Confused Brit looking for advice

[davewill]

To my thinking it comes down to time. If you can do the U.S. degree a year faster and that results in you moving on a job faster, then a modest increase in the cost would (hopefully) pay off in increased pay/quality of life improvments a year early.

If you're able to quickly move through the CS coursework at Study.com, then I think you could graduate from TESU with a BACS in under a year.

[BritStudent]

@BritStudent, you're a year younger than me, take a little time - decide what your goals are and plan to reach it is, read through the thread again, and see which options are more suited for you.  What you're trying to do is get into Cyber Security and move to the US... Why? You're going from #2 to #1, is there such a need when UK has a great national university system?  

In this day and age, you're going to be evaluated by immigration to meet certain criteria, nations such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and so on will have slightly different requirements, including here in the US. My suggestion usually is the trifecta of certs, degree, experience, if you're already working in Cybersecurity or a subfield in IT, great, if not, try to get in first...

You want to make sure that field is something you're looking into and want to continue in, not just because you read it online and thought it was a good profession, something good or recommended for one person, may not be for another.  When you're in IT and have a job, experience along with certs and degree, you've got a very strong application already.  

In short, you don't need a specific degree to get into Cybersecurity or IT, even their subfields of data analytics/science, etc.  People nowadays look at the trifecta I mentioned and 'ageism' exists, they'll look at what you bring to the table and length you've been in that field.  Just make sure you've checked all the boxes, dotted your i's and crossed your t's, you'll be fine with the UMPI BABA PM/IS.

Thanks for your reply once again, I've lots of experience in IT and some security oversight, although not strictly what I'd class as Cyber Security roles, fair few certs too with plans to rack up a lot over the next 6 months.

As to why I want to move? Lifestyle reasons basically. I realise it won't be easy due to the lottery as much as anything else, even with a masters - but worth a try. I may have contacts willing to at least sponsor me if I can meet the requirements.

The UMPI BABA PM/IS is definitely still a tempting option due to cost and I think speed?

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To my thinking it comes down to time. If you can do the U.S. degree a year faster and that results in you moving on a job faster, then a modest increase in the cost would (hopefully) pay off in increased pay/quality of life improvments a year early.

If you're able to quickly move through the CS coursework at Study.com, then I think you could graduate from TESU with a BACS in under a year.

Hi Dave, thanks for the reply - yes, that's my thinking on it too re speed and the relatively modest cost - would be enjoyable just for the learning experience, even if it never got me the move I'm hoping for, but it could turn out to be a very beneficial investment in myself.

I'll look into the Study.com courses further, thanks. I'm no coding expert by any means, but I've passed all the courses I've done previously that have had coding elements - oh and I just remembered I did a whole introduction to Java programming course at the OU in the past too.

[dfrecore]

Ok, so I think I'm understanding. If I were advising someone close to me, I would say that the UMPI BABA/MIS degree is not going to get you what you want - it's a business degree, with 6+ classes in MIS-related things. That's certainly not anywhere close to a CompSci or CyberSec degree in any way, shape or form.

So, I think your best bet is a BACS at TESU. Between the courses you already have (RA courses at OpenUniversity) and the ability to get everything else via Sophia and Study.com, you could definitely do this in under a year and for way less than $10k. If you do the FT/FR Term, you could do it for less than $6k, and if you just want to pay the residency waiver, it will be somewhere near $7k (using the cornerstone alternative through Coursera or edX or whatever, I can't remember).

[allvia]

that would be the ideal time for me to get a WES evaluation done I guess and see what I have that is transferable to the various degree programs.

The Open University is already a US RA school, I don't see why you would need to have a WES evaluation

I understand that, but I may also be misunderstanding the process a bit - maybe it's not WES but the individual universities I need to approach to evaluate how they would match the courses I've done to their class requirements?

You would apply to TESU for the BACS (for example) and then send them your transcripts from Open University. The application is $50 for TESU, and once they get your transcripts it takes them a few weeks to evaluate.  Should they question the credits on the OU transcript (I don't think they will, although sometimes you just get a confused TESU advisor), you can politely remind them that OU is a US RA University. For you it is pretty straight forward because you only have credits from one place (if I read the original post correctly); you're just a transfer student from one US RA to another US RA school. Once you have the offical TESU evaluation of where you stand on the BACS we can easily help you fill in the rest - quickest options, and lowest costs to you.

