Newly admitted, 24 credits remain for a BA Comp Sci!

[fmsoa]

Transferred a completed WGU Bachelor of Science degree in Software Development over to TESU recently, as I'm very interested in getting a CS degree and have been exploring all my options for some time. That degree was my first and took two years to complete, August 2017 to July 2019. It didn't help in becoming a professional software developer but did get my foot into Information Technology, changing my life path in a majorly good way and letting me qualify to buy a house in 2020, then meet the love of my life. I worked up to an IT Admin position and chose to return to desktop support. The WGU BSSD is listed on my transfer evaluation as a BSIT, which is accurate. The WGU program was more a concentration than a major.

WGU would've previously been the quickest and cheapest choice for the second Bachelor's due to how much overlap there was between SD and CS. I had quite a disappointing experience trying to deal with their admissions/returning alumni employees (if you're going to be rude, at least give people correct information). I decided to walk away, a lot less likely to ever recommend WGU to anyone due to whatever changes have happened since I left. The math requirements may have been a little over my head, anyway, so CSU Global had become my plan until discovering TESU.

TESU maximized my transfer credit as much as they could and the evaluation shows me only needing 24 more credits, making it a reasonable $12k or so, which will be fully covered by tuition assistance through my employer. My first degree through WGU only required me paying for two terms. In the end, I think $20,000 for a BSIT and a BACS is a good bargain.

I want to share my experience which is very similar to yours. Not much money concern as employer reimburses my tuition. Time is not an issue as I already got degrees under my belt (a BA Math from TESU and a B.S. in engineering from a brick-and-mortar college). That's how I am working on my GT OMSCS and TESU BA CS simultaneously:

I am taking 2 courses a semester at GT. The graduate credits I earned from GT would then be used for my BA CS degree at the same time. As long as I finish my BA CS earlier than my GT masters degree I would have earned 2 degrees for the efforts of one + Lib-4950 Capstone + residency waiver!

If I were you, I would enroll in MAT 2070 Discrete Math, COS 2410 Data Structures, COS 2400 Operating System, COS 3300 Computer Architecture and an Analysis of Algorithms course from Oregon State or Colorado State this Summer and Fall and apply for the OMSCS Spring 2024 cohort. Do not try the SDC route. It is an easy and cheap shortcut for degree but will not prepare you for Graduate Algorithm properly. Calculus is not very important if you are not into machine learning.

GT is the most welcoming program for alternative educational institutions such as WGU and TESU. Programs like UT-Austin are very theory-heavy and frown upon competency-based or alt-credit-earning schools and I have not seen a single successful applicant to this date