Please rate/critique my degree plan

[sheptr]

Hello! I have been lurking a bit lately and am bummed I did not find this forum back in September before I shelled out $99 to one of the DIY Degree guys, that I can no longer get a hold of. At least it did lead me to this forum, which has been a wealth of knowledge, ideas and inspiration. I was set to pull the trigger with the plan I was partially helped with by the aforementioned DIY guy, when I found you guys. My #1 priority was to be able to test out of 99%-100% of requirements, relatively quickly (thinking 18-24 months) with a Bachelors in ANYTHING. I am working as an IT dork, and have some certs, but DIY guy advised the easiest plan would to be Gen Business as far as testing out goes.
I would have gone for underwater basket weaving if it was fully testable. I was about to bite the bullet and go with the Business degree at Excelsior when degree forum wiki jumped up and bit me. The TESU BSBA CIS seems to be 100% testable as well. Being that I work in IT, that might be a better path for me, or I see that TESU has a BA Foreign Language (Russian, trained for it in military). Like most people, I'd like to maximize and squeeze every last credit I can out of my past classes, military and certs. So now I am at a crossroads and have been stagnant for a couple weeks. I am going to apply to TESU and COSC over the weekend and see what I can get out them in an initial eval and with what I have been learning from this community, see what might shake out the best for me. In the meantime, would anyone care to share thoughts or observations on what DIY guy helped me with?
Excelsior's review appears to have granted me 45 credits towards the BS in Gen Bus, but their template shows (i think) 85 credits needed. Not sure if I am reading it correctly.
Thanks!

[dfrecore]

I can't help you with EC, but I can give you some info on TESU.

First, getting a BA in Russian would be difficult, because you would need 6cr in Russian Lit, and another 9cr in other Russian "stuff" - and I'm not sure if they would apply Russian Area Studies and Military Topics in Russian to that or not. Either way, I'm not sure it's easy to find a Russian Lit course out there. But hey, I could be wrong! Oh, and you need 15cr of UL courses, and I'm not sure if they will give any of your courses UL credit since it says it was accredited by the "Community and Junior Colleges of the WASC." So those are just the issues you will have with the BA in Russian at TESU. Not insurmountable, though, and you that would use all 45 of your credits towards the degree.

The degree I would look at is the BALS (BA in Liberal Studies). This is the most flexible degree there is, and all 45cr will be used. Only 18cr max of Russian can be used in the AOS (Area of Study), but the rest of the credits would easily fit throughout the degree. And then it's very easy to get the rest of the credits for the AOS, using a mix of any of the SocSci, Humanities, and NatSci courses available (including Computer Science courses). I show it costing about $3500 for 72cr (I randomly chose courses for the AOS, you can change them).

The only thing you would have to do with both the BA in Russian or the BALS, is the capstone. Everything else could be tested out of.

Regarding the BSBA in CIS, it will limit your ability to use your credits, but it won't be terrible. I see about 35cr being used:
the Diversity requirement can be fulfilled by Russian Culture I/II/III (3cr)
Knowledge of Human Cultures can be fulfilled by anything you've taken (9cr)
GenEd Electives can be fulfilled by anything you've taken (14-17cr)
Free Electives can be fulfilled by anything you've taken (6cr)
The total price would be around $3175 for 87cr, although if you switched to the BSBA General Management, it would be a few hundred dollars cheaper.


So really, it's entirely up to you which degree you're more interested in, and which you think you can do faster. The price is negligible.

[sheptr]

Thank you so much for your input dfrecore! I have read quite a few posts and observations from you these last few months. I appreciate you sharing your experience.
I am very much leaning towards the BSBA CIS after seeing what it may look like in your plan. I think living in NJ 10+ years, and the fact that TESU is close by is an added bonus, even if only mentally.
I am looking to take advantage of my employer's tuition assistance for advanced degrees and plan on staying in an IT related domain, that plan might serve me the best. Hoping for a quick turnaround from TESU on the preliminary review.
Thanks again!


I just noticed that a few of the EC attachments did not upload and am adding them now.

[bricabrac]

Hello,

I have no experience with Excelsior but if you live in NJ, as I do, I would highly recommend TESU. You have the benefit of obtaining an affordable BSBA at a local state university. I can vouch for TESU being well received by companies in NJ. Good luck!

[sheptr]

Thanks bricabrac, I am really feeling TESU pulling me. Though I am still waiting to see what COSC offers credit wise, I do not think they will beat TESU.
I dug into dfrecore's (thanks so much dfrecore!!) suggested plans of attack for BSBA CIS and BA Liberal Studies, and ran my credits through the online student
services tool and was shocked to see how many credits the BA Lib Stud grants me. I added an updated tab to the plan based on the what the tool provided and it seems to grant 75 credits for the BA versus 37-38 for
the BSBA CIS, cutting the amount of exams in half. But alas, it does include the dreaded Capstone. I think I'd rather suffer the Capstone, and fewer exams, while saving
perhaps a few dollars as well. Can the Capstone be that horrible? It looks like I would just need to find an exam to cove the Diversity and one more Gen Ed Elective. If anyone sees any issues or holes in
the UPDATED tab on this plan, please hit me with a hammer. thanks all!

