Need help with degree plan no previous college

[MayaPa]

I created a degree plan for Excelsior's BSLA I would appreciate if you could check to see if this would work!

 BSLA


I will include the template too. Thank you

Location: Hungary, Budapest


Age: 27

Kind of Degree I want: Bachelor of Science 

Current RA Credits: 0
Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: 0

Certifications/ Military Experience: 0

Budget: If I can get under 5000$ is good, if it takes more than that it may take longer.

Committments: I have a full time job and a small child but my husband helps me take care of her

Dedicated Time to Study: I can study on weekends and sometimes weekdays but that depends a lot on how busy my work gets

Timeline: No rush but I would prefer to get it done under 2 years, I would like to save money as much as possible

Tuition Assistance/Reimbursement: None

[rachel83az]

Did you pick Excelsior specifically because you want a Bachelor of Science or would a Bachelor of Arts also work? Because, if you can write okay in English, UMPI might be a better/faster/cheaper choice for you. Excelsior would probably be right around $5000USD, but UMPI could be significantly less.

If you do want Excelsior, you might be able to save a little money by utilizing things like LawShelf, Coopersmith, and Davar for at least some of your UL credits.

[MayaPa]

Did you pick Excelsior specifically because you want a Bachelor of Science or would a Bachelor of Arts also work? Because, if you can write okay in English, UMPI might be a better/faster/cheaper choice for you. Excelsior would probably be right around $5000USD, but UMPI could be significantly less.

If you do want Excelsior, you might be able to save a little money by utilizing things like LawShelf, Coopersmith, and Davar for at least some of your UL credits.

I picked it because I specifically want a science degree and it looked flexible enough so I can pick some courses I find interesting, I would rather pay a little bit more for that
 I will look into those credit options thank you!

[bjcheung77]

@MayaPa - Welcome to the board!  I think you're a great candidate for Excelsior or UMPI.  It all depends on your needs, you are still required to get 90+ transfer credits into Excelsior or UMPI.  Basically, I would work on courses that can be transferred into BOTH schools.  You should decide earlier which degree/school you want, but sometimes it's "complicated or hard" to make that decision promptly; Don't stall, just start taking credits towards both, apply and get an evaluation as it's free for both, including the transcripts from Credly.

For Excelsior, the minimum you can take is 7 credits from them, the Info Lit, Cornerstone and Capstone, your file/link only shows two.  If you transfer in 60+ credits, the Cornerstone becomes an upper level course in addition to your capstone, you just need 24 UL credits to select from recommended ACE/NCCRS sources - I would stick with ACE Sophia.org for lower level and NCCRS Davar/LawShelf for upper level.  If you need more UL credits, Study.com would work as well.

For UMPI, you may want to review this post here I had for a member, in regards to commitments/time, you may/may not want to go the UMPI route, if you can handle the course load and finish in 3 terms, you'll be a great candidate... Don't rush, take your time but note to yourself the assignment deadlines... It's all up to you and if you have the energy/time to complete them: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...#pid368541

[MayaPa]

@MayaPa - Welcome to the board!  I think you're a great candidate for Excelsior or UMPI.  It all depends on your needs, you are still required to get 90+ transfer credits into Excelsior or UMPI.  Basically, I would work on courses that can be transferred into BOTH schools.  You should decide earlier which degree/school you want, but sometimes it's "complicated or hard" to make that decision promptly; Don't stall, just start taking credits towards both, apply and get an evaluation as it's free for both, including the transcripts from Credly.

For Excelsior, the minimum you can take is 7 credits from them, the Info Lit, Cornerstone and Capstone, your file/link only shows two.  If you transfer in 60+ credits, the Cornerstone becomes an upper level course in addition to your capstone, you just need 24 UL credits to select from recommended ACE/NCCRS sources - I would stick with ACE Sophia.org for lower level and NCCRS Davar/LawShelf for upper level.  If you need more UL credits, Study.com would work as well.

For UMPI, you may want to review this post here I had for a member, in regards to commitments/time, you may/may not want to go the UMPI route, if you can handle the course load and finish in 3 terms, you'll be a great candidate... Don't rush, take your time but note to yourself the assignment deadlines... It's all up to you and if you have the energy/time to complete them: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...#pid368541




I think UMPI will not work for me as they don't have a degree I am interested in, perhaps TESU would be good as well but they seem to be much more expensive than Excelsior and they do not accept payment plans if I'm correct.

I didn't know the cornerstone and capstone count as upper level thanks! So then if I only need 24UL I will keep the 6UL I need for the concentration area and take 6UL out of the 21UL arts/sciences requirement and substitute that with something LL. 
Thank you for the recommendation but  Davar and LawShelf courses are outside my interest area, is there anything wrong with completing the courses at Study.com outlined in my link? I'm looking for budget options but still staying within my line of interest where possible and I like the more structured nature of Sophia and Study.com. I am not very good at self motivation and setting goals for myself without that.

Alternately do you know if Onlinedegree.com could be used as well perhaps for some LL?

[rachel83az]

Unfortunately, OnlineDegree courses are only for American students. You can't sign up if you don't have an American address.

