UMPI BA English plan and questions

[spaindreamer]

So, I'd like to point out that UMPI's English degree is not what I personally would like if I wanted to be an English major: it's really more of a Professional Communication and Journalism degree.  There's not a lot of Literature (the fun part of English in my opinion) and is just a strange degree.  But I would take a good look at the courses there before you decide that's what you want.

Second, to be an TESOL teacher, you do not have to have an English degree. Nor do you have to have a Spanish degree.

So, here are your options:
1) English/ProfComm/Journo degree at UMPI

2) English degree at TESU - between CLEP, Study.com, Coopersmith & ONU, you only need 1 add'l UL English course (which you can find at BYU-IS or other places). This is much more of a Literature degree.  If you want to take your final UL English course at TESU, you could actually do the single 16cr term and save a bundle.

3) Spanish is available at TESU - but none of the courses you need are; so I think that degree is out

4) A Liberal Studies degree from TESU or EC

The nice thing about choosing TESU is that they allow you to bring in a LOT of Spanish credit - you could conceivably bring in 24cr of LL and 12cr of UL from the ACTFL exams, plus 9cr of LL from the CLEP, plus 3cr from the Study.com course.  Not sure how EC brings all of those in, there may be some overlap between exams.
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For UMPI's lab science requirement, which is a pain, you could opt for a few different ways to get credit and still keep the Bio course:
Rio Salado (pricy) has Nutrition w/Lab
U of Idaho IS has Geology w/Lab, and Descriptive Astronomy w/Lab
Your local CC might have something like that you'd enjoy more like (Astronomy, Geology, A&P, Earth Science, Nutrition, etc.).  While you're at it, take a hands-on art class (my husband is taking Astronomy w/Lab and Drawing in the fall at a CC in-state for free).
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If you go to TESU, they don't require a lab science - neither does EC.

I would take a look at all of your options before making any decisions.

Thanks so much for this info.

Nutrition with lab sounds enticing. I'll look into that further. I've had a hobby obsession with nutrition for years that would be leveragable there.

I'm open to TESU. I think for my priorites, the biggest thing in favor of TESU and a "proper" English degree is that it might help me more easily get into a TESOL Master's program than the UMPI Eng/BizCom one if I decide to go that route in a few years. I am seeing that these Master's programs at ASU (and I checked my local CSU) want a GPA based on the last 60 credit hours, how is that affected by not actually having 60 graded credits? Or are these study.com/sophia/etc credits graded towards GPA?

I'm a little worried about how easy/well I'd do in CLEP test vs how Sophia seems to be going for me. I finished section two of five today for stats in ~2.5 hours, might finish section three tonight. I probably wouldn't pass these GEC items this quickly if the browser-searchable text wasn't literally right next to me while taking the tests. For stats, having a spreadsheet in front of me rather than doing calcs on a traditional calculator or some other proctored nonsense has made things a lot faster too. I also like that I don't have to schedule anything, just do it. This "just do it" is great for me, because I have no idea how good/prepared I'm going to feel tomorrow, let alone next week.

The ACTFL path and using Spanish to fulfill a lot of my elective credits is very enticing. I doubt I'll be at a C-level in the next few months, I'm in the wide plateau of intermediate right now, but even acheiving B-level and whatever credits come with that will be relevant to my goals and I've already put in the bulk of that work. It looks like UMPI respects the ACE credit recommendations from ACTFL tests too, but doesn't give UL credits according to this UMPO ACTFL thread. I'm not sure I care about UL if I go the UMPI route anyway.

I did see that the English degree at UMPI is a weird mix of Comms and English. I'd much prefer if it was the same proper English courses it already has, but mixed with the education minor instead of the Business Comms stuff. But as it is, I'm thinking that I'm likely to have an easier time with it because of my professional experience relating to the BizComm stuff. 

How to Coopersmith & ONU compare to Sophia in course design? Are they similarly structured with mostly online-graded material? Part of my bias towards UMPI with the research I have done, is how much I'm liking Sophia and the ease in finding transfer equivalents. I've only actively compared Sophia to study.com so far, but study.com's assignments seem like more work generally.

CC is not in the cards. The way my brain seems to work, I'd more likely finish/pass Calculus from home in a couple weeks than finish a multi-month intro to music performance class on an instrument that I already know, if the latter required that I have to travel on a fixed nightly or weekend schedule for 2-3 months while also maintaining my regular work schedule. This is incredibly silly from a logical perspective, but driving/transporting myself to physical classes while also working full time is a huge psychological barrier for me. Even for work, I have literally moved to within a mile of every new workplace I've had in the last 10 years just to avoid transportation related stress (before my current remote-only job).

Based on your feedback so far though. I'll probably switch my Spanish focus to the ACTFL, and ask my Spanish tutor to move our goals in that direction for the time being. Seems like a good use of the time I'm already spending on language studies. I'm also going to start digging into the TESU forums here to get a feel for what to expect from their classes vs UMPI from a format/ease perspective.