BA Psych TESC Roadmap- Bring on the suggestions!

[YokotaJo]

Hello to my new best friends on Degree Forum!

I have been stalking this board, have a membership to IC and have ordered my College Board CLEP prep book and a few test specific books to get started. No turning back now !

Hi I am living in Japan but am from the good ol USA. I am here with my husband with his job and for the first time in over 20 years I have some time to finally complete my degree. I put in 4 years at a major university but did not quite pull off the final degree. As a result I have a bunch of upper level classes that will not get me anywhere that I want to be. A month ago, I thought that getting a BA Lib Studies was going to be the easiest and fastest way to just get the dang degree. But, after reading and paying attention to the wonderful posts on this site...I realized that a BA in Psych was the way to go. My immediate plan is to get the BA in Psych, get my teaching credential and then a Masters in Education. I am pretty sure that I can get the teaching credential and the Masters at the same time or at least overlap them a bit. I am fine to teach but would ultimately like to get into a position as a guidance counselor or something similar to that. I have been substitute teaching here quite a bit and have had a very good response from the teachers and administration on my skills. Prior to all of this I owned a large training company and have been a speaker at numerous national conferences etc. Teaching some middle schoolers is not too intimidating to me at this point in my life but counseling pulls me more.

That all said..........I am heavy in the psych and the counseling courses for that reason.

I have 99% decided to go with TESC for no reason other than it all seems to fit, they will take all of my 500 level courses as Upper Level Electives & Natural Science. I have already applied and had my official transcripts sent there. I learned more about Excelsior after I did all of that and could be swayed there but really just want to go with the setup that will allow me to complete the degree sooner rather than later.

I originally thought that I would be taking classes on line and the degree was going to take forever and a day. Then I kept reading how ya'all had tested out on this class and that class. I still did not think that I could do it but I simply made a spreadsheet of what I had, what I needed and where I could get the class or CLEP, DSST etc and sure enough, I can test out on all of the courses. But if it is just as easy to take the class then I could do that too. I am on base so I have a testing center right here that I can use 7 days a week from 8 am until 6 pm. I already checked with them and they offer all the tests that I will need to take and more.

I would greatly appreciate any direction on where to get the classes if you know of a better way to go than to prep for a CLEP. I will be sure to prep for all of my psych tests in the same time frame so I can share the info for several tests in one study period. More great info from the board!

Take a look at what I have left. I am so ready to get this going, testing and over with. We are going on a two week trip to Vietnam for Christmas and I am taking my book with me for the flight etc!

LOWER LEVEL
English Comp ...............3 units needed
I have English 100 from my past college experience.

Humanities ....................6 units needed
I did a few hours of studying the Am Lit test after reading how easy it was to pass. I thought I would just jump in and start studying to see how it felt to prep for a CLEP. That might be possible if I could even have some vague idea of what some of the passages are even about. I am a pretty sharp gal but I felt that I was really just guessing. I will go back and study some of the terms and see if I can get more comfortable with it. That all said ............Public Speaking , Elements of Intercultural Com, Digital Photo, Desktop Publishing etc are all sounding much easier to me. Thoughts?
I already have Psych 100 and Speech 103 Oral Communications

Social Science...............................3 units needed
I am thinking Psych 211 Human Growth & Development
I already have Soc 101 Intro to Soc, His 110 American Civilization and Geography 102 Intro to Cultural Geog

UPPER LEVEL

Humanities.......................6 units needed
I am thinking Phil 288 Ethics in America
Comm 210 Public Relations

Social Science ...........................12 units needed
Psyc 230 Intro to Educational Psych
Psyc 331 Intro to Counseling
Soc 210 Marriage & Family
Psyc 211 Lifespan Development
Soc 305 Drug & Alchol Abuse
I already have Geography 370 Conservation of Environmental Quality, Geog 320 Oceans, Geog 576 Geography of Marine Resources

Free Electives .............................12 units needed
Bring it on...... direct me to the easiest, fastest options.
I am thinking:
Counseling 263 Foundations of Counseling
Counseling 32 Counselor Training
CLEP something
CLEP something else
I already have Geog 509 Regional Climatolgy, Geog 575 Rec Land Use Management, Geog 505 Soils, Geog 371 Conservation of Natural Resources

Thanks Thanks Thanks so much for any and all ideas, suggestions, and direction. This is not the last you will be hearing from me!

[Sowak777]

For the free electives, without a doubt, go with FEMA courses. They are FREE and EASY!

Emergency Management Institute - FEMA Independent Study Program

[YokotaJo]

I just spent an hour or so reviewing all the past posts about FEMA and TESC. One question....FEMA can be used for Free Electives for Upper Level classes, right? I had it in my mind that they could only be used for Lower Level.

Thanks for the idea..let me know what you know about FEMA and Upper Leval Free Electives.

[Sowak777]

You can use 27 FREE FEMA credits for your free electives. There is not an upper level and lower level free electives distinction for your degree's credit distribution.
Thomas Edison State College | BA in Psychology Credit Distribution

I just spent an hour or so reviewing all the past posts about FEMA and TESC. One question....FEMA can be used for Free Electives for Upper Level classes, right? I had it in my mind that they could only be used for Lower Level.

Thanks for the idea..let me know what you know about FEMA and Upper Leval Free Electives.

[lwmcc]

Welcome! Just a few months ago I was new to this, too, and now have 15+ tests under my belt - you'll be amazed how quickly it goes once you get into the swing of testing out of classes!

A couple of suggestions:

For English, you could take the CLEP English Comp w/ Essay, and knock out your GenEd English requirement.

For Humanities, instead of American Lit (which takes a good bit of study) you could take the CLEP Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, which takes almost no study - just spend a day or so reviewing literary terms and styles, and review MLA formating for research papers (i.e., parenthetical references, works cited, bibliography, etc.) and you'd be good to go for 6 credits in Humanities.

For Social Science, you probably don't want to take CLEP Psych 211 Human Growth & Development if you're putting DSST Psych 211 Lifespan Development in your major, because they're considered duplicates and TESC will only give you credit for one of them. Instead, you might want to consider DSST Anthropology - Anthro makes a nice complement to Psych and Soc. Alternatively, there are lots of CLEPs and DSSTs in the Social Sciences to choose from.

For Experimental Psych, you could choose either the ECE or the TECEP Research Methods in Experimental Psych. If you don't already have Statistics, you could go with ALEKS Intro to Statistics. You likely already know that there's a CLEP for Educational Psych, and then all of the other required Psych electives can be done via TECEPs and/or ECE's.

Welcome again - this is a wonderful, invigorating adventure we're all on, each of us chasing our coveted 'piece of paper' in a non-traditional, 'get it done the fastest & smartest', 21st century kind of way!

- Lia