Life Long learning

[dponton]

I am 55 and have finally decided to get a degree, but I am very confused about many things.

1. I have several credits (25) I can use from my navy training, all lower level. Is 25 credits enough to satisfy the subject requirement for an AS degree?

2. Whats the difference between general Ed electives and Free electives?

3. I spent one year in technical school for HVAC. The school I attended is out of business; they were not accredited anyway. I have been working in the HVAC/Mechanical engineering field for many years. Does anyone know of a school where I can test for HVAC-mechanical and get college credits?

4. Charter Oaks offers Life Long Leanering credits, but you have to pay the cost of the class you are trying to get credit for, about $900. each. Are there schools where this is cheaper?

5. I hold two contractors licenses in florida; Mechanical and Residential which are very hard tests to pass, about 13 hours in two days for each license. How can I get credit for this learning?

I know this is a lot, I am just hoping that someone may have this very specific experience.

[jonasling]

It depends on what those credits were for. General Education courses are the basic liberal arts courses that are the base of most programs. Free electives can be liberal arts courses or applied courses. Best place to start is to download the catalog of the college you are interested in and read the requirements for the college and the degree you are interested in. A lot of it depends on the college. Some have more flexible ways to earn credit than others. Thomas Edison, Charter Oak, and Excelsior are among the most credit flexible.

[creationstory]

Thomas Edison State College | AAS in Administrative Studies

with a few femas will get u your degree...

[alissaroot]

I am 55 and have finally decided to get a degree, but I am very confused about many things.

1. I have several credits (25) I can use from my navy training, all lower level. Is 25 credits enough to satisfy the subject requirement for an AS degree?

What kind of credits are they? If they are all in a single discipline, they may very well satisfy the subject area. You could try calling or sending an email to the school you are considering, or you could apply and submit transcripts to one of the Big Three and see how they are evaluated. The application fee is currently $75 at all three schools:

Thomas Edison State College
Excelsior College
Charter Oak State College

2. Whats the difference between general Ed electives and Free electives?

General Education requirements are the minimum number of credits you must have in certain areas of the Arts and Sciences, like six Humanities, three written English, six natural science, etc. Free electives are not required to be in a specific subject area like general education requirements.

3. I spent one year in technical school for HVAC. The school I attended is out of business; they were not accredited anyway. I have been working in the HVAC/Mechanical engineering field for many years. Does anyone know of a school where I can test for HVAC-mechanical and get college credits?

I do not, but there are some very affordable exams offered by the National institute for Automotive Excellence, and I see one of the exams is for heating and cooling in automobiles. None of these exams appears to be over $56. Does your mechanical engineering knowledge transfer over to automotive mechanic knowledge? Here's the link:
ASE - Certifying the Automotive Professional | Credit Recommendations Chart

4. Charter Oaks offers Life Long Learning credits, but you have to pay the cost of the class you are trying to get credit for, about $900. each. Are there schools where this is cheaper?

Portfolio credit for life experience learning is usually not very cost or time effective. A fellow forum member who has taught classes in her field got a nice chunk of credits from TESC for teaching, but I think that if you haven't taught a class in it, you have to do portfolios. I wouldn't recommend doing portfolio credits unless a person had worked for a very long time in a field where the degree they were seeking would be, by it's rare nature, not obtainable by ordinary means, and therefore require some customization, like a person seeking a major in Chinese Crossword Puzzles or something.

Some schools require that you take a course in putting together life-experience portfolios, and charge for every credit attempted with no guarantee they will award them. The process is usually complicated, and you will have to compile a great deal of information. You'd probably save time and money by just taking more CLEP and DSST exams, imho. Another thing worth mentioning is that, even if you find a cheaper school for your portfolio credit, you will likely have to finish your degree there, because another school won't accept portfolio credit they haven't evaluated themselves. I understand where you are coming from, I have worked in a metals laboratory for years, and I thought I would be able to portfolio some metallurgy credits, but I scrapped that plan when I realized the exam route was cheaper and much more convenient. But I know how it frustrating it is to know a lot about something for which there is no exam conveniently available.

5. I hold two contractors licenses in Florida; Mechanical and Residential which are very hard tests to pass, about 13 hours in two days for each license. How can I get credit for this learning?

Do a search here for the organizations through which you sat these exams:
http://www.acenet.edu/nationalguide/index.cfm
Generally speaking, the Big Three award credit roughly based on ACE recommendations. If the place where you took these exams was ACE-approved, then you may get some credits out of them.

Are you absolutely determined to get a degree in mechanical engineering, or will any degree do? You could test out an AAS degree in Liberal Studies, or as already suggested, Administrative Studies very quickly and cheaper than much else.

Hope this helps!

[dponton]

Thanks Everyone,
I appreciate you all taking the time to put together an answer.

I believe that a Lib Arts degree or business is what I will go after. It does seem that a Tech type degree is more trouble then I want to go through, at least at this period in my life. As has been said on this forum; what the degree is in becomes less important the more work experiance you have. Actually a BSBA would do very well for me.

