then from there kept buying self teaching books and kept taking state exams.

So I do understand the value of self teaching. I do think this is a route I would like to go. I signed up for the instant cert monthly payment. And ordered a couple books from amazon. I love amazon.

I have been reading these forums a lot and researching these schools. I like what I am seeing.

[Scholar Interrupted]

I just stopped by to ask a very similar question to Jake's, and I thought I would check and see if it had already been discussed. I'm so glad I read what the experienced people here had to say. I'm feeling better than ever about the choice I made.

I also should say that I'm continually impressed with the quality of everyone I encounter here. You can't tell me that a similar cross-section of the student body from any brick-and-mortar school -- Ivy or not -- would be any more intelligent, articulate, kind, and helpful. In most cases, they would be a lot less so.

Oh, and just to add my own 2 cents about testing-out versus taking the course. I've done it 3 times now, and plan to do a lot more, and I've found that what happens is you learn the things you would expect to take away and remember long-term from the full course. The big concepts, the fundamental principles -- the foundations you need for more advanced learning. You don't learn a lot of the minutiae that you'd likely forget the day after the final exam anyway. But more importantly, because you are in complete control of your own learning experience (and usually responsible for locating your own books and other study aids), you have a higher retention rate than if you passively sat in a crowded lecture hall and scribbled down what a professor said.

[HawkGuy]

I agree with you on information retention. I honestly can't remember much of what I "learned" sitting in a classroom, but when I actually study on my own it seems like I get a lot more out of it.

I was just having a discussion with my family about this. They seemed to think that testing out of a degree was pretty shady and that I wasn't learning anything. All I had to do was bust out a few facts from my various tests and that shut them right up. hilarious

It felt really really good by the way

[Gary]

Thank you all for your wonderful input. Although a lot of you make comment about ivy leagu colleges. I have no desire to attend one. I would be happy to achieve a masters degree from state. In this case, FSU, UF, UCF, etc. And before some one says something about gators. I live in gainesville and am not a gator fan.

I am a first generation High school graduate / college. However my father is still my role model. He dropped out of HS got his GED and joined the navy. As a kid he was a single father (rare) of two children. We struggled but we made it. Now he has his mechanichal contractors license, his general contractors license, and medical gas license (I forget exact name, but he can run Oxygen lines in hospitals). We went from weeks where we lived in his work van to now living on 10 acrs, 2 garages, a green house, and a beutiful 3,500 sf house.

The reason he is my motivation is he achieved all this with not formal education. He worked as an A/C man and was very good. When I was five he took me to the book store. He told me I was allowed to get any book I wanted. I chose a book teaching how to use unix. While we where there he picked up an HVAC book. Then from there kept buying self teaching books and kept taking state exams.

So I do understand the value of self teaching. I do think this is a route I would like to go. I signed up for the instant cert monthly payment. And ordered a couple books from amazon. I love amazon.

I have been reading these forums a lot and researching these schools. I like what I am seeing.

Jake, why not follow in your fathers footsteps? There are plenty of people out there w/out a degree who have a lot more sense than those w/Masters degrees. I know first hand, NO ONE ever taught me better than my father. HVAC is a very honorable career and the pay is good and pretty steady. An NO college counselor will take the time to better you than DAD. NONE! Sounds like it's working for him. If that interests you, your half way there. A college degree gives you a leg up in this world but they can be way OVERATED!!!! I used to be a sprinkler fitter (fire protection) and to do it again, I would've stayed one, waited my time to get in the union. I got more satisfaction out of physical work and seeing the finished product than I ever did from an A.

[cookderosa]

Extremely well thought out responses by everyone.

I have a feeling that none of you will have a problem defending your theses.

I learned a new word for the day.. The plural of "thesis" is "theses". I was leaning towards "thesi" hilarious

>>

Yikes, who'd do two?:eek:

[celestine_3]

In response to Jake's comment, I see many have already been involved in a mature, intelligent discussion on the pros and cons to "traditional" instruction vs. "testing out"... I'll throw two cents in.

I am military, and for the past 10 years, I have not been in the same geographical location for more than 2 1/2 - 3 years at a time. My husband and I are looking to transfer to Japan next year, and since I have finally found the initiative (and time), I am working on filling the general education requirements my school needs with CLEP/DSST. I have a 14 year old son:eek: , work full time, and in addition to working full time, have military obligations that take me away from home from time to time. I DO NOT have the ability to attend a brick and mortar school, and when I tried one class, I had a guy who didn't understand Microeconomics AT ALL confusing me even more!!! By no means am I saying my chioce to serve is a bad one, I love it and wouldn't change it for the world, but those are some of the cons that come along with it...

Embry Riddle Aeronautical University has excellent safety management degree programs, which happens to be what I want to do. So why not test out of the courses I already am familiar with and concentrate more on the safety electives that focus on my area of study?

I just tested out of Business Law II yesterday (thank you so much Brandon, all your advice and the studying really paid off, I needed 44, got 56!), and I had a coworker tell me "you'll be an idiot with a degree". My reply was to start asking him about Bankrupcy Laws and contracts... concepts I taught myself and applied to pass the test. He didn't speak to me for the rest of the day, but I think I may have changed his opinion.hilarious

[mstcrow5429]

1) A college degree is a credential, whose only practical purpose is to get you a not bad job, or into a grad program or law school.
2) There is generally negative correlation between attending a college or university and actually learning anything, with the correlation becoming stronger as you move up the educational tiers, ending with negative learning if you attend Yale or Harvard.
3) You're not really expected to retain all of the knowledge you go over, otherwise you'd have to score 100% on every test you took, and you'd be re-tested on that knowledge at regular intervals.

So learn what you can, internalize the important bits, don't worry about remembering every detail of material not directly related to your major, and realize this is really just a silly speed bump, designed to keep you out of the job market for several years so you can get a degree to get a job, or go further into higher education, that you didn't really need the degree for to begin with.

Most things worth knowing aren't learned through "education."

Although ending on a positive note, the fact that you have to actually go out and seek knowledge and data on your own (self-directed learning) to study for exams that you aren't entirely sure of the content of almost certainly forces you to accumulate more knowledge than someone sitting on their butts all day in a classroom listening to someone of likely questionable competence. Also, a computerized exam can't give you an inflated grade because it likes you, feels bad for you, or any other human emotion.