Im in UMPI

[ss20ts]

This sounds interesting. I will also be pursuing the BLS / Management Minor. I will be bringing in about 12 UL credits. Will the program still allow me to accomodate the courses for that second Political Science minor?

You'd need to work with your academic advisor for the Poli Sci minor. 

http://catalog.umpi.edu/preview_program....turnto=120

No matter what you transfer in, you still have to complete the majority of the 24 UL credits outside of the first minor at UMPI. None of the ULs in the first minor count towards the 24 UL.

[pluggingalong]

I dropped out. I was too embarrassed to say anything about it. I started to feel strongly that a "Liberal Studies" degree combined with a lot of tech experience, might actually look bad. A hiring manager would say, "With all your years as a programmer, why didn't you get a more technical degree?". It would look like I got the easiest degree possible, which would basically be true.

I don't know what I will do next. I saw a video by Simple Programmer on YT about the WGU Business degree for IT Management requiring no certs, and almost all classes you can take on study.com. The WGU Software Development degree also requires few certs. I might make a list of all the study.com classes that could be used for both ITM and SD, and take them. After taking the shared classes, I could decide which one I wanted to do.

The WGU ITM degree isn't technical, but it might look like a logical career progression in to management. I have zero interest in managing people, but I would learn some business things. Simple Programmer said it was the fastest degree, but that assumes you can take study.com classes quickly. I hate certs because I have a fear of failing, and study until I know the answer to every possible question. It takes me forever to do one cert.

Anyway, everyone here was super helpful, and I greatly appreciate it. UMPI was also great, they made everything super easy. I will take classes at 3rd party sites before I join another college. Taking single classes would still be progress.

[rachel83az]

No need to feel embarrassed! Some people need to attend multiple schools in order to find the "right" one. How many classes did you complete at UMPI? What about TESU's combined Comp Sci/BSBA Computer Information Systems degree?

[ss20ts]

I dropped out. I was too embarrassed to say anything about it. I started to feel strongly that a "Liberal Studies" degree combined with a lot of tech experience, might actually look bad. A hiring manager would say, "With all your years as a programmer, why didn't you get a more technical degree?". It would look like I got the easiest degree possible, which would basically be true.

I don't know what I will do next. I saw a video by Simple Programmer on YT about the WGU Business degree for IT Management requiring no certs, and almost all classes you can take on study.com. The WGU Software Development degree also requires few certs. I might make a list of all the study.com classes that could be used for both ITM and SD, and take them. After taking the shared classes, I could decide which one I wanted to do.  

The WGU ITM degree isn't technical, but it might look like a logical career progression in to management. I have zero interest in managing people, but I would learn some business things. Simple Programmer said it was the fastest degree, but that assumes you can take study.com classes quickly. I hate certs because I have a fear of failing, and study until I know the answer to every possible question. It takes me forever to do one cert.

Anyway, everyone here was super helpful, and I greatly appreciate it.  UMPI was also great, they made everything super easy.  I will take classes at 3rd party sites before I join another college. Taking single classes would still be progress.

Please don't feel embarrassed! I attended over 10 colleges over the years before I completed my first bachelor's degree. Have you looked into any of TESU's degrees? Those may be a better fit than WGU. If you don't want to be a manager, I wouldn't get a degree with management in the title. Depending on which courses you've already completed, a few business courses could be used for general electives at TESU. You may not be able to transfer a lot into WGU that you've already completed. TESU may be easier to work with your classes.

[origamishuttle]

I started to feel strongly that a "Liberal Studies" degree combined with a lot of tech experience, might actually look bad.

While this is understandable, it's worse if you get passed over because of a hard requirement for a degree. Another option would have been to complete the BLS, then go for a second bachelor's degree, or even a master's degree, like the MSCSIA at WGU. You don't have to list all of your degrees on a resume, just the best you have at any given time. Speaking of which, something like "BLS - Management Information Systems Minor" on a resume doesn't seem bad at all, especially considering that years of experience would reduce the degree to a checkmark in most cases.

[pluggingalong]

No need to feel embarrassed! Some people need to attend multiple schools in order to find the "right" one. How many classes did you complete at UMPI? What about TESU's combined Comp Sci/BSBA Computer Information Systems degree?

I did not finish any classes at UMPI (I was not in very long).  I had not looked at TESU recently, I thought you had to take the classes on a fixed schedule (like Charter Oakes).  The CS/BSBA class you mentioned looks comparable to the WGU ITM, if TESU is not accelerated and WGU is, I would probably go with WGU.  On the other hand, if I keep dropping out of accelerated colleges, I will eventually try non-accelerated.

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I started to feel strongly that a "Liberal Studies" degree combined with a lot of tech experience, might actually look bad.

While this is understandable, it's worse if you get passed over because of a hard requirement for a degree. Another option would have been to complete the BLS, then go for a second bachelor's degree, or even a master's degree, like the MSCSIA at WGU. You don't have to list all of your degrees on a resume, just the best you have at any given time. Speaking of which, something like "BLS - Management Information Systems Minor" on a resume doesn't seem bad at all, especially considering that years of experience would reduce the degree to a checkmark in most cases.

That is how I began to see it, the UMPI degree would help me apply to jobs that just required "any degree", but as I looked at recent job postings, most said "Bachelor's of Science required". I started planning to get a 2nd degree (BS), that would be the "real" degree for tech work, and I eventually thought that whole plan was dumb, and I should just go back to the original idea of getting BS degree.

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I dropped out. I was too embarrassed to say anything about it. I started to feel strongly that a "Liberal Studies" degree combined with a lot of tech experience, might actually look bad. A hiring manager would say, "With all your years as a programmer, why didn't you get a more technical degree?". It would look like I got the easiest degree possible, which would basically be true.

