BACS Planning. Does this look right?

[zolpgree]

Hey guys, I hope everybody's doing well around here!

Took me a day to put this together making this as cheap and as testable as possible whilst taking advantage of the flat rate tuition fee for a TESU BACS degree.

Can anybody take a look at the spreadsheet and tell me if it looks about right?

Appreciate any help in advance!


Additional personal information:
Your Location: Brazil
Your Age: > 29
What kind of degree do you want?: Computer Science or Mathematics or Data Science
Current Regional Accredited Credits: 0
Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: 0
Any certifications or military experience?:  FAA and aviation related certificates, licenses and ratings.
Any programming experience?: Good amount of hobbyist linux and programming experience, mostly python.
Budget: Flexible. Will consider spending more for easy and fast.
Commitments: Currently work full time and can work on my studies part time or in the evenings/weekends.
Dedicated time to study: 4 hours a day
Timeline: Finishing the courses required for the degree as fast as possible would be ideal.  I would like to finish within 1 year.
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: No

[rachel83az]

There's no reason to take CS 305 at SDC. Take CS 105 instead. Skip the assignment. They're both COS-240 at TESU.

Instead of TEL for your RA credit, I would go with ONU. $50 cheaper per course and you don't have to take two exams for every course. https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Ol...University Also, the RA credit doesn't need to be in the gen eds. Since you're planning on taking Human Biology & Chemistry at Sophia anyway, you don't NEED another science. Feel free to take anything you want instead and it'll be an elective.

Ethics at Sophia has at least one Touchstone now.

You don't need BOTH Algebra and Statistics. You can take them both if you really want, but you only need one.

But, since you're already considering taking so many business courses, perhaps you'd like the dual BSBA CIS/BA CS combo? Check out https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...egree_Plan You could get two degrees for only slightly more than a single degree.

[bjcheung77]

Hi OP. It's a good first plan, I would recommend similar revisions as mentioned. Before I do that though, you really need to follow the template just right above your thread. If you provide us more details and the info in the last post addendum, we can see if a BACS at TESU is for your journey or an alternative may be better, such as WGU's BSCS or something else... Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

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One more thing, each person has so many different variables in their scenario, you may want to go for a competency based degree option like WGU if you have the energy, time to complete your assignments or assessments. But for those who have a set of commitments, it may be better using TESU...

[zolpgree]

Hi OP.  It's a good first plan, I would recommend similar revisions as mentioned.  Before I do that though, you really need to follow the template just right above your thread.  If you provide us more details and the info in the last post addendum, we can see if a BACS at TESU is for your journey or an alternative may be better, such as WGU's BSCS or something else... Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

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One more thing, each person has so many different variables in their scenario, you may want to go for a competency based degree option like WGU if you have the energy, time to complete your assignments or assessments.  But for those who have a set of commitments, it may be better using TESU...

I have modified the original post as per your request. From what I've gathered, WGU does not accept international students, so TESU seems like the best option so far.

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There's no reason to take CS 305 at SDC. Take CS 105 instead. Skip the assignment. They're both COS-240 at TESU.

Instead of TEL for your RA credit, I would go with ONU. $50 cheaper per course and you don't have to take two exams for every course. https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Ol...University Also, the RA credit doesn't need to be in the gen eds. Since you're planning on taking Human Biology & Chemistry at Sophia anyway, you don't NEED another science. Feel free to take anything you want instead and it'll be an elective.

Ethics at Sophia has at least one Touchstone now.

You don't need BOTH Algebra and Statistics. You can take them both if you really want, but you only need one.

But, since you're already considering taking so many business courses, perhaps you'd like the dual BSBA CIS/BA CS combo? Check out https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...egree_Plan You could get two degrees for only slightly more than a single degree.

Thank you for your suggestions! I'm incorporating them into the revised spreadsheet. I have yet to find the courses and pricing options for ONU.

To be frank, I have added alot of electives that I don't care very much for, but simply because they were available through Sophia. Most people seem to like Sophia courses and they seem easy and organized. If SDC CS courses were reasonably similar from a opportunity cost per credit standpoint, then I'd only do CS courses. Also, Sophia is cheaper then 70$ per SDC course but that is a secondary consideration.

I might just do all the required Gen ED courses and then decide what to do with the electives. I thought about a potential Math/CS Double Major, however, it'd be much harder and would take much longer to finish the degree. For now, having prior experience with programming in general, I think I'd be able to complete a BACS faster than anything else.

No interest in business per say, I just picked random courses from sophia that had zero or few touchstones to complete the electives cheaply and fast. I feel that a SDC CS course could take alot longer than these if my sole goal is to gather as much credits as fast as possible in order to fill a BACS portfolio.

I wonder what would be faster as far as choosing electives. Should I do as much CS as possible for the free electives (having a strong prior informal programming background) or doing the cheaper, faster and easier random Sophia Courses that are listed in the spreadsheet in the original post. Thoughts?

