I Graduated!/UMPI Degree Plan For Fiancé

[karaloehrer]

I always meant to do an “I did it!” post with my finalized degree plan, costs, and a HUGE thank you to this helpful group as I graduated with my Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration in General Management from Thomas Edison State University last year on 12/11/2020 but I imagine my catalog is outdated. This invaluable resource has truly changed the course of my life and I wouldn’t be where I am today without happening upon this forum. If you have contributed anything to this space, I have probably read it and taken a ridiculous amount of notes from it, so I greatly appreciate everyone here. Anyways, here I am, asking for help again as my fiancé is embarking on his own journey to get his bachelor's degree.

Working backward, ultimately my fiancé is looking to get his secondary/single subject teaching credentials in California. There’s talk, not an official offer, from his alma mater private high school looking to hire him as a chemistry or math teacher (pre-degree and pre-credential) this upcoming Fall 2022 if he runs their baseball program. There isn’t necessarily a rush to finish a degree but I think having his bachelor’s completed or mostly completed could help with salary negotiations and increase his chances as a candidate. We would also like to get him started in the process of getting credentialed so he has more options in the future, potentially a move to the public sector. I got email confirmation that the local teaching credential school will accept a UMPI bachelor’s as I was concerned about the transcript having most credits labeled as “CR” (Credit) and not graded. One day, we would love to go after our Master’s degrees together at Western Governors University. I’m looking into WGU’s Masters of Arts in Teaching in Mathematics Education (Secondary) leading to licensure as a possibility for him but the teaching credential process is a whole other world for me to learn about and we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. I am primarily focused on getting his bachelor’s out of the way.

As for our priorities, it’s the classic battle between time and money when going about this process and this time around, we are looking to save money as we plan on getting married next year. I recently jumped back into researching on this forum and it looks like UMPI is the way to go. So far, I am assuming his best course of action would be pursuing a Bachelor’s of Arts in Liberal Studies in Management as he has completed 90+ lower-level credits from various sources so he’d hopefully only need to do 30 credits at UMPI. Just to hit every box on what you need to know, my fiancé is 25 years old and although he applied for the FAFSA, we are prepared to pay out of pocket.

I attached a Google Sheet link below with a tab of completed credits and another tab with a degree plan I’ll fill in once I find out some more information. If possible, can you let me know if I am heading in the right direction and if I am missing anything?

Also, can we pause UMPI in between terms like Study.com? I can’t seem to find information on this. Let’s say we pay for and complete one term, can we hold off on paying and enrolling into the second term if we wanted to take a few months off? I ask because my fiancé’s baseball coaching job has on and off seasons throughout the year so we would like to plan which terms on UMPI’s academic calendar we would like to participate in.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y9V2MiSfshQPRRTLrWk2eVX5tq0na5aojauGR6nuN2k/edit?usp=sharin

[rachel83az]

Any particular reason for the Management minor instead of Educational Studies? I'd think Educational Studies would fit better if he's going to be a teacher.

I see he's got chemistry (science-with-a-lab) but I don't see a foreign language. Spanish at InstantCert is the easiest way to go about that, unless he's fluent in another language already.

He should probably take Human Biology and Environmental Science at Sophia. Ethics, too. (But take Greek Philosophers first.) He's got a lot of credit already, yes, but I'm not sure how many of the GEC requirements he's actually met. You can check out https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/UM...egree_Plan for a BLS Management plan. Education would be roughly similar, at least for the GEC courses.

[ss20ts]

For someone interested in teaching, I'd recommend the BLS with Educational Studies Minor over the BLS with Management Minor. There isn't a BA in Liberal Studies in Management.

With UMPI, you will need to complete all of your transfer courses prior to applying. Once you're accepted, you need permission from your advisor to transfer classes in from elsewhere. Also you don't want to be working on classes outside of UMPI at the same time. Focus on one source of credit at a time. You can put your studies on hold, but again you will not be able to transfer credit in from elsewhere without permission. You also need to complete a minimum of 30 credits at UMPI. With the BLS, you need to complete 24 UL credits outside of the minor and most of those must be taken at UMPI.

Here's what he needs to complete the GEC (UMPI's general education curriculum):
InstantCert:
Spanish 1

Sophia:
Introduction to Ethics
Art History 1
Introduction to Sociology
Microconomics
Ancient Greek Philosophers

Do not take any English Comp courses on Sophia. If he needs them, his advisor will let him know. They are MUCH easier, shorter, and faster at UMPI than anywhere else. He doesn't need anything from Study.com. Once he's don with the classes listed above, he's ready to apply. He could get these done before January and be ready to start the next semester which begins January 18th. He'll need to apply by January 3rd.

