Lurked for over a decade (s)?, completed UMPI BLS!!!

[Jwheels27]

Hello everyone,

I have lurked on this board on and off for what seems like decades; at least back to the early 2000's. I've had more starts and stops in interest in completing my degree than I can count. Luckily, it never really harmed me, career or pay-wise, but it was just a missing piece that I wanted.

Then Covid happened. One year ago I lost my job to financial consequences from Covid but was lucky to walk away with a great severance package. I'd just coincidentally started my first Sophia course the day before the job loss, so I used the opportunity to pursue my degree full-time. I only had 6 brick and mortar college credits straight out of high school, so I was practically starting from scratch.

Through this board and Facebook, I learned about Pierpont in August and quickly got the AAS BOG degree there that month. I had gone back and forth between WGU and UMPI for a while but enrolled in UMPI's summer session 2 in August because they had an English degree in Professional Communications & Journalism. That degree path was my ONLY mistake and cost me precious time. I don't recommend UMPI's English degree for anyone trying to finish quickly. I ended up having to extend my time at UMPI by one term, once I switched to the BLS degree. 

But it worked out in the end. I'm done!!! And I'm graduating magna cum laude. I want to thank everyone who posts on this board. There are people out there like me who follow your path, listen to your advice and learn from your trial and error from the shadows. For years and years, lol.

I think I'm going to go on and get my master's degree from WGU after a short break. I've been following posts here and on Facebook about that degree as well.

COMPLETED:
UMPI - BLS, Management 2022
Pierpont - AAS BOG 2021

TRANSFER CREDITS
Adelphi University - 6
Sophia - 65
Straighterline - 1 (Bio lab)
Study - 3
CLEP  - 6
InstantCert - 3

Congrats on both degrees! I too was a lurker for quite awhile, think I originally discovered this board in 2014-15. I'm finally pursuing my bachelors degree through UMPI. So what was so slow about their English program? As of right now I'm pursuing a BABA, why is the BLS so much faster? Just because you can transfer in more electives?

Again congrats on both degrees! And good luck on your masters!

Thank you so much. As for the English program, well, the PCJ (Prof. Comm & Jour.) courses are just terribly structured on the platform with almost no actual instruction at all. No exaggeration, there is no instruction about anything. Literally, the first lesson was "write a newspaper article." No instruction about writing, not even article structure, no lessons, nothing. I was shocked. I thought my platform was missing some lessons or something. I emailed Jessica, thinking something was wrong, but no, this was the course. I literally pulled up classes on Youtube from other Universities because there was nothing there on how to write in this Journalism course. 

So this first class, PCJ 180, we were expected to write four UMPI school newspaper articles, with two interview sources each plus photos, three movie reviews for the paper, two research papers with citations and keep a blog with 9 or more separate writing exercises, some of which are full articles or papers themselves. These papers are all milestones and all of these things are submitted and then will come back to you with critiques and edits (minus the blog posts), which you have to complete and resubmit before you can move on in the competency. It is an astronomical amount of work with no instruction at all for 7 weeks. Then at the end, you are expected to do a paper on your journey, and a PowerPoint presentation with video. There's no way to move quickly through these classes.

My next PCJ course, I think PCJ 215, with the same one and only PCJ instructor, was pretty much the same. A monumental amount of writing with no instruction at all. One of the assignments was to write a business plan. I kid you not, the only instruction as to how to write a business plan was, "here's a template to create your own letterhead." It's so bad that at the end, I said to Jessica, "I can not be the only one," (meaning how flabbergasted I was at this Professor's classes) and I did not even say "the only one" what, before she said, "no, you are definitely not the only one." She said that there was nothing she could do about it though. That's when I decided to switch. I only did 2 classes my entire first term and I was lucky to finish those. I did 7 classes the next term when I switched to the BLS degree.

Yeah I had considered the English or Poli. Sci. degrees initially. Thank you for the heads up! English kind of sounds like a nightmare! 

Again, congrats and good luck!

[ss20ts]

Thank you so much. As for the English program, well, the PCJ (Prof. Comm & Jour.) courses are just terribly structured on the platform with almost no actual instruction at all. No exaggeration, there is no instruction about anything. Literally, the first lesson was "write a newspaper article." No instruction about writing, not even article structure, no lessons, nothing. I was shocked. I thought my platform was missing some lessons or something. I emailed Jessica, thinking something was wrong, but no, this was the course. I literally pulled up classes on Youtube from other Universities because there was nothing there on how to write in this Journalism course. 