[origamishuttle]

I wonder what would be faster as far as choosing electives. Should I do as much CS as possible for the free electives (having a strong prior informal programming background) or doing the cheaper, faster and easier random Sophia Courses that are listed in the spreadsheet in the original post. Thoughts?

I would vote for Sophia. Progress is a big motivator. Given that it's so inexpensive, go for all the courses you can and knock them out quickly. Worst case scenario is that you dislike a course enough to quit, but there's always another course to take. And if you decide to finish a course that you previously quit, you can just ask customer support to reactivate it.

[bjcheung77]

With the limited updated information you have provided us on the first post, I would recommend continuing with the Sophia.org options first.  You may want to provide "more" details as we're not getting your "very personal and confidential" info.  As I mentioned in the template addendum, the more we know, the better we can help.  BTW, I didn't know you were "international" so WGU was an option I was thinking of... You'll get plenty of answers, some you will agree with, and some you wont...

For example, if you're in Canada, some select larger metros will have been granted Business/IT degree access.  If you're X years old and have X years experience, that will give us more info on recommending SNHU if you can blast through their 30 credits or not.  Because you're being a bit secretive, we can only provide what we know at this time... Our time and yours is valuable, it's not our job to help you and waste each persons time asking you for more details, so being cryptic like that will only hurt your chances of getting a better answer.

You may want to review this thread post #3 and #6 of mine.  There is a link to Bottega vs University of the People if your country accepts NA schools and also the inexpensive IT Certs if needed.  Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...er-Science  Last but not least, here's someone who was being more transparent, it opened his options much more by providing more details: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...ent-in-USA

[zolpgree]

Can I replace Business 303 with any 300 CS SDC course for the UL CS elective credit? I've used Business 303 because it was suggested in the sample CS Degree from the wiki page.
Also, is it possible to replace Software Engineering CIS-351 with SDC's Software Engineering 307 ?

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With the limited updated information you have provided us on the first post, I would recommend continuing with the Sophia.org options first.  You may want to provide "more" details as we're not getting your "very personal and confidential" info.  As I mentioned in the template addendum, the more we know, the better we can help.  BTW, I didn't know you were "international" so WGU was an option I was thinking of... You'll get plenty of answers, some you will agree with, and some you wont...

For example, if you're in Canada, some select larger metros will have been granted Business/IT degree access.  If you're X years old and have X years experience, that will give us more info on recommending SNHU if you can blast through their 30 credits or not.  Because you're being a bit secretive, we can only provide what we know at this time... Our time and yours is valuable, it's not our job to help you and waste each persons time asking you for more details, so being cryptic like that will only hurt your chances of getting a better answer.

You may want to review this thread post #3 and #6 of mine.  There is a link to Bottega vs University of the People if your country accepts NA schools and also the inexpensive IT Certs if needed.  Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...er-Science  Last but not least, here's someone who was being more transparent, it opened his options much more by providing more details: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...ent-in-USA

Appreciate your feedback. Intention wasn't necessarely to be secretive but objective instead. Details have been updated.
I'll read up on the link you've provided.
Thanks for helping out!

[dfrecore]

Can I replace Business 303 with any 300 CS SDC course for the UL CS elective credit? I've used Business 303 because it was suggested in the sample CS Degree from the wiki page.
Also, is it possible to replace Software Engineering CIS-351 with SDC's Software Engineering 307 ?

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BUS 303: Management Info Systems (SDC) comes into TESU as CIS-301, and will work for the BACS degree.  Other 300-numbered CS courses either won't come in as UL, won't come in at all, or aren't considered CompSci courses at TESU.  

COMPSCI 307: Software Engineering (SDC) comes into TESU as CIS-251, and is not UL, so it won't work in the UL portion of the degree (although you can use it for LL credit).  But if you're going for speed, I'm not sure this is the best option.

For ONU, it's $50/cr - and the courses are supposed to be excellent.  I've only heard good things from people who have taken them.  So if I were you, and needed 14cr of RA to bring in, I'd do:
ENG 109 - College Writing I (will be same amount of writing as Sophia or SDC)
ENG 200 - College Writing II (will be same amount of writing as Sophia or SDC)
and then 3 of the following
COM 105 - Oral Communication (will prob be same amount of work as Sophia)
SOC 120 - Introduction to Sociology (will prob be same amount of work as Sophia)
MTH 117 - Finite Math (will prob be easy for you)
MTH 120: Intro to Statistics (will prob be easy for you)

I'd also prob not do Calc through SL if you don't have to.  You may as well do it free through Khan Academy, and then take it at SDC while you're taking something else anyway.

[zolpgree]

@dfrecore

I stilll haven't figured out where to find pricing and course information for ONU.

I chose SL's Calculus as I've read somewhere around here that it's better than SDC's course. I'm indifferent tbh.

Thanks for the clarification about the CS UL electives.

[carrythenothing]

I stilll haven't figured out where to find pricing and course information for ONU.

Under "What is the transcript fee?"

https://www.olivet.edu/tuition-free-gene...our-degree