I have been excepted at both TESC and COSC, but I am not sure which school I will choose to enroll in. Any Ideas?

I began taking CLEP/DSST tests on march 5, 2009 at the local jurior college. The DSST test are all paper, so they will take time to get back, plus they are closed to outsiders during finals ( next month)

US Gov - pass
English w essay ?? ( waiting on results)
Intro to computers ?? (waiting on results)
Intro to business ?? waiting on results

[irnbru]

Hi dponton,

I'm in a similar position to yourself (working adult, no degree). Having dug through every scrap of information I can about the 'big 3' I am currently aiming for an Associate of Arts, most probably with TESC.

I agree that a degree can be just a degree, which is why I chose to aim for a course with the widest possible qualifying courses and, I will happily admit, the easiest route to attaining it.

Read the course Catalogs for each of the colleges to understand which core requirements you will need to satisfy. The general ed requirements for the Associate in Arts at any of the 'big 3' are fairly wide. Note that Excelsior college requires you to sit their own English Composition with Essay test, while TESC will accept the equivalent CLEP.

My own choice is guided by the restriction that I am a UK citizen (therefore cannot sit FEMAs) and that there are only 3 or 4 test centres for CLEP and DSST in Europe. As ALEKS courses are accepted most by TESC, this makes the most sense at this stage in terms of distance-learning.

As a US citizen without such restrictions, the CLEP and DSST route coupled with FEMA is an excellent opportunity to acquire the credits you need. And you will

Good luck!

[jonasling]

irnbru, out of curiousity, why are you trying for a US degree when there are UK online universities over there?

[irnbru]

irnbru, out of curiousity, why are you trying for a US degree when there are UK online universities over there?

Good question, jonasling.

Time, cost and effort to be honest.

There is one major 'online' university in the UK; the Open University (Distance Learning Courses and Adult Education - The Open University). It's prestigious, very well-respected and has a wide range of programmes. It's also time-consuming (no testing out, regular coursework, courses run to the same timescale as 'normal' academic semester/trimesters - would take at least 3-4 years) and to be honest it's hard. However, it's certainly an option for anyone looking to do specific courses to fit into a particular BA Major where CLEPs and DSSTs just don't make the cut - i.e. Mathematics. Then again, the GRE is also an option in this case.

Another choice would be the MBA programme at Heriot Watt, as described on Laurie Miller's site, Lawrie Miller's BA in 4 Weeks. Online degrees by distance learning. BA degree and graduate degees - Accelerated Master Degrees by Distance Learning.. This requires nine modules, initially three to gain access to the full MBA without a degree. Over £750 per module, expected completion time of perhaps 2-3 years. Also quite hard.

One other option is to sit the professional exams for the ACCA to become a chartered accountant, finishing with an additional module to gain a BA (hons) in Accounting from Oxford Brookes. Neither cheap, easy or quick.

There are other accelerated programmes, most of which take a minimum of two years and require far more work than any CLEP or DSST.

So, given the option to build credit quickly, at my own pace, not be limited by a restricted exam schedule (i.e. once or twice a year for the above professional exams) and to be able to pay much less, with less work, the choice is simple

I previously went to the University of Glasgow and studied Mathematics and Philosophy for three years. To be perfectly honest, it was too hard for me and I didn't work hard enough. Passed a lot of courses but after sitting and failing Abstract Algebra II twice, the prospect of repeating a year (again) just did not appeal. In retrospect, (and with no disrespect to anyone taking such a course) a liberal arts degree would have been far, far more sensible if the aim was simply to gain a degree. Hence why in hindsight I'm aiming for an Associate of Arts in liberal studies now.

Until I found out about CLEPs and the 'big 3' I was quite resigned to carrying on as a non-graduate dropout.

Hope that explains my position and why the American college credit system is such a great opportunity!

[jonasling]

Thanks for satisfying my curiousity irnbru. Never knew we had it this good over here! I guess US degrees are acceptable to employers over in the UK?

also which of the big-3 are you leaning towards?

[irnbru]

As this site has constantly driven home to all its members and lurkers: a pass is a pass and a degree is a degree.

My wife has a degree from Fort Hays and was accepted on to Heriot Watt's Actuarial Science programme following an evaluation from a 3rd party company which specialises in this.

TESC has my attention right now because it will probably accept the most credit from the ALEKS courses. It does cost at least twice as much as Excelsior but also TESC accepts the English Composition with essay CLEP.

Based on my current results, 6 credits for English Composition, another 6 for Humanities and another 6 for Social Sciences would be enough to qualify at TESC. At the moment, this could mean the English Composition CLEP, the two Economics courses with Straighterline transcribed through FHSU and possibly the Humanities CLEP. Once this minimum requirement is reached I may reevaluate college choice, but absolutely sticking with getting the credit first

A pass is a pass and a degree is a degree