Online Degrees and CLEP and DSST Exam Prep Discussion
Starting from scratch - lost and need some pointers or guidance. - Printable Version

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Starting from scratch - lost and need some pointers or guidance. - DragonInstall - 10-01-2020

Hey there, like many here, I lurked for a bit and made the jump to go ahead and start school after going into my 30's without any extra schooling. I had zero college credits to my name to start out and the goal is to end with a bachelor degree - Liberal studies with a concentration in criminal justice is preferred but it's not a mandatory. I know a couple of things from reading through some of the posts.

  • I know Sophia is the best place currently to knock out my General Ed courses. I've officially knocked out one, so I'm now at 3 credit hours, and the intention is clearing all of them except the readiness courses.
  • I (think) I can get a couple more courses from SDC to knock out some of my Upper Level courses. 
  • I think that TESU is the cheapest option and the most efficient for me? At least, that's what I've gathered from the reading.


I tried to make a spreadsheet documenting where I could get credits and what classes to take and it honestly just made my head spin and so I'm posting here. Does it sound like I'm on the right track here? I have a rare moment where I can school full time for a bit due to the pandemic and so I'm planning to knock out as much Sophia as possible (and save money) but after that, I'm kinda lost on where to go from there. Anyone have any tips or pointers on what to do next?

RE: Starting from scratch - lost and need some pointers or guidance. - lacussucceed - 10-02-2020

Hi!
Sophia: skip readiness / foundation
TESU/COSC/EC: if you want that criminal justice concentration you need to check their programs and see if you can test out those courses, I think this is not entirely possible for criminal justice but things change from time to time.
You should make a degree plan (or edit an existing, for example see bjcheung77 s signature), put all the required courses and their options in there and start finishing those.

RE: Starting from scratch - lost and need some pointers or guidance. - rachel83az - 10-02-2020

I think TESU is closest for being able to test out of the pure criminal justice degree. IIRC, you can get most of the way there but there is at least one class that would need to be taken at TESU. The same can be said of the BALS with Criminal Justice concentration. At SDC, there is:
  • AOJ-102 Intro to Criminal Justice - Criminal Justice 101 comes in as AOJ-102
  • AOJ-280 Forensic Science - Criminal Science 106 comes in as AOJ-280
  • SOC-291 Criminology - Criminal Justice 104 comes in as AOJ-103; this should work because they are both LL but they still might not accept it due to the SDC course being brought in as a lower number.
  • AOJ-381 Victimology and Criminal Behavior - Criminal Justice 381 is brought in as SOC-239; TESU wants an UL credit and SDC only has a LL one. 
  • AOJ-310 Criminal Law - Criminal Justice 107 is brought in as AOJ-251; again, TESU expects UL and it's LL
  • AOJ-303 White Collar Crime - Criminal Justice 301 is brought in as AOJ-110; an intro course instead of the necessary advanced one. 
TEEX has "Cyber Law & White Collar Crime" available for free but it's only 2 credits and is also LL.

RE: Starting from scratch - lost and need some pointers or guidance. - ctcarl - 10-02-2020

(10-02-2020, 04:51 AM)rachel83az Wrote: TEEX has "Cyber Law & White Collar Crime" available for free but it's only 2 credits and is also LL.

TEEX is a great source for low-cost online CJ credits. After a tip from another member (thanks, BJ!), I took the following from them:

$45 Basic Property Technician, 3 LL credits
$45 Foundations of Fingerprint Comparison, 3 LL credits
$45 Foundations of Forensic Photography, 1 LL credit
$45 Foundations of Courtroom Testimony, 1 LL credit
$75 Basic Criminal Investigation Online, 2 LL credits
$75 Death Investigation Online, 3 UL credits

Don't forget to verify any potential CJ classes with the school and degree program of your choice before taking them.

RE: Starting from scratch - lost and need some pointers or guidance. - jsh1138 - 10-10-2020

The first thing you need to do is decide where you're going to get your degree from. If it's TESU, that's fine, talk to advising over there and make sure what is actually required for the degree. Get that list and then you'll know what to do

It's easy to spend a ton of time doing courses that don't transfer or that you don't really need. For instance TESU requires a lab just like COSC does, but TESU counts computer courses as "physical science" labs and COSC doesn't. So there are differences and there's no point in doing courses that aren't going to help you.

Once you have your course list all squared away, I would do Sophia for as many as you can and then switch to Study.com for as many as you can get there. Then see what's left and ask here to see if anyone knows where you can get those, if there are any.

RE: Starting from scratch - lost and need some pointers or guidance. - bjcheung77 - 10-11-2020

Hey, thanks for the mention guys!  It's personal preference, for cheap/easy/fast, I would recommend going for the BALS with a Social Science concentration instead of Criminal Justice.  The reason is you can take "any AOJ/CJ" courses along with Psychology/Sociology, etc - you just need 3 UL CJ courses and 2 UL in other Social Sciences such as Psych/Socio to round out the 15 UL.

I usually recommend the StraighterLine/Study.com combo in my signature, but now have changed that to Sophia.org/Study.com instead because StraighterLine/Sophia.org both have courses only geared for General Education/Lower Level courses, and they're cheap/easy/fast.  Study.com should be used for Upper Level requirements to finish off the degree, not to start off the degree.

Invest in a second monitor if you don't have one already, this will allow you to multi-task and research/study more effectively.  
You should complete ALL the FREE TEEX courses located here, for free electives: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Free_Sources_of_Credit
Then complete ALL the Sophia.org courses located here, for general ed/AOS/FE: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sophia.org_Equivalency_List
And I think Rachel83az created/updated this: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Generic_TESU_Degree_Plan

RE: Starting from scratch - lost and need some pointers or guidance. - rachel83az - 10-11-2020

(10-11-2020, 12:27 PM)bjcheung77 Wrote: And I think Rachel83az created/updated this: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Generic_TESU_Degree_Plan

Yes, indeed! I had too much coffee and have spent the weekend reorganizing and rewriting the wiki so that it should at least be mostly updated, relevant, and (I hope) even more newbie-friendly. I also plan to add a generic BSBA plan at some point.

Now, if only I could be this efficient with my schoolwork...