BS Tech Studies Evaluation

[khwaja1924]

As is the case with others, I found this forum through another site. For the past month, I've been devouring the information, contained within, and trying to come up with a plan, for myself, and subsequently for my DD. First, I would like to thank all of you for the wealth of information and insight you have provided, in relation to earning degrees at the Big 3. If not for you, I would have been completely lost and confused. Second, I took the preliminary steps of applying to TESU, submitting my transcripts from my former university and, as suggested by most of you, applied for a BA in Liberal Studies, to start my academic evaluation. However, somewhere along the way, I made a huge mistake and selected a BA in Labor Studies instead of a BA in Liberal Studies (I probably selected the wrong drop-down menu item. Go figure). The net result was that I would have to complete an additional 42 credits, to attain my degree. This didn't sound like fun.

In any case, the notes on the bottom of my Academic Evaluation stated my transfer credits would be best applied to a BS in Technical Studies. I ran the Academic Evaluation UNOFFICIAL program, using this degree, and lo and behold, it stated I only needed an additional 15 credits to attain my degree. So, I concluded this is the degree I would pursue.

I would love to get your feedback on my academic evaluation and how I should try to complete these 15 credits. One item I've noted is the evaluation states I need 15 credits; however, as I count the missing (not started) classes, they amount to 18 credits:
SOS-110 Critical Information Literacy
Ethical Leadership
Civic Engagement 
STA-201 Principles of Stats
MAN-345 Project Mgmt
APS-401 Current Trends and Applications

My primary goal is to attain a degree as quickly as possible and, as a second priority, save money, if possible.

I'm attaching my academic evaluation for your review and feedback. Any help and guidance would be truly appreciated.

  Academic Evaluation BS Tech Studies.pdf (Size: 261.67 KB / Downloads: 39)

[natshar]

Sos-110 and aps 410 must be taken at Tesu so that's easy to plan.

The only alternative source of man-345  is study.com

Stats can be done through study.com, aleks, Sophia, and more. Basically any alternative credit provider that has an "intro to stats" course or test.

For ethical leadership I recommend the free ethics course. But due to tesus changes if that doesn't work. There is a dsst test and also any course from study.com with the word "ethics" in the title should work.

Civic engagement you do need do any sort "into to government" type courses. There are many options for this.

You can do up to 5 exams a month from study.com. I'd recommend just doing all of them through study.com. However, if you feel like you already know stats, government and ethics and are near a test center just do a clep or dsst for those. Stats and ethics are dsst and government is a clep. Cleps are free if you use modern states to prep for the exam. So you might want to consider that for American Gov, especially if you have prior knowledge of the subject.

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I'd recommend signing up for sos-110 through tesu to start in november and then start on the rest of the courses you need right now or while its going on. Then just take the capstone aps401 and you are good to graduate.

If they let you and are feeling ambitious sign up for both sos-110 and aps-401 to start in November. This shouldn't be too hard as three of your courses (stats,  Gov, and ethics) are freshman level courses you could probably finish quickly if you worked at it.

[davewill]

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You can do up to 5 exams a month from study.com. I'd recommend just doing all of them through study.com. However, if you feel like you already know stats, government and ethics and are near a test center just do a clep or dsst for those. Stats and ethics are dsst and government is a clep. Cleps are free if you use modern states to prep for the exam. So you might want to consider that for American Gov, especially if you have prior knowledge of the subject.

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I'd recommend signing up for sos-110 through tesu to start in november and then start on the rest of the courses you need right now or while its going on. Then just take the capstone aps401 and you are good to graduate.

If they let you and are feeling ambitious sign up for both sos-110 and aps-401 to start in November. This shouldn't be too hard as three of your courses (stats,  Gov, and ethics) are freshman level courses you could probably finish quickly if you worked at it.

You're going to want to do a couple of courses from study.com just to get their tuition discount. You'll need to complete them before enrolling in the cornerstone and capstone.

