CS Student Wanting to Transfer, What School is Best for a Senior with Anxiety?

[SeriouslySylvia]

Seriously thank you all so much, this has all been extremely encouraging. I'm used to people just telling me to get over it and try harder, but you've all been so helpful and non judgmental. I really can't express enough how thankful I am!

BA vs. BS really does NOT matter, except in very specific circumstances. Unless you have a job offer that says you need a BS, these circumstances don't apply to you. What matters is the major, not BA vs. BS. 

Looking at the courses you've completed, it looks like you might also be able to get both a BA Comp Sci and a BA Mathematics from TESU with very little additional effort. This would be arguably even better than "just" a BS Comp Sci. It opens up more job opportunities than just a standard Comp Sci degree.

The downside: you will need to take at least one Study.com class for TESU. Understandably, I don't see a Public Speaking class. There is a SDC course that is accepted at TESU as Public Speaking but it has ZERO presentations due. Just a final exam. Study.com uses a RECORDED proctor, not a live proctor. Probably 95+% of the time, nobody will even see the video and it'll get deleted without being watched.

You might also need to complete a few gen eds, like English Comp II. You've got Technical Writing, but TESU doesn't usually count that as English Comp II. If you're missing anything else, you can complete them on Sophia. Sophia is open-book and does not have traditional proctoring.

I had no idea I was that close to a math degree. I mean I knew I took more math classes than I needed (currently they're being applied as my free electives lol), but I figured that I'd need way more than that. I considered trying to minor in math since I thought I'd be close to that, but I really hadn't considered getting another Bachelors, I assumed that'd be like starting over. Two BAs definitely feels worth all the effort and time, and it does seem better than just one BS even! (:

That all sounds very doable actually. Thanks so much for bringing that to my attention, this seems like it could be a real option for me.

Please note that a substantial portion of the TESU capstone grade is based on an 8-10 minute video presentation that must be reviewed and graded by the course mentor. The video is supposed to be shared with classmates in the discussion board, but that part can be skipped, losing only 2-3 percent of the overall course grade.

This was the other reason I originally was leaning against TESU, which I forgot to mention in my post. I think I can maybe manage it though considering there seems to be a lot of upsides to TESU. If anyone has experience with what the whole capstone process is like, just knowing what to expect will help me immensely. Its one 8-10 minutes video, and its a prior recording I make (not live) right? Is the presentation a large portion of the overall grade for the capstone? Any and all information would be helpful for me.

I'm also not a huge fan of research papers but it is what it is and I can get over that. But just in case, anyone know if they ever give some options for capstones more geared towards your specific major? I understand CS students do the same capstone as every other BA, but maybe they sometimes allow you to make a program/app/website/whatever instead?

 It also seems like TESU has a disability/accessibility center, does anyone know if its of any quality? I've gotten presentations waived before through disability, so if anyone knows if they ever do accommodations for mental illness that'd be helpful to know. Maybe I have some leeway here.

I would absolutely NOT recommend TECEPs to a student with any sort of anxiety. TECEPs use ProctorU, which is a live proctor. It's an entirely different experience than a recorded proctor. At the best of times, ProctorU can be... difficult. Sophia's English Comp II is lengthy, and sometimes fickle, but you don't have to deal with a live proctor.

Oh yeah I forgot about that. I took a TECEP once ages ago. I thought it make sense in OPs situation and the speaking TECEP sounds easyish and so does comp II. (in some ways the TECEP might be eaiser than Sophias. It looks like less work IMO) Also no issues with additional transcripts and waiting for them to come in added to plan and for grad school only having two transcripts TESU and Bellvue. But yeah I loathe ProctorU. But yeah I guess OP can decide if TECEP is right for them, which it might not be.

I guess I maybe don't know enough about proctoring. My school doesn't do proctoring at all, even online. Live proctoring is going to be taking an exam on while on webcam/video call  with someone watching right? How different is that from recorded proctoring? You use webcam but presumably someone watches the video later, like you're not in a zoom call with someone? I definitely think the video sounds substantially easier. The other reason I didn't like proctoring was because I have a horrible memory when it comes to exact/specific information. So using short hand written notes for difficult exams works well for me, but trying to remember complicated memory tasks can be difficult (memorizing exact syntax in programming, or long equations in math). So I guess open book or whatever might be more important to me for certain types of courses.

You'll need to see exactly where TESU puts each course in order to decide what actually needs to be taken for these two degrees.

I'll have to do more research on all the courses you listed for me but this gives me a great jumping off point to start really planning something actionable. I'm assuming if there's not "(no proctoring)" next to a course, that means there is proctoring for that course. Is it safe to assume TESU usually doesn't use proctoring at all, or do they often use proctoring for some courses? And is there a reason to not take any necessary classes at TESU instead of SDC/Sophia/etc? I guess I'm confused on the benefits and drawbacks of TESU vs. Online credit courses. 

How long do these Study.com, Coursera, Sophia, etc type courses take to complete? If I'm counting correctly, I'll need at the very least Public Speaking, English Comp 2, and Ethics. Possibly History. And then I guess the rest of what I'd likely need would be Comp Sci and Math courses I could take at those services as well, transfer to TESU with those credits, do the capstones and literacy courses for CS and/or Math at TESU, and then I'm done? That's already quite a few courses, is that really going to be faster than doing something like SNHU for a year? 

Also could I theoretically take these extra math electives at SNHU to fulfill the 30 credit residency requirement, and then either transfer those to TESU for the second major, or maybe do one major and one minor at SNHU?

Also, regarding the Area of Study electives, I'm still enrolled in my program and I get enough assistance/scholarships there to not pay anything. Originally I was supposed to take CS401 Algorithms next quarter. From my understanding, its a subject fairly based on mathematical theory. Its also necessary for every other CS degree I looked at so I'm not sure I should skip it anyway. Is it possible this would transfer as an Upper Level Math course? If it might, should I wait to transfer all credits at once? I could take the Algorithms class next quarter while doing some of the Study.com or Coursera Gen Ed credits that are more "certain" to be needed. Or is it kind of risky to be "guessing" what I'll need, what will or wont transfer, etc? 

You should apply to TESU and send in your transcript ASAP. Then you'll know exactly what you need.

Which course(s) is the schedule bottleneck at Bellevue? If it's not the capstone, maybe we can find whatever course is the problem elsewhere and you could transfer it back to to finish your degree at your current school a little quicker.

Edit: OK looking back I see the capstone is a 3 course sequence so it's probably the bottleneck.

Yes the bottleneck is the capstone series which takes 3 quarters (from fall-spring). Ideally you're supposed to take it alongside all your other upper level classes, but I obviously didn't do that. I actually did consider trying to get accepted into another School, do their capstone, and maybe transfer back, but I'm pretty sure no where is going to let me take their Capstone without doing the rest of their necessary degree requirements, and at that point I don't think there'd be any point in transferring back.


Thanks again everyone for all your helpful advice, it really means a lot to me.