So this first class, PCJ 180, we were expected to write four UMPI school newspaper articles, with two interview sources each plus photos, three movie reviews for the paper, two research papers with citations and keep a blog with 9 or more separate writing exercises, some of which are full articles or papers themselves. These papers are all milestones and all of these things are submitted and then will come back to you with critiques and edits (minus the blog posts), which you have to complete and resubmit before you can move on in the competency. It is an astronomical amount of work with no instruction at all for 7 weeks. Then at the end, you are expected to do a paper on your journey, and a PowerPoint presentation with video. There's no way to move quickly through these classes.

My next PCJ course, I think PCJ 215, with the same one and only PCJ instructor, was pretty much the same. A monumental amount of writing with no instruction at all. One of the assignments was to write a business plan. I kid you not, the only instruction as to how to write a business plan was, "here's a template to create your own letterhead." It's so bad that at the end, I said to Jessica, "I can not be the only one," (meaning how flabbergasted I was at this Professor's classes) and I did not even say "the only one" what, before she said, "no, you are definitely not the only one." She said that there was nothing she could do about it though. That's when I decided to switch. I only did 2 classes my entire first term and I was lucky to finish those. I did 7 classes the next term when I switched to the BLS degree.

Holy cow! that is a LOT of work for 1 class. Especially since you only have 7 weeks to submit rough drafts. That seems like more work than you'd have in a semester long course. 2 research papers on top of everything else? That's insane! Wait after all of those assignments then you have to write a paper about writing them AND a PowerPoint with a video? So ridiculous! I'm in grad school and I have less writing in 3 classes combined! This degree sounds like a nightmare. I'm glad you changed degrees and didn't give up!

[DeidreA]

Thank you so much. As for the English program, well, the PCJ (Prof. Comm & Jour.) courses are just terribly structured on the platform with almost no actual instruction at all. No exaggeration, there is no instruction about anything. Literally, the first lesson was "write a newspaper article." No instruction about writing, not even article structure, no lessons, nothing. I was shocked. I thought my platform was missing some lessons or something. I emailed Jessica, thinking something was wrong, but no, this was the course. I literally pulled up classes on Youtube from other Universities because there was nothing there on how to write in this Journalism course. 

So this first class, PCJ 180, we were expected to write four UMPI school newspaper articles, with two interview sources each plus photos, three movie reviews for the paper, two research papers with citations and keep a blog with 9 or more separate writing exercises, some of which are full articles or papers themselves. These papers are all milestones and all of these things are submitted and then will come back to you with critiques and edits (minus the blog posts), which you have to complete and resubmit before you can move on in the competency. It is an astronomical amount of work with no instruction at all for 7 weeks. Then at the end, you are expected to do a paper on your journey, and a PowerPoint presentation with video. There's no way to move quickly through these classes.

My next PCJ course, I think PCJ 215, with the same one and only PCJ instructor, was pretty much the same. A monumental amount of writing with no instruction at all. One of the assignments was to write a business plan. I kid you not, the only instruction as to how to write a business plan was, "here's a template to create your own letterhead." It's so bad that at the end, I said to Jessica, "I can not be the only one," (meaning how flabbergasted I was at this Professor's classes) and I did not even say "the only one" what, before she said, "no, you are definitely not the only one." She said that there was nothing she could do about it though. That's when I decided to switch. I only did 2 classes my entire first term and I was lucky to finish those. I did 7 classes the next term when I switched to the BLS degree.

Holy cow! that is a LOT of work for 1 class. Especially since you only have 7 weeks to submit rough drafts. That seems like more work than you'd have in a semester long course. 2 research papers on top of everything else? That's insane! Wait after all of those assignments then you have to write a paper about writing them AND a PowerPoint with a video? So ridiculous! I'm in grad school and I have less writing in 3 classes combined! This degree sounds like a nightmare. I'm glad you changed degrees and didn't give up!

Yes, it is the most ridiculous course I took. I think this professor gives exactly the same amount of work she'd teach in her classes, except she's actually teaching you something in the class. The entire module is so awful, I amaze myself that I finished it, but I did need a 1-week extension. There were things in the first part of the module, like set up an online blog, with no instruction on where or how to do that. Then you'd finally get past the milestone for that course, the first newspaper article, and the next section of the module would unlock, and in THAT section is where the links to set up a blog platform are. Just don't do it. It's madness.

