Degree Planning from scratch for late career software engineer

[christinadq]

Now, you've been provided options on the Big 3 and several CBE options, what have you and the hubby decided on?  What appeals to you most?  Review my suggestion, some would shoot it down because it's not the cheapest, or easiest, or fastest, but it's a mix of all 3 and has the ROI/Value...

What may be best is to decide on the degree/school of choice first as mentioned, however; having said that, I would work on credits while deciding on that.  It's hard to plan, harder to decide, but hardest to START getting those credits - what if you keep changing your mind on the degree/school choice later?!

For the moment he wants to aim for the TAMUC program with possibly a backup through UMPI if for some reason that doesn't work out.  He's started on some of the Sophia classes where he has special interest and a lot of knowledge and was able to knock out a few over the weekend.  He started the application process for ONU to do English Comp there.  And he has signed up for the oral tests for two of his languages so that he can have those partially fill the pretty open elective bucket that TAMUC has.  He ordered transcripts to be sent from home and remembered that he took two programming language classes a few years ago at the community college out of boredom, so he ordered those transcripts too to be sent to ONU for applying for the YourWay program for English Comp I and II and also a few extra, sealed official ones to store for whatever comes next.  

I looked at degree planning for both and basically all the hours that will go towards TAMUC will meet the criteria for Pierpont as well.  Using Pierpont as an intermediary for capturing the ACE credits makes sense.  Do you know if you can continue to add credits beyond the 60 needed for the degree after it is conferred if he continues to collect more ACE credits for instance?

[bjcheung77]

I looked at degree planning for both and basically all the hours that will go towards TAMUC will meet the criteria for Pierpont as well.  Using Pierpont as an intermediary for capturing the ACE credits makes sense.  Do you know if you can continue to add credits beyond the 60 needed for the degree after it is conferred if he continues to collect more ACE credits for instance?

Pierpont is a "backup" placeholder for your credits, you should only need it to get all your alternative credit *BEFORE* you transfer to TAMUC or UMPI. The deal here is you will "convert/transfer" your ACE credit so it becomes valid for use towards either school. The final destination is where you truly store your credits, not at Pierpont, so in essence, finish all ACE credit at Pierpont and transfer into either school when you are done!

[rachel83az]

At Pierpont, you have to request graduation manually. It's not automatic. So, you can keep adding credits to it (almost) indefinitely - until you have enough for TAMUC/UMPI. Then you can apply for graduation and receive that diploma before the TAMUC one.

[christinadq]

My husband has completed 18 classes (52 credits) through Sophia since the beginning of June.  Most of them were subjects he had extensive experience in or that he could do relatively quickly due to prior knowledge.  US History was the most problematic, since he had not ever really studied US History in this country or with that depth before, but he liked learning it.  He completed the OPI for his native language and earned 12 credits.  We aren't sure there's really room for more language credits in a different language since he speaks others, but 12 is significant enough and fills that bucket if needed.

At a work meeting in June it was suggested that his team could use knowledge in Data Analytics for some projects coming up, so he was going to do some classes there and then encourage his staff to start some of that coursework as well.  He picked the Google one through Coursera because of the curriculum but also in part because of the reviews here of it, so there should be some ACE credit potentially coming from there as well.  With that certificate and his 8 hours in programming languages plus all the Sophia IT courses he took I suppose he could easily do an AOE at Pierpont of Computer Science or IT, whichever they come through as.

He is on vacation this and last week and is rocking and rolling on the Google Data Analytics coursework in his free time.  Much of it is easy and review of prior knowledge he's picked up elsewhere but he says some of it has been interesting, clarifying or completely new and he can see how it will be useful to his team.   He has moved through the first couple of "weeks" of coursework in the first 4-6 hours of focused academic time, learning what he needs to but skipping stuff that is duplicating prior knowledge.  Some people seem to finish in a week or less, I am not sure that he's going to meet that timeline but it won't be several months for sure.  He has too many things going on all at once to get it done in a week.

So he has 72 hours so far: gened & electives almost all covered from Sophia (52 hours so far), plus 8 hours of classwork from local community college in programming languages plus 12 hours foreign language through ACTFL.  The proctoring process in the ACTFL OPI had some technical difficulties that a few phone calls was able to sort out, but the OPI itself was very straightforward.  

For TAMUC he needs US Government (possible CLEP) and Texas Government, which will have to be fulfilled at the community college here or at TAMUC.

He is signed up for ONU's English Comp and will work on that on the second part of his vacation time soon.

He submitted the application for Pierpont already, knowing that it takes some time to get going.

[bjcheung77]

Woohoo! Great work, after about a month or so and many credits later, hubby is getting closer to that goal! Wow, what a great job he's done so far at finishing those easy credits off before focusing on the remaining requirements. Good luck, have fun continuing with the credit crunching and I look forward to the next update!

[christinadq]

With Pierpont, does it make sense to go ahead and send over all the ACE credits during the admissions process, even if more ACE credits are added later? So send the credly transcript multiple times?

He's having a lot of trouble getting ACTFL to even respond to his requests for help getting the Credly badge for his language test. Several emails have gone ignored. No email automatically came after the test results. They have a transcript option. I am not sure if that would work instead. https://www.languagetesting.com/lti-info...-by-credly

Right now he is eyeing the UMPI MIS instead of the TAMUC program or maybe they are neck and neck for him. He will have to complete a few additional courses with UMPI (like a lab science) but that shouldn't be too hard. I think he's planning to have the gened requirements done for both programs so he has options.

Getting a high school transcript from Europe is proving difficult. I believe I read that a Pierpont/Associate's degree would mean he doesn't need to have a high school transcript to get admitted to UMPI? In that case, he really needs to get that degree conferred in December so he can hopefully start winter or spring there, if that is what he chooses. So that would mean all ACE credits need to be finished up soon to make the Pierpont deadlines I guess? The wiki says deadline for applying for graduation is November, but another group is saying they are behind, so expect it to be earlier.

Does this mean all his ACE credits must run through Pierpont for acceptance at another school like UMPI or TAMUC? Or does UMPI take them on their own as well even without it being run through another school first (and TAMUC as well, assuming they still take Sophia as there was some confusion on that recently)?

[ss20ts]

All schools require transcripts to be sent from the original source. So Sophia credits will need a Credly or Parchment transcript.

[rachel83az]

A couple of schools, and TAMUC might be one, seem to be fine with accepting ACE credit ONLY if is on another school's transcript first. South College is like that. Excelsior is kind of similar in how it is willing to accept FEMA credits only on a transcript from FCC. Thankfully, UMPI is fine with transcripts from Credly. I don't think they take Parchment for Sophia now.

[ss20ts]

A couple of schools, and TAMUC might be one, seem to be fine with accepting ACE credit ONLY if is on another school's transcript first. South College is like that. Excelsior is kind of similar in how it is willing to accept FEMA credits only on a transcript from FCC. Thankfully, UMPI is fine with transcripts from Credly. I don't think they take Parchment for Sophia now.

UMPI DOES accept Parchment transcripts for Sophia. They always have and continue to accept it.

[rachel83az]

UMPI DOES accept Parchment transcripts for Sophia. They always have and continue to accept it.

Really? I thought some student reported a bit ago that they do not accept Sophia on Parchment for some reason. Maybe I'm mistaken.