[davewill]

It's not so much that the capstone is horrible, it's that the out of state tuition to take it is $1560 and the in-state isn't that much better at $1275. You can take a lot of exams for that kind of money. That said, if time is more important than money, or if you're like me, and you simply need a degree that requires it, then you just have to bite the bullet and do it. It's a lot of work (I'm in the middle of it), but I'm finding that the mentor is doing a good job of shepherding us through.

[dfrecore]

It looks like the BALS made a huge difference - all of those UL credits, your entire AOS is covered! That's fantastic.

Turns out that it will be a little cheaper for you to get that than the BSBA CIS, that's good. Furthermore, you would have to take many of the same courses for the CIS anyway (English Comp, Speech, Tech Writing, Ethics, American Govt, a Diversity course, Computers)

A few more things to do:
1) Contact TESU and ask for the Russian Culture I/II/III to count as your diversity course.
2) Make sure that you can use all of those Russian classes for the AOS, as you need at least 1 other subject in there (you have some in GenEds you can swap)
3) Find 2 more TECEP's that you can take for residency - pick something you need if possible (like Nutrition if you think you can pass that), or one of the easier ones that you can use in Free Electives (you could swap out the TEEX courses)

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

[ladylearner]

Hello! I have been lurking a bit lately and am bummed I did not find this forum back in September before I shelled out $99 to one of the DIY Degree guys, that I can no longer get a hold of. At least it did lead me to this forum, which has been a wealth of knowledge, ideas and inspiration. I was set to pull the trigger with the plan I was partially helped with by the aforementioned DIY guy, when I found you guys. My #1 priority was to be able to test out of 99%-100% of requirements, relatively quickly (thinking 18-24 months) with a Bachelors in ANYTHING. I am working as an IT dork, and have some certs, but DIY guy advised the easiest plan would to be Gen Business as far as testing out goes.
I would have gone for underwater basket weaving if it was fully testable. I was about to bite the bullet and go with the Business degree at Excelsior when degree forum wiki jumped up and bit me. The TESU BSBA CIS seems to be 100% testable as well. Being that I work in IT, that might be a better path for me, or I see that TESU has a BA Foreign Language (Russian, trained for it in military). Like most people, I'd like to maximize and squeeze every last credit I can out of my past classes, military and certs. So now I am at a crossroads and have been stagnant for a couple weeks. I am going to apply to TESU and COSC over the weekend and see what I can get out them in an initial eval and with what I have been learning from this community, see what might shake out the best for me. In the meantime, would anyone care to share thoughts or observations on what DIY guy helped me with?
Excelsior's review appears to have granted me 45 credits towards the BS in Gen Bus, but their template shows (i think) 85 credits needed. Not sure if I am reading it correctly.
Thanks!

I, too, wanted to do a degree at COSC or Excelsior but ended up at TESU. I live in NJ and it just feels right plus they were most generous with how credits were applied. As an in-state student, the enrollment fee is not bad but it is still more than Excelsior and definitely more than COSC. However, the fact that I had to find fewer classes, the cost was offset by that. Plus the cost of the capstone for an in-state student also makes it less than completing the capstone (and cornerstone at COSC) via any of the other Big 3.

I wanted to chime in here about the foreign language piece. You can get credit through ACTFL for foreign language - beyond what is offered through CLEP. If you want a degree in foreign language from TESU, you will need to have coursework in literature and civilization in the target language. Since you trained in the military, it is possible that portfolio credits would be appropriate. I completed upper-level portfolio credits in foreign language for coursework that is not covered through testing (culture, literature, etc.).

[sheptr]

I finally resigned myself to the fact I am stuck paying for either the Residency Waiver fee eventually, or the Enrolled Option fee before April 1st. Since I am a NJ resident, the Enrolled Option is just about the same as the Res Waiver, but since there is no time limit with the Pay Per Credit Plan, I am leaning towards it. Any thoughts on pros and cons of either?
I plan on testing out of the remaining 42 credits over the next 12-18 months, and have a TECEP (info Literacy-Tech Writing) scheduled for the May term, and had planned on TECEPs for ENC101/102 Written Comm, MAT-105 Quant Lit/Lib Arts Math, CIS-107 Computer Con & App, BIO-208 Nutrition.
Without being tied to any residency requirements, I am thinking to replace those with exams or Saylor/SL that aren't tied to a term or semester. Or am I overthinking it?
Thinking faster, cheaper and possibly easier.

[davewill]

Seems like a no brainer to go with the Per Credit plan since you aren't planning to take courses that would make the enrolled options cheaper. If you go enrolled options and your year ends without you graduating, I'm pretty sure you'll be stuck with switching to the per credit plan and then having to pay the waiver fee anyway since you aren't planning on taking enough courses to satisfy residency.