[ss20ts]

Yes, it is the most ridiculous course I took. I think this professor gives exactly the same amount of work she'd teach in her classes, except she's actually teaching you something in the class. The entire module is so awful, I amaze myself that I finished it, but I did need a 1-week extension. There were things in the first part of the module, like set up an online blog, with no instruction on where or how to do that. Then you'd finally get past the milestone for that course, the first newspaper article, and the next section of the module would unlock, and in THAT section is where the links to set up a blog platform are. Just don't do it. It's madness.

Oh my gosh there's no instructions on how or where to set up a blog? It's one thing if you have blogging experience, but you'd be totally lost if you didn't have any which many people don't. Even those with blogging experience may be on the wrong platform. I'm really happy for you that you didn't give up! I can easily see so many people being frustrated with this and just giving up. I'm seeing that with the struggles some people are having with the current ENG121 professor. APA is not a difficult thing so it doesn't make sense why that class turned into a cluster this semester. There are some classes I've wondered if a professor actually reviewed the coursework or if it was just stamped with a seal of approval by some random person walking by the campus one day.

[Tedium]

Thank you so much. As for the English program, well, the PCJ (Prof. Comm & Jour.) courses are just terribly structured on the platform with almost no actual instruction at all. No exaggeration, there is no instruction about anything. Literally, the first lesson was "write a newspaper article." No instruction about writing, not even article structure, no lessons, nothing. I was shocked. I thought my platform was missing some lessons or something. I emailed Jessica, thinking something was wrong, but no, this was the course. I literally pulled up classes on Youtube from other Universities because there was nothing there on how to write in this Journalism course. 

So this first class, PCJ 180, we were expected to write four UMPI school newspaper articles, with two interview sources each plus photos, three movie reviews for the paper, two research papers with citations and keep a blog with 9 or more separate writing exercises, some of which are full articles or papers themselves. These papers are all milestones and all of these things are submitted and then will come back to you with critiques and edits (minus the blog posts), which you have to complete and resubmit before you can move on in the competency. It is an astronomical amount of work with no instruction at all for 7 weeks. Then at the end, you are expected to do a paper on your journey, and a PowerPoint presentation with video. There's no way to move quickly through these classes.

My next PCJ course, I think PCJ 215, with the same one and only PCJ instructor, was pretty much the same. A monumental amount of writing with no instruction at all. One of the assignments was to write a business plan. I kid you not, the only instruction as to how to write a business plan was, "here's a template to create your own letterhead." It's so bad that at the end, I said to Jessica, "I can not be the only one," (meaning how flabbergasted I was at this Professor's classes) and I did not even say "the only one" what, before she said, "no, you are definitely not the only one." She said that there was nothing she could do about it though. That's when I decided to switch. I only did 2 classes my entire first term and I was lucky to finish those. I did 7 classes the next term when I switched to the BLS degree.

That sounds like a terrible experience! Glad you made it out through a different path. Hope they fix that program, but they probably don’t have a lot of motivation to do so.

[DolceDolce]

Hello everyone,

I have lurked on this board on and off for what seems like decades; at least back to the early 2000's. I've had more starts and stops in interest in completing my degree than I can count. Luckily, it never really harmed me, career or pay-wise, but it was just a missing piece that I wanted.

Then Covid happened. One year ago I lost my job to financial consequences from Covid but was lucky to walk away with a great severance package. I'd just coincidentally started my first Sophia course the day before the job loss, so I used the opportunity to pursue my degree full-time. I only had 6 brick and mortar college credits straight out of high school, so I was practically starting from scratch.

Through this board and Facebook, I learned about Pierpont in August and quickly got the AAS BOG degree there that month. I had gone back and forth between WGU and UMPI for a while but enrolled in UMPI's summer session 2 in August because they had an English degree in Professional Communications & Journalism. That degree path was my ONLY mistake and cost me precious time. I don't recommend UMPI's English degree for anyone trying to finish quickly. I ended up having to extend my time at UMPI by one term, once I switched to the BLS degree. 

But it worked out in the end. I'm done!!! And I'm graduating magna cum laude. I want to thank everyone who posts on this board. There are people out there like me who follow your path, listen to your advice and learn from your trial and error from the shadows. For years and years, lol.