[bjcheung77]

I think UMPI will not work for me as they don't have a degree I am interested in, perhaps TESU would be good as well but they seem to be much more expensive than Excelsior and they do not accept payment plans if I'm correct.

I didn't know the cornerstone and capstone count as upper level thanks! So then if I only need 24UL I will keep the 6UL I need for the concentration area and take 6UL out of the 21UL arts/sciences requirement and substitute that with something LL. 
Thank you for the recommendation but  Davar and LawShelf courses are outside my interest area, is there anything wrong with completing the courses at Study.com outlined in my link? I'm looking for budget options but still staying within my line of interest where possible and I like the more structured nature of Sophia and Study.com. I am not very good at self motivation and setting goals for myself without that.

Alternately do you know if Onlinedegree.com could be used as well perhaps for some LL?

For myself, generally I want cheap, easy, fast - I usually pick from a few providers, not just those on your spreadsheet.  For example, Astronomy, you can take it on InstantCertCredit for $20 and $15/exam.  It's half the price of Study.com and you get to support this board: https://www.instantcert.com/articles/art...IT-Courses

For Davar, take the Business class courses, 2 of them at $99, $15/proctor exam, total $129 for both.  Do the Intro to Computer and MIS, take out two or more of your Study.com intro to computer courses, you may want to take them for knowledge, but skip out the exams for these two mentioned above.  Link: https://www.davaracademy.com/business.html

My suggestions are to take "more" Study.com UL computer courses or take other science courses instead of these "intro" courses listed, you may want to take the course but not the exams for knowledge, and ladder them up to the UL computer courses because some lower level courses have lessons already included in the upper level ones.

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Oh and to add, there is Saylor.org with an UL Computer Science course, Software Engineering. It's just $5 for the proctored exam, all else it's free for the course material. Furthermore, they have a few more computer courses you may want to review if you have the energy/time to do so. Link: https://www.saylor.org/credit/courses/

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Upon further look, if you want, you can skip Davar as Saylor.org already has those two course for $5, haha... even better! The thing is, Davar is a lot easier and the system they use is all "presentations/slides". Saylor courses are all "messy" with their information... it may be worth it to try, if you get a headache, skip to Davar.

[MayaPa]

Unfortunately, OnlineDegree courses are only for American students. You can't sign up if you don't have an American address.


I see, that is quite a shame but thanks for the update!

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I think UMPI will not work for me as they don't have a degree I am interested in, perhaps TESU would be good as well but they seem to be much more expensive than Excelsior and they do not accept payment plans if I'm correct.

I didn't know the cornerstone and capstone count as upper level thanks! So then if I only need 24UL I will keep the 6UL I need for the concentration area and take 6UL out of the 21UL arts/sciences requirement and substitute that with something LL. 
Thank you for the recommendation but  Davar and LawShelf courses are outside my interest area, is there anything wrong with completing the courses at Study.com outlined in my link? I'm looking for budget options but still staying within my line of interest where possible and I like the more structured nature of Sophia and Study.com. I am not very good at self motivation and setting goals for myself without that.

Alternately do you know if Onlinedegree.com could be used as well perhaps for some LL?

For myself, generally I want cheap, easy, fast - I usually pick from a few providers, not just those on your spreadsheet.  For example, Astronomy, you can take it on InstantCertCredit for $20 and $15/exam.  It's half the price of Study.com and you get to support this board: https://www.instantcert.com/articles/art...IT-Courses

For Davar, take the Business class courses, 2 of them at $99, $15/proctor exam, total $129 for both.  Do the Intro to Computer and MIS, take out two or more of your Study.com intro to computer courses, you may want to take them for knowledge, but skip out the exams for these two mentioned above.  Link: https://www.davaracademy.com/business.html

My suggestions are to take "more" Study.com UL computer courses or take other science courses instead of these "intro" courses listed, you may want to take the course but not the exams for knowledge, and ladder them up to the UL computer courses because some lower level courses have lessons already included in the upper level ones.

---

Oh and to add, there is Saylor.org with an UL Computer Science course, Software Engineering.  It's just $5 for the proctored exam, all else it's free for the course material.  Furthermore, they have a few more computer courses you may want to review if you have the energy/time to do so.  Link: https://www.saylor.org/credit/courses/

---

Upon further look, if you want, you can skip Davar as Saylor.org already has those two course for $5, haha... even better!  The thing is, Davar is a lot easier and the system they use is all "presentations/slides".  Saylor courses are all "messy" with their information... it may be worth it to try, if you get a headache, skip to Davar.

Thank you for the detailed response.

I will definitely take a look at Instacert for Astronomy - and maybe some other courses. They seem to require proctoring by PSI services but on PSI's website I can't seem to find how to sign up for the final exam. InstaCert doesn't come up in the search bar

My priorities are interesting and affordable, ease is not a necessity. I will skip business and humanities oriented classes unless they are a requirement because those are very boring and therefore difficult for me. I looked at Saylor.org as a cheap option as well but the courses if I can even call them so look very unstructured and chaotic which would make it harder for me. It might be cheap but the annoyance might not be worth it. I might try one just to see how it goes though. Thanks again!