FEMA & FREE College Credit courses

[anar579]

rjc,
Anybody who is currently enrolled could get this confirmed by their advisor and then report back here what they find out.

I for one would certainly like to know for sure. I have 12 (raw) FEMA credits under my belt, but am reluctant to pay anything until I get confirmation from Excelsior that they will accept them from a TESC Credit Bank account. However, I am not currently enrolled and so I cannot speak with an advisor.

Hope that helps,
Snazzlefrag

I sent an e-mail to the Excelsior Business Advisement Team, asking if they accept these credits, whether they'll accept TESC credit bank, and how I could apply this to my BS in General Business degree (as a concentration or second degree). I'll post when I get a response.

[snazzlefrag]

I sent an e-mail to the Excelsior Business Advisement Team, asking if they accept these credits, whether they'll accept TESC credit bank, and how I could apply this to my BS in General Business degree (as a concentration or second degree). I'll post when I get a response.

Thanks Anar,

That would be very helpful!
Snazzlefrag

[RBOWMAN]

Thanks Anar,

That would be very helpful!
Snazzlefrag

Still haven't heard where the course materials come from?

[sirjake]

Still haven't heard where the course materials come from?

The course material is on the site. Fema provides it in PDF and Word format (Word on at least some of them). You can answer all questions on the final exam (that I've seen so far) from the material associated with that particular course.

[anar579]

It also seems you can take the exam online, which is great. You just have all the materials to read and then the answer sheet to take the final exam. No middle man! I wish we could take our other exams this way, hehehe. We'd all score 80's.

[sirjake]

It also seems you can take the exam online, which is great. You just have all the materials to read and then the answer sheet to take the final exam. No middle man! I wish we could take our other exams this way, hehehe. We'd all score 80's.

Yeah... It seems weird to me that colleges can grant college credit for this. I'm not going to try, but I have little doubt that should I want to, I could find ALL of the answers to every exam somewhere online in some forum and thereby get a number of credits with no real study. I'm going through and actually looking up the answers in the actual PDF's, which isn't cheating, but feels almost like it compared to most of the other credits I've gained.

[anar579]

Yeah... It seems weird to me that colleges can grant college credit for this. I'm not going to try, but I have little doubt that should I want to, I could find ALL of the answers to every exam somewhere online in some forum and thereby get a number of credits with no real study. I'm going through and actually looking up the answers in the actual PDF's, which isn't cheating, but feels almost like it compared to most of the other credits I've gained.

Yes, you can use the Find feature/toolbar to look for key words. The only downside is that some courses have several PDF's per course, so you'd have to know which one to look in, or try in each file.

[sirjake]

You know, reading through these, they seem like they could actually be kind of useful to know were I a member of emergency personel, but I really hope like crazy that they have to do more than this to pass these exams. If this is all that our emergency officials need to pass to be certified in a particular area (and I hope it isn't), that's pretty sad. It's no wonder that we have issues responding to disasters. :-P

[anar579]

You know, reading through these, they seem like they could actually be kind of useful to know were I a member of emergency personel, but I really hope like crazy that they have to do more than this to pass these exams. If this is all that our emergency officials need to pass to be certified in a particular area (and I hope it isn't), that's pretty sad. It's no wonder that we have issues responding to disasters. :-P

Believe it or not even the knowledge one might gain from reading through the documents to get the right answer to the final exam could be very helpful. I live in South Florida, and as you all know we get those lovely hurricanes every year. Any business needs risk management for these emergency types of situations. I worked for BCBSFL and we certainly had emergency protocols. Since I'm pursuing a business degree, it would be nice to have an extra little notch under my belt that shows I have this type of background. Even an official certification of some sort wouldn't hurt, ya know.

[snazzlefrag]

Since I'm pursuing a business degree, it would be nice to have an extra little notch under my belt that shows I have this type of background. Even an official certification of some sort wouldn't hurt, ya know.

Anar,

If you take a certain set of the FEMA courses, you receive a nice little "Professional Development" certificate (separate from the certificates you receive for passing each course individually).

Certainly a resume stuffer if you so choose!

Here's the link:
http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/PDS/

All seven courses are available individually...but if you pass the specified ones, you get the extra bonus certificate!

I took 12 courses including the seven that make up the Professional Development Series. So I have 12 individual certificates, plus the PDS certificate (it's bigger and nicer than the individual certs).

Have fun!