help planning a cs degree for a friend

[noroTrea]

I lurked here and it was super helpful in completing my BA at TESU. Now my friend is wanting to complete his degree. He wants to get a CS/IT degree. I had him apply to TESU and have his credits evaluated. He has 39 credits, mostly some electives and GE stuff, with a LL CS class in his AOS electives. I will ask him for a screenshot of his eval and will update this post.

He has 33 RA credits, most from a CC. He's located in the states and an American degree would be ideal, primarily for financial aid for the courses required to be taken at the university. A foreign degree is also something he would consider for the right price.

He's taking the Google IT Pro cert and has done the Environmental Science and Intro to IT Sophia classes.

He doesn't have any recent experience in CS and needs something super flexible, so I'm not sure that TESU is the right fit. He works a lot of hours at a dead end job with a highly variable schedule. There's no tuition reimbursement, sadly. Some weeks he can put a 20+ hours into his education and some truly none. 

Flexibility is the biggest issue, followed by cost. I know all schools have classes you have to take there. I doubt they exist anymore, but something like the old self paced correspondence programs would be perfect. I'm not sure if it's possible to get the TESU (or other school) class syllabi before the class so he could do the work in advanced, but that might work, too.

Thanks so much for any information or advice!

[rachel83az]

It would definitely be best if he were to create his own account here, because a lot can get lost in the game of telephone.

That said, you can see GE requirements here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...ts_Roadmap and recommended courses here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...ience_Plan

TESU is actually one of the most flexible schools, as far as degrees go. He's not beholden to any particular schedule or set of classes. He does need specific courses (I.E. Calculus I), but TESU doesn't care where those come from. With 33 RA credits, he doesn't have to worry any more about getting RA credit, so he can focus on getting credit from sources like Study.com, Sophia, and StraighterLine. With SDC, Sophia, & SL, there are no specific deadlines except for not wanting to pay another monthly subscription fee if you don't have to. It's about as close as you can get to the old-school correspondance courses in this day and age.

TESU only REQUIRES 6 credits to be taken with them, but you have to pay a residency waiver of $3192 if fewer than 16 credits are taken. The waiver cannot be paid by things like a Pell Grant, but you can use a Pell Grant to offset the cost of one or more flat-rate terms so that the total out-of-pocket cost in TESU fees is less than $3192.

If he wants to get it all over and done with in a single flat-rate term, this is what I usually recommend for CS students:
* Cornerstone
* Capstone
* PLA-100
* CIS-107 ePack
* Software Engineering
* ART-100

You can see a list of other "can't fail" classes here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Th...University Week 1: Complete 90% of the cornerstone, leaving just the weekly discussion posts. Spend 10 hours completing PLA-100. Week 2: Take the CIS-107 exam (which needs little/no study). Finish off Software Engineering (about 20 hours total, give or take). Week 3 onward: Work through ART-100 (not sure if this can be completed ahead of time or not), complete discussion posts in cornerstone & capstone courses. Work on capstone paper. In the weeks where he has no study time, he would need to take 5-10 minutes to answer discussion posts, but TESU is otherwise pretty flexible here. He may need to pay for an extension to the capstone course, and this would be about $300.

[noroTrea]

It would definitely be best if he were to create his own account here, because a lot can get lost in the game of telephone.

That said, you can see GE requirements here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...ts_Roadmap and recommended courses here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...ience_Plan

TESU is actually one of the most flexible schools, as far as degrees go. He's not beholden to any particular schedule or set of classes. He does need specific courses (I.E. Calculus I), but TESU doesn't care where those come from. With 33 RA credits, he doesn't have to worry any more about getting RA credit, so he can focus on getting credit from sources like Study.com, Sophia, and StraighterLine. With SDC, Sophia, & SL, there are no specific deadlines except for not wanting to pay another monthly subscription fee if you don't have to. It's about as close as you can get to the old-school correspondance courses in this day and age.

TESU only REQUIRES 6 credits to be taken with them, but you have to pay a residency waiver of $3192 if fewer than 16 credits are taken. The waiver cannot be paid by things like a Pell Grant, but you can use a Pell Grant to offset the cost of one or more flat-rate terms so that the total out-of-pocket cost in TESU fees is less than $3192.

If he wants to get it all over and done with in a single flat-rate term, this is what I usually recommend for CS students:
* Cornerstone
* Capstone
* PLA-100
* CIS-107 ePack
* Software Engineering
* ART-100

You can see a list of other "can't fail" classes here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Th...University Week 1: Complete 90% of the cornerstone, leaving just the weekly discussion posts. Spend 10 hours completing PLA-100. Week 2: Take the CIS-107 exam (which needs little/no study). Finish off Software Engineering (about 20 hours total, give or take). Week 3 onward: Work through ART-100 (not sure if this can be completed ahead of time or not), complete discussion posts in cornerstone & capstone courses. Work on capstone paper. In the weeks where he has no study time, he would need to take 5-10 minutes to answer discussion posts, but TESU is otherwise pretty flexible here. He may need to pay for an extension to the capstone course, and this would be about $300.

Thank you so much for all the info and help! I'll have him make an account and take over from here. A TESU degree looks super doable. I just did the Capstone and Cornerstone at TESU and paid the residency fee waiver because I was working a ton and just needed the degree done. The flat rate term looks like an awesome option for him.

Thanks again!

[bjcheung77]

Hey OP, which degree did you finish at TESU? Have they decided on CS, IT, or is it a computer science/IT combo? Does it have to be TESU or another institution would work, such as WGU? Can you have your friend complete the template here? With more details, it'll be easier to help the friend by knowing their current situation, the more info, the better! https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

[noroTrea]

Hey OP, which degree did you finish at TESU?  Have they decided on CS, IT, or is it a computer science/IT combo?  Does it have to be TESU or another institution would work, such as WGU?  Can you have your friend complete the template here?  With more details, it'll be easier to help the friend by knowing their current situation, the more info, the better!  https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

I got a biology degree and the 'free' AS in cs. I had around 100 credits and knocked out the rest I needed from Sophia and SDC. I was debating between getting a bio degree or a cs degree, since I work in cybersecurity and am looking for a cybersecurity masters. I did some math and realized that in the time it would take me to finish a cs degree, I could finish a bio degree and be most of the way through a masters.  

My friend isn't entirely sure what he wants to do in tech and is okay with a cs or IT degree. I'll have him register here and make a post with the template. Thanks so much!

[dfrecore]

I agree with rachel83az's single term option as the cheapest one. He'll qualify for FAFSA as well.

Another option for an easy course is MAT-105: Applied Liberal Arts Math. After completing Calculus and Discrete Math, I'm guessing this will be crazy easy (not sure if it's less work than ART-100, but it certainly won't be hard).