I don't know what I will do next. I saw a video by Simple Programmer on YT about the WGU Business degree for IT Management requiring no certs, and almost all classes you can take on study.com. The WGU Software Development degree also requires few certs. I might make a list of all the study.com classes that could be used for both ITM and SD, and take them. After taking the shared classes, I could decide which one I wanted to do.  

The WGU ITM degree isn't technical, but it might look like a logical career progression in to management. I have zero interest in managing people, but I would learn some business things. Simple Programmer said it was the fastest degree, but that assumes you can take study.com classes quickly. I hate certs because I have a fear of failing, and study until I know the answer to every possible question. It takes me forever to do one cert.

Anyway, everyone here was super helpful, and I greatly appreciate it.  UMPI was also great, they made everything super easy.  I will take classes at 3rd party sites before I join another college. Taking single classes would still be progress.

Please don't feel embarrassed! I attended over 10 colleges over the years before I completed my first bachelor's degree. Have you looked into any of TESU's degrees? Those may be a better fit than WGU. If you don't want to be a manager, I wouldn't get a degree with management in the title. Depending on which courses you've already completed, a few business courses could be used for general electives at TESU. You may not be able to transfer a lot into WGU that you've already completed. TESU may be easier to work with your classes.

Thank you. I am going to take another look at the TESU degrees.  I had stopped looking at TESU and COSC because they didn't seem to be "accelerated", and I was afraid to use 3rd party schools (study.com,SL,etc) for credits.  I am still suspicious of them, it seems like classes you take are a gamble as to whether they will transfer.  It now looks like if I know what college and degree I plan to pursue, it would be safe to take a lot of classes at 3rd party schools beforehand.

Previously, I was fixated on joining a school where I could work at my own speed. If I take some basic classes at Study.com, and it goes well, that would open a lot of other options (like TESU and COSC).  I know being in a 3rd party school would be a lot less stressful than being in an actual school. I would feel like I could change course, drop in, drop out, etc without it being a giant failure.

[rachel83az]

TESU can be accelerated or not, as you want, so long as you use Sophia/Study.com/etc.

For established classes (English Comp, History, Macro/Microecon, Stats, Visual Communication), we have a pretty good idea of acceptance. For newer ones (I.E., Calculus, Precalculus, Intro to Chemistry Lab, Java/Python), we can't be completely sure they'll work in a specific way until someone tries. Thankfully, someone did transfer in Calculus almost immediately and confirmed that TESU accepts it as an ordinary Calculus class. Still waiting to hear about some other classes from Sophia. But we at least know equivalencies for the most important classes.

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Previously, I was fixated on joining a school where I could work at my own speed. If I take some basic classes at Study.com, and it goes well, that would open a lot of other options (like TESU and COSC).  I know being in a 3rd party school would be a lot less stressful than being in an actual school. I would feel like I could change course, drop in, drop out, etc without it being a giant failure.

FYI, don't even bother with COSC unless you have a LOT of UL credit from an RA institution. It's near-impossible to get a COSC degree now unless you are 100% a traditional student taking traditional classes from them. I think they don't have anything Comp Sci/tech related, either, except a something like a BALS with a Comp Sci concentration. So, pretty much identical to UMPI.

[LevelUP]

I dropped out. I was too embarrassed to say anything about it. I started to feel strongly that a "Liberal Studies" degree combined with a lot of tech experience, might actually look bad. A hiring manager would say, "With all your years as a programmer, why didn't you get a more technical degree?". It would look like I got the easiest degree possible, which would basically be true.

Having any degree is better than nothing.  A Business Administration with CIS concentration is a good basic degree, and a Computer Science degree is the gold standard.

The WGU Software Development degree also requires few certs.

I hate certs because I have a fear of failing, and study until I know the answer to every possible question. It takes me forever to do one cert.

The Software Development degree only requires two certs, and you can transfer those in. Those are easy certs which should take less than 2 weeks to do each. The key is finding a good source of sample questions that will help you pass the certs.  

The WGU ITM degree isn't technical, but it might look like a logical career progression in to management. I have zero interest in managing people, but I would learn some business things. Simple Programmer said it was the fastest degree

The business administration degree can be used for finance, marketing accounting, and IT jobs. At some point, you may want to save for retirement, become a millionaire to break out of the matrix, and live life financially free. Then a business education would be valuable to have.

The business administration degree will be faster than Software Development/Computer Science by 3-6 months.

I had not looked at TESU recently, I thought you had to take the classes on a fixed schedule

TESU has a fixed schedule for when assignments are due, but you can work ahead as much as you want. making it flexible. Most classes are under 40 hours total of work.

TESU has the Business Admin with CIS concentration, and you can pick up the Associates in Computer Science with no extra courses required and no extra cost once you have the Business Admin CIS degree requirements done.

Also, you can get a double degree at TESU.
https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...egree_Plan

I dropped out.

None of that will matter once you have a bachelor's degree. Considering you already have job experience, you are way ahead of the game.

This Youtuber ranked some of the most popular technology degrees
https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...-List-2023

[pluggingalong]

I am going to reapply to UMPI. Everything there was perfect, I just freaked out over it not being a "Science" degree, and convinced myself it would be a net negative. Education is never a net negative.

[ss20ts]

I am going to reapply to UMPI. Everything there was perfect, I just freaked out over it not being a "Science" degree, and convinced myself it would be a net negative.  Education is never a net negative.

There are several types of bachelor's degrees - arts, science, applied science, professional studies, occupational studies, business administration, technology, liberal arts, etc. Don't get hung up one of those. A bachelor's degree is a bachelor's degree. For folks with job experience, it's really a checkbox item for applications.