UMPI Degree Plan BABA – Management & Leadership w/ 2 minors

[DJNikonn]

I’ve been reading through this forum for a few weeks now, and it’s helped me piece together the plan that I have so far.  Everyone here seems incredibly helpful, so thank you for all of the help you provide with your posts.
 
I’ve got my details here, thank you in advance!
 
Your Location: Philadelphia, PA
Your Age: 38
What kind of degree do you want?: Business degree with a potential minor in education – I’m a manager of training and development department in a healthcare company.
Current Regional Accredited Credits: None
Budget: $15k  
Commitments: Work FT job during the week. 
Dedicated time to study: I’m usually free to do school related things for about 4-5hrs a day after work and maybe 12 hours on the weekend.  I do want to save some weekend time for relaxing and not working.
Timeline: Finishing the courses required for the degree as fast as possible would be ideal.  I would like to finish within a year.
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: Yes, my workplace will give me $3k per year, and of the two schools I’ve considered has an agreement with WGU for a 5% discount, but nothing with UMPI.
Any certifications or military experience? No military experience.
I was a volunteer EMT with my local fire department, but I stopped 2 years ago.  I was certified through NREMT.
I’ve got a few certifications from the Association for Talent Development for Instructional Design, Change Management, and Master Trainer.
 
I’ve been looking at WGU and UMPI as the idea of a competency based program seems appealing to me.  I’m most interested in UMPI because:
1 – I don’t enjoy taking proctored tests and my office setup where my desktop (not a laptop) could be problematic with WGU.  I’ve got multiple monitors and my work laptop on the desktop.  I could be wrong though.
2 – I have to give presentations and write a fair amount in my day job, so this part of UMPI does not intimidate me.
3 – Most of my peers have master’s degrees and I’d like to make attending a graduate program easier by having a real GPA, which UMPI would be able to provide.
 
The degree program I’m most interested in with UMPI is the BABA Management and Leadership as I do manage people and I’m also responsible for providing some leadership training.  I think I’ve also read that there are 3 courses in this degree program that can transfer into the MAOL if I enroll in that program with UMPI.
I was thinking of adding two minors in Project Management and Educational Studies.  Project Management because my team is responsible for running many projects and Educational Studies since it seemed applicable to my role within training and development.  I also thought these would be ideal ways to complete elective credits.  Is this a viable plan?

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Here's my plan (130 credits total):

GEC Required Courses (40 credits)
English Composition I
English Composition II
Sophia: Workplace Communication – Complete
Sophia: Introduction to Ethics – Complete
UMPI: Creative expression
Sophia: Art History I
Sophia: Introduction to Statistics
Sophia: Human Biology
Sophia: Human Biology Lab
Sophia: Environmental Science or Introduction to Chemistry
UMPI: Information literacy
Sophia: Introduction to Sociology: Embracing Diversity and Collaboration – Complete
Sophia: US History I
Sophia: Spanish I (I’ve taken hundreds of lessons in Italian, if anyone know of a way to get credit or take an Italian course that would be easier for me I’d be all ears.)
Sophia: US Government
 
Not sure what the best plan is for the English Comp courses are.  I think I’ve seen mixed messages on them, so I’m not sure if I should do Sophia, SDC, or UMPI.  I’d prefer to have as few courses in UMPI as possible since study.com and Sophia are cheaper.
Also not sure which course to take for UMPI’s GEC 3D Environmental Science or Intro to Chemistry.  I was thinking Environmental Science, but not 100% sure yet.
 
Business Administration Major (36 credits)
Sophia: Workplace Communication (duplicate from GEC) – Complete
Sophia: Introduction to Business – Complete
Sophia: Financial Accounting – Complete
Study.com: Accounting 301: Applied Managerial Accounting
Study.com: Business 303: Management Information Systems
Sophia: Micro Economics – Complete
Sophia: Macro Economics – Complete
UMPI: BUS 200: Intermediate Business Computing
UMPI: BUS 325: Financial Management
UMPI: BUS 353: Legal & Ethical Environment of Business
UMPI: BUS 440: Business Analytics
UMPI: BUS 469: Strategic Professional Communication
 
Management & Leadership Concentration (21 credits)
Study.com Business 304: Leading Organizational Change
Study.com Business 302: Foundations of Leadership
Study.com Business 306: Strategic Human Resources Management
Study.com Business 309: Digital Marketing & Advertising
Study.com Bus 307 Organizational Behavior
UMPI: Operations Management
UMPI: Business Policy & Strategy
 
Project Management Minor Core Requirements (12 credits)
UMPI: BUS 141: Introduction to Project Management with Microsoft Projects
UMPI: BUS 240: Change Management (duplicate from the Management & Leadership degree)
UMPI: BUS 343: Project Risk and Cost Management
UMPI: BUS 400: Project Management Applications
UMPI: BUS 401: Advanced Project Management Applications II
UMPI: BUS 415: Operations Management (duplicate from the Management & Leadership degree)
 
