Excelsior Courses

[soltran]

G’day everyone,

Between work and studying I haven’t had a lot of time of late and as such I haven’t participated in the forum in recent times. I am currently sitting on 105 credits with 3 exams and 1 course required to finish my degree.

From my time at the forum I feel that my approach has been different to most. I have fulfilled my credit requirements based on convenience, relevance and learning rather than on cost, ease or speed. I am not saying that one approach is better than the other just that for me it has been more convenient to complete some Excelsior courses rather than take time off work, travel to a testing center and possibly have to stay over night due to the distance and time involved. Another consideration was my GPA. I am currently working in a temporary position for a Global Enterprise and if I wish to apply for a permanent position I need to maintain a reasonable GPA. They will not shortlist an applicant with a GPA less than 3 and it is unlikely to be hired with a GPA less than 3.5. With this in mind I felt that completing some Excelsior courses fit in with my convenience requirements as well as providing my best chance of maintaining a good GPA.

I have completed four Excelsior courses (If you include the INL course) and am currently enrolled in my final course and to date have been able to maintain a 4.0 GPA. If anyone is interested in the details of the courses let me know.

INL102 – Information Literacy – Pass
ENG101 – English Composition - A
IT390 – Project Management – A
BUS425 – Operations Management – A
BUS495 – Business Strategy – Only just started

Regards

[4dkids]

Your timing is impeccable!! Have you used any of the EC practice exams, what was your cost for these and were they helpful? Thank you

[soltran]

G'day,

With the online courses I have found no need for any of the practice exams. Everything is presented in the course or with the course text. The online quizzes, mid terms and final exams have been 3 hour open book with plenty of time to score well on each. The cost of the courses, including text runs at about $1000 each which I believe is why most don't go this route.

Regards

[4dkids]

Soltran, You have a PM.

[soltran]

G'day

I don't see any PM but I will answer any questions you have if I can.

Regards

[wannabeit]

soltran, I am currently taking the Information Literacy course.

I am also planning to take this course. ( IT390 – Project Management) Are you selling your book?

[fiveninerzero]

I am also taking courses directly from Excelsior, however, my employer is paying the hefty bill! So far I noticed for the upper level courses there is a lot of paper writing involved!

[Matymus]

G'day,

With the online courses I have found no need for any of the practice exams. Everything is presented in the course or with the course text. The online quizzes, mid terms and final exams have been 3 hour open book with plenty of time to score well on each. The cost of the courses, including text runs at about $1000 each which I believe is why most don't go this route.

Regards

The cost of the courses is the only reason I'm hesitant to actually take these classes.

[brownstien]

just sent you a PM request for a copy of the Business Strategy syllabus

[soltran]

G’day,

Sorry for the slow response but my father passed away just after I started this thread which has kept me away from studying and the forum.

soltran, I am currently taking the Information Literacy course.

I am also planning to take this course. ( IT390 – Project Management) Are you selling your book?

My wife is considering the Project Management course so it is unlikely that I will be selling the books. There were two books required, one text book and one for Lab exercises. The Lab book I never opened at all during the course and while the syllabus stated that 10% of your final mark comes from lab exercises, it wasn’t until about week 12 that we were informed that the information was incorrect and no lab exercises were required.

I am also taking courses directly from Excelsior, however, my employer is paying the hefty bill! So far I noticed for the upper level courses there is a lot of paper writing involved!

I found that the courses I have completed weren’t too bad. English required a bit of writing but the other two courses were reasonable. Due to my father passing I have gotten a very slow start on the Strategic Management course and it seems to require quite a commitment to online participation (20% of the final grade). Each week there is a discussion topic to be addressed and a case study to be discussed.

just sent you a PM request for a copy of the Business Strategy syllabus

I will forward you the details this evening. But here is a summary of the requirements:

Chapter Quizzes (weekly) 50 %
On line Participation (1 case study and 1 discussion topic weekly) 20 %
Case Project (1 due at the end of the course) 30 %
Total 100 %

I hope this helps and best of luck

Regards