[bjcheung77]

Everyone is going to do things differently, you want to make sure you mix/match your application package to give you a favorable review. Depending on your budget, commitments, timeline, ROI/Value, etc, cost, ease, speed to finish...  Here's how I would play things, since you'll be swayed in so many directions, find your balance/medium and how you want to finish the journey.

My Example: UMPI BABA PM&IS (2 sessions), UMPI MAOL (2 sessions), OfQual Level 7 Diploma Data Science (6 months), ENEB MBA & Masters BI/Big Data (6 months).  Total is about 20-24 months, you should pace yourself with your courses (a comfy pace). Cost would be under $10K...

Option: TESU BACS plus PUG MSIT (or another Bachelors/Masters of your choice such as PUG BSIT/MSIT). Let's just say it also takes about 20-24 months to complete as both examples/options would require 90 credits from Sophia.org at $299/4 months. Cost would most likely exceed 10K

Which of the two choices above do you think would give you the most bang for the buck and also a more favorable evaluation for immigration purposes? You're trying to add points to exceed the requirements and not just hit the basic requirements for immigration, it's similar for employment/education purposes as well...

Most positions you seek employment with will have some requirements, and you have people who have a BA Sociology become IT Managers and other degrees such as BA Comp Sci and they become Financial Advisors for banks.  The degree doesn't determine the end result, it's your entire package you bring to the table that does.

Australia/Canada Immigration: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...#pid360724 and post #19 https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...#pid361018
France Second Passport: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...#pid369077 and Caribbean Second Passport: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...crets-Shhh

[elcastor21]

Apologies for any lack of clarity, my ongoing UK degree is going to take two years to complete (as I'm doing it part time = half speed) and regardless it won't qualify as the same as a 4 year US degree in the eyes of a H1B visa application.

My aim is to get a US degree which would qualify me for IT / Cyber roles, which I've just realised would have to be a degree in that field of study for a valid visa application.

The reason why I didn't think the field of study would matter at first is due to my IT experience and certifications, which would probably qualify me for the roles I'm looking to begin with.

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Maybe you may want to either get a Masters or a UK Level 7 diploma if you fear your UK degree may not get equivalency to a US one, so you have taken 4+ years of study.

[BritStudent]

Been a little while since I posted on this thread, I recently got back my WES evaluation that took two months for some inexplicable reason and I'm not sure it helps me very much.

My grades are as follows:

Code:

(L)     Data, Computing and Information              10.5    Pass
(L)     Networked Living                             10.5    Pass
(L)     Discovering Mathematics                      10.5    Pass
(L)     Microsoft Server Technologies                10.5    Pass
(L)     Technologies in Practice                     10.5    Pass
(L)     Linux: An Introduction                        3.5    Pass

(U)     Object-Oriented Programming with Java        10.5    C
(U)     Communication and Information Technologies   10.5    A
(U)     Cisco Networking I                           10.5    A
(U)     Web Technologies                             10.5    A
(U)     Cyber Security                               10.5    A

Total 108.5 US credits GPA 3.6

My concern is, all the titles are somewhat opaque, I thought WES evaluated the contents of the course to find US equivalents - for example, my math course included algebra, trigonometry, statistics, probability etc which I was hoping would be identified in some way and so could be used to match up with similar courses in the US if required. Similarly, Web Technologies incorporated HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, etc.

There's also a lot of writing essays, presentations and reporting in a lot of those, that I hoped would at least be identified in some of them. I also presume that although evaluated for 10.5 credits, most colleges would just count them as a single 3 credit US course at best?

Ideally I'd still like to get a CS degree, I think that would be most useful for me, maybe something for the future, although I've begun down the path towards the UMPI BABA and completed 5 Sophia courses for my plan with 11 to go. I don't really need any electives, as I've already got them covered with certificates and IT certifications.

Does anyone have any thoughts and experience? Would I be able to make a case for these courses being worth more than a single 3 credit class?

[allvia]

Are these all from Open University (OU) in the UK? If so, I'm not sure why you had them evaluated through WES. As I mentioned above in post #24, OU a RA US school (regardless of being based in the UK, they hold US regional accreditation).

[BritStudent]

Yes they are and I was aware it's US RA accredited, but in my initial chats with UMPI and PUG, when I more than once pointed this out to them, they both said they'd still need it to be evaluated anyway to transfer credits.

[bjcheung77]

Hmm, interesting, that's a little rough on PUG and UMPI side of things... What's done is done, they should have just applied the credits to your evaluation without the need for foreign evaluations. That's what RA institutions are supposed to do with other RA institution credits, it shouldn't matter if you're international or not...