46, Quickest way to check box for promotion

[cshrop23@gmail.com]

Your Location:  South Carolina
Your Age:  46
What kind of degree do you want?:  Bachelor’s (quickest is the must important but my career is Business, Finance, HR, PMP) 
Current Regional Accredited Credits:  16
Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits:  0
Any certifications or military experience?:  0
Budget:  $10,000, Easy & Fast is most important
Commitments:  60 hr work week + work travel so most would be done on weekends
Dedicated time to study:  All day Saturday & Sunday
Timeline:  Less than 1 year, I’ve been offered a promotion at work that requires a Bachelor’s Degree and they will only hold the position for so long.
Tuition assistance/reimbursement:  None

I would like to test out of everything possible. Tests are fine but would prefer to avoid writing papers as much as possible. Is it quicker to do some courses thru Sophia first and if so which ones will transfer? I’ve been looking at TESU, Excelsior, Charter Oak State & WGU. Thanks so much!

[bjcheung77]

Welcome to the board, great intro post with the basic details... Ouch, all that time on the weekend, but no time on the weekdays, this will cause a problem. If I had a similar scenario, I would take a couple to three sessions at UMPI to finish off the BLS with a minor or two. To start, do all the Sophia.org credits that can transfer to the bulk of the institutions we recommend, afterwards, take the remaining credits at UMPI for residency purposes.

[origamishuttle]

The BSITM at WGU seems like a good option for you:
https://www.wgu.edu/online-business-degr...ogram.html

There are a large number of courses that can be transferred, first from Sophia (except English Comp 2, which is awful, and maybe Network & Security):
https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...gramId=192

Then from Study.com:
https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...gramId=192

You can work on those courses at your own pace, only paying for relatively inexpensive subscriptions, and it will give you a good idea of self-paced courses. Then when you're ready to enroll, WGU starts at the first of the month every month, so little time is wasted there. Finally, when you complete your final WGU course, graduation and conferral take less than a week, far faster than any other school.

[LevelUP]

Since time is important and you work a lot of hours, I would do UMPI.

Project Management
https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/UM...egree_Plan

Other Options:
https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Category:UMPI

Start knocking out Sophia courses first, then do Study.com

[origamishuttle]

I seem to be missing something here - how is UMPI faster than WGU? Transfer credits take longer to evaluate, admission and enrollment take longer, there's much more coursework and writing required for the UMPI courses (which OP specifically doesn't want), and graduation/conferral will often take much longer.

[LevelUP]

I seem to be missing something here - how is UMPI faster than WGU? Transfer credits take longer to evaluate, admission and enrollment take longer, there's much more coursework and writing required for the UMPI courses (which OP specifically doesn't want), and graduation/conferral will often take much longer.

I'm not counting evaluation or enrollment time. Graduation is reasonably quick with UMPI.

For WGU, you need to take more Study.com courses, which take longer than Sophia. WGU involves a mix of exams and papers, whereas UMPI requires only one graded paper per course. Exams can slow many people down, and the OP, with their heavy work schedule, may not have much time to study for them.

[origamishuttle]

For WGU, you need to take more Study.com courses, which take longer than Sophia.

I agree that Study.com courses can take longer than Sophia courses, although there are a few factors to consider here. A general concept is optimization for speed. My main goal with Study.com courses is to get 100% on the quizzes as quickly as possible, so I only refer to the course material when necessary. This saves a lot of time, and I still learn enough to perform well on the exam. Another concept is that Sophia courses have tended to add writing requirements over time, so the overall difficulty and speed to completion has become more similar to Study.com courses. Finally, the difference in the number of Study.com courses for the BSITM vs BABA is very small from what I can tell, so this may be mostly a non-issue.

WGU involves a mix of exams and papers, whereas UMPI requires only one graded paper per course. Exams can slow many people down, and the OP, with their heavy work schedule, may not have much time to study for them.

This is definitely a difference in perspective. I can understand if writing is super easy for a student, they could find UMPI to be easier/faster. My experience, and perhaps this is also true for the OP, is that I find it much faster and easier to study for a test, so writing tends to slow me down a lot. However, WGU papers allow unlimited attempts, and only having the possibility of "pass" without a letter grade allows me to worry much less and submit my paper for evaluation sooner. There is also a key element to UMPI courses - they require written responses to the course material that must be evaluated by the instructor before moving on. This alone is more time and effort than any WGU course, where the course material is very often optional.

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I forgot to mention, in addition to UMPI's in-course time gating, there is a limit on how many courses you can have open at the same time at UMPI, so that can slow things down too. There is also a lot of third-party info about WGU courses, such as on reddit, so there's virtually no wasted time. You can potentially pre-write and pre-study for WGU courses before enrolling or while waiting to get the next course unlocked while enrolled, so there's really no wasted time like there is at UMPI.

These are all little things, but they add up. I was able to complete 17 courses at WGU in the same amount of time I completed 10 courses at UMPI. Almost half of the WGU courses were third-party IT certification exams, which take most people much longer to complete, but there were still exams at UMPI too. If I had to write papers for all of my UMPI courses, I'm almost certain that I would have needed an extra session. This is all to say that I see now how it is highly dependent on each individual's skills and abilities, so we all need to choose our own path wisely.