e-Pack Strategy

[Vin]

I am pursuing my BSBA, CIS. Here is my degree plan.  To avoid having to pay residency waiver fee I plan to take 16 credits at TESU

I will take the required cornerstone and capstone course, 3 e-pack courses, and PLA-100 to round out my 16 credits.


e-Packs give me the flexible benefit of going self paced can actually let you go faster than the traditional course.  So my strategy is to take the easiest courses that offer e-Pack and take those.  I'll leave the harder courses like Business Law and AOS courses for Study.COM  where I'm hoping it will provide me a better opportunity to learn.

Browse all e-Pack courses.

I plan to take  Intro to Computing, Principles of Management, and Intro to Marketing.

Are there any flaws in this where I may want to reconsider my strategy?

Appreciate any feedback.

[LevelUP]

e-Packs give me the flexible benefit of going self paced can actually let you go faster than the traditional course. 

You don't go faster, necessarily as you would still have to put the time in to pass the ePack exam.

If you cherry-pick a TESU course, it would take 30hrs, give or take 10hrs.

That is 2.5hrs per week per course.

The capstone takes 80hrs +/- 20hrs, and the cornerstone is around 40hrs.

You need to take the TECEP sample questions and see your score, which should reflect what the ePack exam would be like.

Remember that if you fail one ePack exam, then you have to pay the residency waiver, so it's a bit of a gamble.

Option #1
$498 edx SOS-110 (if this works)
$1605 TESU course
$3288 Residency fee

$5391 TOTAL

Option #2
$4778 Flat rate tuition

$4778 TOTAL

Option #3  (But fail at least one exam)
$4778 Flat rate tuition 
$3288 Residency fee

$8066 TOTAL

[dfrecore]

The Computers e-Pack course is probably easier than Management or Marketing. I took the TECEP and found it extremely easy.

[jsd]

This is all very subjective, and your background and prior knowledge will greatly skew this. These work hours are based on my current run through TESU for a BA in CS, but keep in mind i've already gone through TESU for a BA in Psych, WGU for a BS in IT Sec, and Georgia Tech for a MS in CyberSec.

-For the "Computer Concepts and Applications" e-Pack, I did 0 hrs of studying -- I took the practice exam, scored high 80s, and jumped right to the official exam. Anyone who has had an office job that uses MS Office should be able to pass this, assuming they are actively using the Office suite and not just relying on their coworkers to figure out basic office functions for them. Passed without issue.

-The TESU cornerstone can be done over a long weekend -- it's basically 4 (or so?) assignments where you just regurgitate what the PLA process is after reading 4 one-to-three page docs. Think like 40 minutes per assignment, plus some discussion forums posts and replies. Passed with 100%.

- I took one "UL" TESU course (Ethical Hacking) where you just spend an hour a week on discussion forums, labs that are step-by-step without critical thinking, and occasional quizzes that you can take multiple times until you get the grade you want, no penalties for getting it wrong (unproctored). Passed with 100%. This should not have been UL, and the content was way out of date.

- Currently taking the Capstone, spending at most 2 hours a week on it (usually much less, generally 30-60mins/week). One discussion forum and a couple replies to peers due every week alongside a 5 page (or so) paper due every other week. The paper is just a rewording of the discussion forum/prior weeks' paper, eventually culminating with a recorded oral presentation of the paper you've been compiling all along the way. On track to pass with about 93%. [[note: the topic of my capstone is directly related to my professional work, in a field i have worked in for over a decade, so it is easy to churn out discussion forum posts and papers for]]

Like I said, this is my second go around at TESU, but my first go (and first Bachelors) at TESU was similar. I got an A in my first TESU course (Ethics in the Social Sciences), and an A in my first TESU capstone. I definitely spent WAY more hours in 2016 on my first BA in Psych capstone at TESU (probably triple my current hours for this cap because I wasn't sure of what I was doing), but I didn't need to. But the Psych degree was much more interesting to me and took a lot more critical thinking than my current degree, so I went the extra mile.

The 2016 SocSci Ethics UL course was also way more involved than the UL Hacking course, but I don't recall it taking up too much more of my time (aside from proctored mid and final exams and course reading material that actually mattered).

[davewill]

One thing to always remember is that you can file for an extension if the workload gets to be too much. They charge you for each course you extend, so you would probably just pick one (likely the capstone), but that's much better than failing a course or letting your GPA slip.

You have to finish at least half of the course before you can file. It's also important to contact your instructor before missing an assignment deadline. Once a deadline passes, school policy requires the mentor to dock points from the assignment. If arranged in advance, they have full lattitude to grant extra time.

I started a new job and was assigned a bunch of business travel shortly into my capstone. I ended up losing ground throughout the course and then filing for an extension just before the final paper was due. I was never docked points even though most of the major assignments after week 3 were late. I turned the final paper in about two weeks late and got a high A in the course.

[LevelUP]

One thing a lot of people don't realize is that TESU courses are self-paced.

You can work as far ahead as you want, though there are minimum deadlines, so if you do get behind, you will be hit will a late penalty. 

You do have to wait for the exams to be unlocked, which happens on a certain date. 

As a last resort, you can extend the courses as long as you have the course at least 50% completed.

[Vin]

This is great info!

I'm thinking these are easy because of my background I'm also basing it on the fact that the CLEPs for these subjects are listed as these being the easiest CLEPs.  I know it's not the same but I figured that might be a good baseline.