Advice on what classes to take where

[Mab81]

Hi everyone. I have no prior college credit and I want to get a BA in history from Excelsior.

I have limited time to spend on 'classes' as I work fulltime. Right now I am struggling through the Straighterline English 101... which is quite tedious, not to mention there are (ironically) tons of typos in the material. It seems very low quality... not impressed. If all the straighterline courses are like this one, I would dread signing up for any more!

I am trying to discover what the least time consuming option is, as far as these ACE recommended course websites go. Shmoop looked interesting to me due to the fact that it isn't proctored. But a lot of people on here seem to be saying it's long winded.

I have never taken a CLEP before so I am nervous about that. I saw some people on here saying that you should try courses from these other sites before turning to CLEP.

In theory I would love to be able to enroll at Excelsior and have the degree planner help me decide what courses or CLEPs i should take, but they charge over a thousand dollars for a 'multi source enrollment' plus a yearly fee, so I am going to try to work this out on my own first if I can.

If anyone could chime in and link me to a thread that's something like 'least annoying general education courses' or perhaps a degree plan for the Excelsior BA in history I would be most grateful.

[Zachcleigh]

schmoop has a lot of history courses.

Study.com also has some to offer.

[CM1999]

I put off SL for a long time because other things were cheaper and various other reasons but I just signed up for Cultural Anthropology and World Religions and they're GREAT! I wish I had knocked out a bunch of classes with SL a long time ago. Maybe English is tedious....but I'm not finding that to be the case in these two --content is interesting, quizzes helpful. These two courses are open book, which helps with my exam anxiety, but I just finished the final quiz in the Anth course and I have enough points that I could fail the final and still pass the course----this feels GREAT.

So, I'm going to suggest that you do another Gen Ed course in SL before you make a final determination about it.

I have also used Study.com and it was OK...but if the videos become dreadful just switch off to reading the transcript.

I've never done Schmoop, so no input there.

[CM1999]

by the way...dont pay for someone to plan your degree for you. no need for that.

Have you visited the wiki page? I'm sure someone will post a link for you, it's super helpful.

[Mab81]

by the way...dont pay for someone to plan your degree for you. no need for that.

Have you visited the wiki page? I'm sure someone will post a link for you, it's super helpful.

Thank you, yes, I did find the wiki. But the pages for Excelsior contain a warning that they are outdated and I should come to the forum to seek help.

I don't necessarily need a degree, plan right now, just an idea of what I can use for general education credits. Straighterline at least has the course equivalents right there built into the website. But the other companies don't do that from what I have seen. You have to guess whether they are equivalent or not. Which is an expensive proposition if I get it wrong.

[dfrecore]

Thank you, yes, I did find the wiki. But the pages for Excelsior contain a warning that they are outdated and I should come to the forum to seek help.

I don't necessarily need a degree, plan right now, just an idea of what I can use for general education credits. Straighterline at least has the course equivalents right there built into the website. But the other companies don't do that from what I have seen. You have to guess whether they are equivalent or not. Which is an expensive proposition if I get it wrong.

I have a degree plan for TESU, which has similar requirements for the Gen Ed's.

You just need to know what will fit in the different categories for EC. So, which types of courses are considered humanities, which are social science/history, which are natural science/math, and which are Arts & Sciences. Then, you can figure it out from any course provider.

If I look at EC's BA in Humanities, just to see what they consider Humanities, here's what they list: Philosophy, Ethics, Writing, Communication, Cultural Studies, Fine Arts, Literature. Then, look at the course providers and go from there. We can't list every single course from every single course provider, because there are too many. But once you understand what the categories are, you can figure it out from ANY course provider.

[Mab81]

I have a degree plan for TESU, which has similar requirements for the Gen Ed's.

You just need to know what will fit in the different categories for EC. So, which types of courses are considered humanities, which are social science/history, which are natural science/math, and which are Arts & Sciences. Then, you can figure it out from any course provider.

If I look at EC's BA in Humanities, just to see what they consider Humanities, here's what they list: Philosophy, Ethics, Writing, Communication, Cultural Studies, Fine Arts, Literature. Then, look at the course providers and go from there. We can't list every single course from every single course provider, because there are too many. But once you understand what the categories are, you can figure it out from ANY course provider.

I see! that makes sense! Looking around this forum, I almost feel like perhaps I should consider TESU or COSC just because there seems to be more available information about them. A lot of things on here are geared for TESU. I looked at COSC but their cheezy looking website put me off a little... ha ha... I may call them and see how I feel after talking to an admissions rep.

[jessikalauren]

Once I started with StraighterLine I swear I wished I'd found it sooner. I didn't take English with them but I took most of my math, business and communications classes with them, all very easy to follow.

CLEP & DSST worked very well for me for the following reasons: 1) I am a much better test taker than I am at papers or assignments, and 2) I found InstantCertOnline.com which is basically a flash card program for most CLEP & DSST exams, and since my preferred way of learning is through flash cards this worked swimmingly for me. It costs $20/month but I happily paid this fee for upwards of 6 months, it was more than worth the cost. Plus you only have to pass the exams to get credit, no letter grades attached if you *barely* pass (which I did on most).