Educational Minor Core Requirements (21 credits)
UMPI: EDU 152: Introduction to Education
UMPI: EDU 153: Foundations of Education
UMPI: EDU 210: Introduction to Pedagogy
UMPI: EDU 387: Teaching Student with Special Needs
UMPI: EDU 302: Teaching & Learning in a professional Based System
UMPI: UMPI: EDU 305: Designing and Maintaining Effective Learning Environments
UMPI: EDU 357: Childrens Literature
 
I’m looking for feedback on these items:
1.   Is it likely I’ll get any credit for the certifications I have?
2.   Does my plan to fill my electives with 2 minors make sense?
3.   If I want to take English Comp I & II before UMPI, where are the best places to take them?
4.   Anyone know of an easy program I can use to get credit for the Italian I know?  If not I’ll just bite the bullet and take Spanish with Sophia.
5.   Any suggestions on GEC 3D’s requirement of either Environmental Science or Intro to Chemistry?
6.   Anyone know of alternate credit sources for the Educational Minor classes?
 
Thanks again!

[rachel83az]

Based on what you've said about your setup and needs, I agree that UMPI is probably going to be a better fit for you than WGU. The proctoring can be an issue at the best of times. Some students never have problems, but a lot of them do. If UMPI fits your needs well enough, I'd just go with them.

For English Comp, I'd go with UMPI. While it's good to want to do fewer classes at UMPI for budget reasons, these are classes that will get you used to UMPI's expectations in regards to papers. Doing them at UMPI instead of elsewhere will likely speed up your path through the remaining courses.

1. I don't think you'll get any credit for the certifications you have. You might if you did a PLA, but PLAs are more time/effort than just taking a YourPace class. You need a much more substantial portfolio than just doing a few milestones and a project/paper to complete the same classes at UMPI.
2. I think so. Other students have done similar things.
3. If you do want to take them outside of UMPI, I'd go with SDC. They have faster and more consistent grading than Sophia does.
4. Can you dedicate a day to going somewhere and taking the Italian CLEP exam? It'd be free through ModernStates.org. I would NOT take it at home because their proctoring is similar to WGU's. Possibly problematic. You could also contact ACTFL/LTI and ask when their exams will be ACE-recommended again. If it's in the next couple of weeks, I'd just pay for an Italian ACTFL exam. https://www.actfl.org/about-actfl/contact-us
5. Environmental Science will be faster/easier than Intro to Chemistry unless you have a burning passion for Chemistry.
6. Unfortunately, there are no known places to get the EDU classes outside of UMPI itself.

[bjcheung77]

@DJNikonn, Welcome to the board, that's a great template/addendum of information. At the end of the day, it all depends on your energy, money, time commitment, and your overall scenario as the degree is a BABA with a concentration, it's still a Business Administration degree. If you have all that energy, money, time, etc, you may want to consider completing it as you listed. Having said that, you may also want to do the BABA concentration and just one minor, such as BABA M&L plus ed minor or if you switch things around, the BABA PM plus ed minor. It's really up to you and your various variables at play...

[dfrecore]

Have you looked at the courses for the Educational Studies Minor/Concentration? Because they are very much geared towards teachers, rather than training. I think it would be a waste of your time to take these. I also think they take a LOT longer than the Management courses, so would add at least 1 term if not 2 to your degree plan. Again, waste of time.

Instead, concentrate on finishing the GEC + up to 90cr at Sophia, and then starting at UMPI ASAP.

[DJNikonn]

Thanks for the responses!

For the Italian, it doesn't seem like CLEP offers that language.  The most I could find was a 12 week program from modernstates.org.  Spanish is sounding more and more appealing as I keep looking.

I was considering doing only one extra concentration.  But, I think I'm going to need 2 terms, and if I finish everything early in the term (which I'm hoping to do) I thought it'd  make sense to slap on another one with the time I had left.

I did look at the courses and the majority, 4 or 5 of the 7, would relate back to my role.  There's lots of crossover in the learning and teaching worlds from what I've seen. @dfrecore - you said the Education courses take longer, any idea how long?  I didn't see anyone speaking to that here.

-I'm going to try and get some of my certifications looked at for credit.  For example the EMT certification took 6 months of classes with courses on biology, pharmacy drugs, etc. that I had to pass.  And then I had to have 20hours of ambulance time before I could even sit for the official exam for the cert.  I feel like I should be able to get something out of that.  I searched this thread mid reply here and saw someone get a few credits over at TESU for Anatomy, Biology, and a few others. (https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...stered-EMT).  So, I think it's definitely worth trying for me with UMPI.

Maybe one more question - if I do transfer in more than 90 credits, they can just essentially ignored, right?  I'm planning on starting in October, and I may just take a bunch of extra Sophia courses, but I don't want something like 100 credits to invalidate me being able to transfer anything in.

This forum is awesome, thanks again!

[rachel83az]

You're right about the Italian, oops. I keep forgetting that CLEP is only for French, Spanish and German. I keep thinking that Italian is in there somewhere. Sigh.

If you transfer in more than 90 credits, the excess will be ignored by UMPI but will still be on your transcript. So long as you take the 30 required credits at UMPI, and make sure they hit the correct area(s), you're golden. Don't take too many UL credits, for instance. But if you want to transfer in 60 credits of underwater basket weaving, more power to you.