Designing a plan for TESU BALS

[Mab81]

Hi there, I have the spreadsheet BJ made for the TESU BALS but I don't want to take a lot of the classes he listed as examples. How do I know what classes or tests I can use to fulfill the requirements?  I know that if I have a specific course in mind from a third party provider, I can contact TESU directly to see if it fulfills the requirements. But what I want to do, is at least narrow it down a bit. For instance, can General Electives be anything at all? How do I know what courses from different providers count as Knowledge of Human Cultures or another category?

I have been on hiatus for about a year but I want to try to finish my degree as fast as I can. Right now I have 35 credits from Straighterline/Aleks and free sources. 

If anyone has advice on which providers are quickest to finish classes (or if tests are actually faster) I would appreciate any input on that also. I found Straighterline was good for open book tests, but the closed book tests were really annoying, as most of the time the questions on the test weren't really about subject knowledge, more about knowing a verbatim sentence from an obscure part of the textbook. So I don't really want to do any more Straighterline courses. I saw someone say that Schmoop is no longer accepted by TESU. I know Study.com is expensive and takes a long time to complete. I am leaning towards maybe just signing up to instantcert and doing CLEP tests, but I still am not sure which subject tests to use for the BALS.

Lastly, thank you everyone for not getting impatient with me as I fumble around. I am dealing with major depressive disorder while also trying to improve my life so I am feeling really overwhelmed but I still want to keep trucking on.

[Johmford]

CLEP and DSST are the best options. Easy to learn with adequate resources.

Start by listing what credits you DO have already and you will get a lot more help.

[Mab81]

Thank you, I mostly just wanted to know how to help myself. I can't seem to figure out how people 'know' what courses count for what categories.

I would love to be able to transfer to WGU for a teaching degree but I am not sure if I can afford it so I am starting out with the BALS and seeing how I progress.

Right now I have:

COM-209/COM-108
ORAL COMM - Intro to Communications - in progress @ straighterline

MAT-121
QUANTITATIVE LITERACY - College Algebra - aleks

REL-277
INFO LITERACY - Intro to Religion - SL

ANT-101
DIVERSITY - Cultural Anthropology - SL

PHI-384
ETHICS - Insurance Ethics

POS-110
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT - American Government - SL

AOJ-102
Criminal Justice - SL

SOC-101
Sociology - SL


ENS-200
Introduction to Environmental Science - SL

HIS-114
US History II - SL

HIS-101
Western Civilizations I - SL

HIS-102
Western Civilizations II - SL

Developing Effective Teams - sophia

Introduction to Statistics - aleks

Ethics and the CPCU Code of Professional Conduct (online course) 
Fire Service Supervision: Self Study 
National Emergency Training Center (NFA)
NNFA-0145
Course
07/10/2017
Self-Study Course for Community Safety Educators 

[davewill]

Mostly we read here a lot so we know what people were able to use. However there are some rules. General Ed courses are any sort of English, math, science, or history course. If it could fit somewhere in the GenEd area, it can also be a GenEd elective. Business and applied science courses are examples of things that are not considered GenEds. TESU is unusual in that they will consider many computer science courses GenEd when other schools don't. The categories of courses for GenEd also tracks closely with the categories of courses that will fit in a Liberal Studies AOS.

Only "Free Electives" can be anything that's worth college credit. That's part of what makes TESU BA degrees so flexible, they have as many as 27cr of free electives, which gives people who took a bunch of applied science courses (like for an AAS or from the military) or just random stuff a place to use them.

[dfrecore]

I personally don't think that Study.com courses are expensive OR time-consuming, and considering how they've kind of overtaken everything else on this forum, I don't think many others think that either.

Testing out is just fine though, so if you have a testing center that's convenient, go for it.

BTW - the DSST exams cost about $85, and if you add a testing center fee, that's going to cost more than a Study.com course (which are basically 2 for $199 in a month). So they are going to be MORE expensive than Study.com

If you want to see what TESU considers Knowledge of Human Cultures, just go to their website and check their Gen Eds section. Look at the categories of courses, rather than the actual courses themselves. You'll see Humanities courses (Art, Music, Theater, English, Lit, Religion, etc.) and SocSci courses (History, Psych, Sociology, PoliSci, etc.).

https://www.tesu.edu/academics/courses/2016-and-after2

[jsd]

Particularly not expensive if you get the free 6month scholarship that doesn’t seem to be all that selective

[dfrecore]

Particularly not expensive if you get the free 6month scholarship that doesn’t seem to be all that selective

I think that is no longer available.

[jsd]

You’re probably right. I see the application form is still up and the original post doesn’t state an expiration date, but i wouldn’t expect it to last forever. And I haven’t been as active around here as I used to be, so I’ve probably missed a lot of things like this.

[davewill]

Particularly not expensive if you get the free 6month scholarship that doesn’t seem to be all that selective

I think that is no longer available.

People were getting it as recently as last month.

[Lewis.Yim]

I haven't verified it, but this thread from a few days ago, seems to indicate that might be the case.
Previous thread link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-Study-com-info?