Hi, new Here, with a couple questions.

[slaterjack]

Hi, please excuse these inevitable run on sentences as my thoughts shoot out my fingers.  I feel like I just found the holy grail, nice to meet you all.  Ok so I'm 36 and live in Los Angeles.  I was in a trade school to obtain an associates degree and during my enrollment after almost 2 years I had a change of heart and realized the career choice wasn't for me.  Soon after, my online school got in trouble with the law and I was given the option to quit, so I took the forbearance offer and walked away student loan, and degree free.  My wife told me I should follow my dream of pursuing a law degree which I always thought was impossible until I saw some recent youtube videos of clep programs etc and I've been obsessed about it now.  She said she'll take on more hours and I don't have to work to go back to school so I have the time.  I read BAin4weeks and stumbled upon this forum which I thank you all for I've learned a ton just today alone.  But I'm still quite confused on which school to pursue for a BA.  I'm open to any degree to get it done as quickly as possible.  I would prefer if I could avoid as much actual classrooms as possible at this point.  I'm not looking to go to Harvard or anything afterwards, I just want to be able to take the bar and either give legal advice or maybe work in entertainment law as I do have contacts in the industry, I haven't decided yet.  Has anyone here gotten a BA and then gone into a JD program in CA (online or not)?  My last school really jerked me around and I don't want to take anything unnecessary or pay for anything I don't need of course.  Can I complete a BA at only 1 school with avoiding a real world class if I mix clep, and dsst etc?  Due to a parental death in high school I had to drop out and get my GED so I have no credit or college under my belt.  Also, I did see a template thread I believe but the links didn't work, I suppose those may be an outline of for example:  If you want this, take these, type of instruction?  Please just tell me what I need to do so I can do it.  </end blog>

[Mil0]

CLEPs and DSSTs aren't the only option. I just started back in January and the first thing I did was start with the "free" credits that are available from TEEX, Sophia, the institutes, etc and that was 17 credits right there. I wasn't sure if online learning was the way to go for me and it let me try it out with a limited investment.

Since then, I've been knocking out my general education requirements via Study.com. For me, it's a lot easier than taking a CLEP, with the exception of having to write a paper here and there depending on the course. I'm up to 44 credits completed. You can work as quickly or as slowly as you want. You don't even have to decide on a school, until you're further along, as long as the ones you're looking at accept ACE credits. I've read of others from this forum that have gone on to law school and I think you'd be perfectly able to do so with a degree from one of the "big three".

I'm 39, by the way, work full time, have a child, and had never been to college before. I was about to start at my local community college until I found this forum. Everyone here is awesome and a huge help.

[Imbanewbie]

CLEPs and DSSTs aren't the only option. I just started back in January and the first thing I did was start with the "free" credits that are available from TEEX, Sophia, the institutes, etc and that was 17 credits right there. I wasn't sure if online learning was the way to go for me and it let me try it out with a limited investment.

Since then, I've been knocking out my general education requirements via Study.com. For me, it's a lot easier than taking a CLEP, with the exception of having to write a paper here and there depending on the course. I'm up to 44 credits completed. You can work as quickly or as slowly as you want. You don't even have to decide on a school, until you're further along, as long as the ones you're looking at accept ACE credits. I've read of others from this forum that have gone on to law school and I think you'd be perfectly able to do so with a degree from one of the "big three".

I'm 39, by the way, work full time, have a child, and had never been to college before. I was about to start at my local community college until I found this forum. Everyone here is awesome and a huge help.


Total Agree with Mil0 I am getting my teex credit too and It gives motivation to purse my MBA. I am looking around the program which school is the most affordable and trying not to get into student loans.

[slaterjack]

Thank you for responding. You said " You don't even have to decide on a school, until you're further along" but wouldn't I have to decide on a BA degree from a specific school first so I know what classes are required and then I can see if I can test my way out of them all?

[Merlin]

Thank you for responding.  You said " You don't even have to decide on a school, until you're further along" but wouldn't I have to decide on a BA degree from a specific school first so I know what classes are required and then I can see if I can test my way out of them all?

It is generally best if you have a school in mind before you start taking courses for exactly the reason you mention. There are some General Education (GE) courses that you will usually have to take no matter what college you decide to graduate from, but after that it will all depend on the specific college and degree plan selected. Without a plan, you'll just be taking courses willy nilly and hope they fit into a degree.

Here on this forum we generally recommend people look at one of the "Big 3" (so named because they are the most flexible schools in terms of accepting transfer credits) which refers to: Thomas Edison State University (TESU), Charter Oak State College (COSC), or Excelsior College (EC).

In addition to the Big 3, we also recommend Western Governors University (WGU) for people who are interested in a degree in teaching, IT/CS, or business.  Particularly for people who are just starting out, since WGU is the least expensive overall (if you approach it right) and doesn't require as many Gen Ed credits as other schools. However, WGU only allows you to transfer in 90 credits max towards a bachelor's degree, where the Big 3 will allow you to transfer in between 114 and 117 credits.

The reason why the Big 3 only accept up to 114-117 credits is that all three colleges require you to take an online Capstone course direct from the school, two also require you to take a cornerstone (intro) course as well.

All of the schools mentioned above are pretty generous about accepting credits from most any legitimate credit source which are usually credit recommended by ACE (which includes CLEP/DSST as well as many online course providers) or other colleges. The Big 3 also accept courses recommended by NCCRS (an alternate to ACE), though I don't believe WGU does; however, WGU also accepts credit from nationally accredited colleges where the Big 3 generally only accept regional accreditation (Excelsior will accept some NA credits, but I don't know how it works).

As for the fastest degree, most here will probably suggest either a liberal arts degree (BALS for example) or a business degree (like a BSBA), since both of those are can be completed using online courses and CLEP/DSST without having to take extra courses direct from a college.  You can also get these degrees from any of the big 3. For that TESU used to be the favorite (there are a ton of people who have degrees from there on this forum, so a lot of experts) but they have recently become more expensive and more difficult to get a fast degree from. COSC is rapidly becoming the favorite of the big 3 now.

However, in my opinion, the fastest (and cheapest) degree right now would probably be a BS in Business Management from WGU, but it also depends on how much time you have available to work on courses and how quickly you can get through them.

If you take a few days (weeks) and read through the forums here, doing searches and reviewing older posts, you should be able to get up to speed pretty quickly and that will give you a better idea of what the current landscape looks like. From there you may be able to create an idea of what degree and maybe even which school you want to look at. You should also check out the degree forum wiki, it also has a ton of great information for people new to the forum.

[allvia]

You may also want to post a separate thread with a subject line "Big3 (or WGU) to Lawyer/Law School in CA - Feedback Requested" (or something similar).  CA has very different rules than most states as it applies to being able to take the bar there.  I know it has been discussed here before, but since your goal is very specific it helps to identify that goal in the subject to make it clear to those who may have the answers or knowledge that can best assist you (as many just skim subject lines for interest, vs reading every general post)

[slaterjack]

I will take all of this into consideration I appreciate the time you've taken to answer.

[Johmford]

See if the school you want to do the law degree at is on one of the approved/accredited lists:

http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Admissions/Law-...aw-Schools

Then, check that schools admission requirements and see if they will accept a mostly ungraded and online degree.

From there narrow down a school for the BA and apply.