[natshar]

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You can do up to 5 exams a month from study.com. I'd recommend just doing all of them through study.com. However, if you feel like you already know stats, government and ethics and are near a test center just do a clep or dsst for those. Stats and ethics are dsst and government is a clep. Cleps are free if you use modern states to prep for the exam. So you might want to consider that for American Gov, especially if you have prior knowledge of the subject.

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I'd recommend signing up for sos-110 through tesu to start in november and then start on the rest of the courses you need right now or while its going on. Then just take the capstone aps401 and you are good to graduate.

If they let you and are feeling ambitious sign up for both sos-110 and aps-401 to start in November. This shouldn't be too hard as three of your courses (stats,  Gov, and ethics) are freshman level courses you could probably finish quickly if you worked at it.

You're going to want to do a couple of courses from study.com just to get their tuition discount. You'll need to complete them before enrolling in the cornerstone and capstone.

Good point. This would still be possible to do before signing up for the November cap/cornerstone if OP got started asap on two study.com courses.

[shadowgem]

I would also suggest verifying how many courses at SDC need to be taken in order to qualify for the SDC Corporate Partner tuition discount now. One course at SDC used to be enough, but someone recently suggested you may need to take at least two SDC courses now in order to qualify. Also, I think TESU requires a transcript directly from SDC showing you had taken a course there prior to applying the partner tuition discount. So you may want to finish the courses at SDC prior to enrolling into either the SOS-110/APS-401 course.

It looks like both SDC's Statistics and American Government courses are ACE evaluated only until 11/30/19, so if you choose to do your courses at SDC you may want to finish those two sooner rather than later. Or check to see if they are also evaluated by NCCRS. You can take two exams per month for $200. You can purchase up to 3 additional exams in a one month period for $70 each. So as natshar pointed out it would be entirely possible to knock out Stats/Am Gov/Ethics/Project Management in a month for less than $400, if you were highly motivated and had a good amount of time to dedicate to studying in a short period of time. 

Saylor's Project Management course exam is ACE evaluated as UL until 5/30/22, so that may still be another slightly cheaper option to meet the MAN-435 Project Management requirement. The course is self paced and free, but the proctored exam is $25. I haven't heard that TESU is no longer accepting the free ethics course so hopefully that is still an option as well. With all the recent changes it would probably be best to check in advance just to be sure. 

One last recommendation is to have an official evaluation ran for the BS Technical Studies. The what if tool does not always return completely accurate results for this particular degree plan. That may explain in part why it shows you only need 15SH when it clearly shows you need at least 18SH assuming the rest of the evaluation results returned accurately.

[natshar]

Saylor's Project Management course exam is ACE evaluated as UL until 5/30/22, so that may still be another slightly cheaper option to meet the MAN-435 Project Management requirement. The course is self paced and free, but the proctored exam is $25. I haven't heard that TESU is no longer accepting the free ethics course so hopefully that is still an option as well. With all the recent changes it would probably be best to check in advance just to be sure. 

That is a new one! I didn't even know Saylor had that course. I see that is in their ACE database but it is not on the Saylor credit direct page. Saylor can be cheap, but the exams are difficult at least from my experience.

The thing I heard is TESU is no longer accepting ACE unless it is an approved provider, I don't think the ethics course is under the approved providers so thats why I'm wondering if it might not work.

[akr680]

Ethical Aspects of Cybersecurity is evaluated for 2 credits. I think it is better to do SL ethics course.

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Is BS in Technical Studies considered as an Engineering degree?

[davewill]

Good point. This would still be possible to do before signing up for the November cap/cornerstone if OP got started asap on two study.com courses.

Barely. You'd have to finish two courses AND get them to TESU in time to meet the Oct 20th end of registration date (or the Nov 3rd late reg date, but then you'd be giving half the discount back as late fees). Not practical unless they think they could race through two courses in the next week or so.

They SHOULD go ahead and get the capstone approved now since they would seem to qualify. One less hurdle to jump when they ARE ready to register.

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Ethical Aspects of Cybersecurity is evaluated for 2 credits. I think it is better to do SL ethics course.