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Any particular reason for the Management minor instead of Educational Studies? I'd think Educational Studies would fit better if he's going to be a teacher.

I see he's got chemistry (science-with-a-lab) but I don't see a foreign language. Spanish at InstantCert is the easiest way to go about that, unless he's fluent in another language already.

He should probably take Human Biology and Environmental Science at Sophia. Ethics, too. (But take Greek Philosophers first.) He's got a lot of credit already, yes, but I'm not sure how many of the GEC requirements he's actually met. You can check out https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/UM...egree_Plan for a BLS Management plan. Education would be roughly similar, at least for the GEC courses.

He doesn't need Environmental Science. The Gen Chem classes will fill that GEC. Human Biology is a good idea. I don't see any health & wellness classes.

[karaloehrer]

The ultimate goal is to be a high school math or science teacher but when he looked at UMPI’s BLS in Educational Studies, the core requirement EDU 357: Children's Literature threw him off as it regards a younger demographic than he’d like to teach. The logic was he’d rather get a degree he can quickly get through in a subject he’s familiar with like the BLS in Management as he currently manages a baseball facility. The school is looking to hire him on the condition he manages their baseball program so it wasn’t too out there to get a degree in management. But you both have a great point, he may need to bite the bullet of taking that class and get the degree that makes the most sense for his ultimate goal.

Spanish was his first language so that’ll help.

So before he applies to UMPI, he needs to work on…

InstantCert:
Spanish 1

Sophia:
Introduction to Ethics
Art History 1
Introduction to Sociology
Microeconomics
Ancient Greek Philosophers
Human Biology

Thank you for all the recommendations and advice, I really appreciate it!

[dfrecore]

In CA, you can get your degree in literally anything without issues. But I agree that the BLS/Education Studies degree would probably be helpful. Of course, what will be more helpful is taking a ton of math and/or science courses if that's what he ultimately wants to do.

Has he considered going to WGU and getting a Secondary Math or Secondary Chem/Bio/Physics/Earth Science degree? Wouldn't that ultimately help him more? I would do that instead, as that will be a much easier process and give him a better chance of getting hired in a public school. If I was hiring a high school chemistry teacher for instance, I'd much rather hire one with a ton of chem courses under their belt than one with a bunch of education/theory courses. The WGU degree is a combo of those.

I would also think that he could take all of his Sophia/Study.com/SL courses now through the end of baseball season, then sign up for a 6mo term at WGU to complete half the program, then stop during baseball season next year, then finish the 2nd 6mo term at that point, with a year of teaching under his belt.

Just a thought. I think that's more useful than a UMPI degree or a master's degree.

[cerich67]

If Spanish is his first language, just do ACTFL testing instead of Instacert Spanish.

[bjcheung77]

Congrats to you and your significant other! OMG, you two are so young! Since he has the energy/time to get this done, I would recommend getting the UMPI BLS Education AND Management Minors, this way it will help with his "management/leadership" role and get him his "education" credits in that field. If he needs to progress further, WGU has several Masters in Education/Teaching programs that may suit him when he gets to that stage... this would be a good Bachelors/Masters combo, he might be interested in what WGU offers too!

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OH, one more thing, in regards to the Spanish 1 credits, he can take the CLEP/ModernStates.org option instead of InstantCertCredit, if he is close to a testing center as I don't recommend using the online version for privacy reasons. If you need/want comfort of completing it at home, then InstantCertCredit or the ACTFL is recommended.

[karaloehrer]

After a lot of soul searching, my fiance is looking to get into tech by completing his bachelor’s and pursuing some industry relevant certifications. (Not only will this check the box, finishing college will also be a personally fulfilling accomplishment for him.) He’s pivoting his educational goals to obtain UMPI’s Bachelor's of Arts in Business Administration, Project Management & Information Systems.

The only update we have is that he completed InstantCert’s Spanish!

With the change in degree, could someone see if we have anything wrong? We have done a lot more research on the Wiki this time around. I read that Study.com doesn’t update their equivalency pages often so there may be some errors.

I attached the updated Google Sheet link below for the BABA PM & IS.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y9V2MiSfshQPRRTLrWk2eVX5tq0na5aojauGR6nuN2k/edit?usp=sharing