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Is BS in Technical Studies considered as an Engineering degree?

I wouldn't say that Tech Studies qualifies as an engineering degree, although it might get you into some engineering jobs...of course sometime people without degrees get into some of those jobs.

[shadowgem]

That is a new one! I didn't even know Saylor had that course. I see that is in their ACE database but it is not on the Saylor credit direct page. Saylor can be cheap, but the exams are difficult at least from my experience.

The thing I heard is TESU is no longer accepting ACE unless it is an approved provider, I don't think the ethics course is under the approved providers so thats why I'm wondering if it might not work.

Saylor appears to have released a few new courses in June, but I don't think any of the new courses have made it to the Saylor direct credit page as of yet. Project Management and Operations Management are both ACE evaluated as UL through 5/30/22. Also Psychology is now ACE evaluated as a 3 credit course, instead of only 2 credits. They do have some courses expiring in Nov/Dec 2019. I wonder if they are waiting for the last few courses that expire in November/December to be re-evaluated before updating the direct credit course page. 

Even though their new course offerings don't appear to have been added to the direct credit course page, most of them do appear to have the direct credit exam in the course page, though not all. For example I see that they now offer ACE evaluated courses for English Composition I and Technical Writing. Neither of those courses appear to have a direct credit exam though, so I'm not sure how you could earn credit in either. 

Hopefully they are working with TESU to become an approved provider, because they do offer a nice selection of course options imo. The overall cost of education is literally the one barrier that many can not overcome to earn a degree, and Saylor offers their courses for free, leaving the only expense being the $25 exam fee. This obviously opens doors for many to higher ed that otherwise may not be open. I just wish RPNow was also a proctor option.

I don't think ACE courses in general are no longer being accepted by TESU unless they are on the approved provider list. Given the recent blanket refusal of some ACE course provider credits, such as those earned at Shmoop and Instacert, maybe that is the direction they are heading in. I hope not. I do think acceptance of any ACE/NCCRS evaluated credit may now be less certain then it was previously. As it does appear that TESU may now be independently evaluating each course regardless of ACE/NCCRS recommendations with unfamiliar scrutiny for some reason. In some cases they may no longer follow the UL recommendations of ACE/NCCRS, or in other cases they may not deem the course eligible for credit at all. This new policy certainly will make it much more challenging to ensure a course can be transferred prior to taking it and submitting it for transfer credit to them though. At least for now. 

The OP did express interest in finishing soon, as well as cost effectively. If TESU will accept the Saylor Project Management course, as well as the Institutes free 3 Credit Ethics course then 6 of the needed credits could be earned for $25. The remaining two courses (American Government and Statistics) could be earned at SDC for $200, which would also give the OP the partner tuition discount prior to enrolling for their two TESU only required courses (Information Literacy/Capstone) to save even more on the overall cost of degree completion. Alternatively, they could do all four outside courses at SDC for ~ $400. 

Either way it should only take around 1-2 months to complete those outside course requirements and submit them to TESU. The SDC direct transcript usually arrives to TESU fairly quickly, but it may take TESU some time to process the transcript (typically 25-30 days) making registering for a November course with the partner discount by October 20th less probable. 

I would shoot for a June 2020 graduation date. Provided an official evaluation does not reveal any other needed courses, this seems practical. A March graduation may not be easy given the above reasons. However, shooting for June would allow you to register for the TESU courses that start in December, January, or February and you could easily be eligible for a June graduation. Adding the stress of hurried deadlines in order to register for a course within two weeks or possibly not having access to the tuition discount only to graduate three months sooner, wouldn't be worth it to me personally. However if time is more important than overall cost, than it may be worth it to you to spend more to finish sooner. In that case, I would definitely get the ball rolling on having approval to register for the Capstone course right away.

[allvia]

You need that Project Management to come in as UL for your BS Tech Studies AOS - I would suggest sticking with what we know will come in as UL, and at this time the only known UL Project Management is the one offered through Study.com.  Additionally, to get the Study.com TESU tuition discount it is two or more courses.