I think I'm going to go on and get my master's degree from WGU after a short break. I've been following posts here and on Facebook about that degree as well.

COMPLETED:
UMPI - BLS, Management 2022
Pierpont - AAS BOG 2021

TRANSFER CREDITS
Adelphi University - 6
Sophia - 65
Straighterline - 1 (Bio lab)
Study - 3
CLEP  - 6
InstantCert - 3

Congrats on both degrees! I too was a lurker for quite awhile, think I originally discovered this board in 2014-15. I'm finally pursuing my bachelors degree through UMPI. So what was so slow about their English program? As of right now I'm pursuing a BABA, why is the BLS so much faster? Just because you can transfer in more electives?

Again congrats on both degrees! And good luck on your masters!

Thank you so much. As for the English program, well, the PCJ (Prof. Comm & Jour.) courses are just terribly structured on the platform with almost no actual instruction at all. No exaggeration, there is no instruction about anything. Literally, the first lesson was "write a newspaper article." No instruction about writing, not even article structure, no lessons, nothing. I was shocked. I thought my platform was missing some lessons or something. I emailed Jessica, thinking something was wrong, but no, this was the course. I literally pulled up classes on Youtube from other Universities because there was nothing there on how to write in this Journalism course. 

So this first class, PCJ 180, we were expected to write four UMPI school newspaper articles, with two interview sources each plus photos, three movie reviews for the paper, two research papers with citations and keep a blog with 9 or more separate writing exercises, some of which are full articles or papers themselves. These papers are all milestones and all of these things are submitted and then will come back to you with critiques and edits (minus the blog posts), which you have to complete and resubmit before you can move on in the competency. It is an astronomical amount of work with no instruction at all for 7 weeks. Then at the end, you are expected to do a paper on your journey, and a PowerPoint presentation with video. There's no way to move quickly through these classes.

My next PCJ course, I think PCJ 215, with the same one and only PCJ instructor, was pretty much the same. A monumental amount of writing with no instruction at all. One of the assignments was to write a business plan. I kid you not, the only instruction as to how to write a business plan was, "here's a template to create your own letterhead." It's so bad that at the end, I said to Jessica, "I can not be the only one," (meaning how flabbergasted I was at this Professor's classes) and I did not even say "the only one" what, before she said, "no, you are definitely not the only one." She said that there was nothing she could do about it though. That's when I decided to switch. I only did 2 classes my entire first term and I was lucky to finish those. I did 7 classes the next term when I switched to the BLS degree.

Yeah I had considered the English or Poli. Sci. degrees initially. Thank you for the heads up! English kind of sounds like a nightmare! 

Again, congrats and good luck!

[Quickd]

Hello everyone,

I have lurked on this board on and off for what seems like decades; at least back to the early 2000's. I've had more starts and stops in interest in completing my degree than I can count. Luckily, it never really harmed me, career or pay-wise, but it was just a missing piece that I wanted.

Then Covid happened. One year ago I lost my job to financial consequences from Covid but was lucky to walk away with a great severance package. I'd just coincidentally started my first Sophia course the day before the job loss, so I used the opportunity to pursue my degree full-time. I only had 6 brick and mortar college credits straight out of high school, so I was practically starting from scratch.

Through this board and Facebook, I learned about Pierpont in August and quickly got the AAS BOG degree there that month. I had gone back and forth between WGU and UMPI for a while but enrolled in UMPI's summer session 2 in August because they had an English degree in Professional Communications & Journalism. That degree path was my ONLY mistake and cost me precious time. I don't recommend UMPI's English degree for anyone trying to finish quickly. I ended up having to extend my time at UMPI by one term, once I switched to the BLS degree. 

But it worked out in the end. I'm done!!! And I'm graduating magna cum laude. I want to thank everyone who posts on this board. There are people out there like me who follow your path, listen to your advice and learn from your trial and error from the shadows. For years and years, lol.

I think I'm going to go on and get my master's degree from WGU after a short break. I've been following posts here and on Facebook about that degree as well.

COMPLETED:
UMPI - BLS, Management 2022
Pierpont - AAS BOG 2021

TRANSFER CREDITS
Adelphi University - 6
Sophia - 65
Straighterline - 1 (Bio lab)
Study - 3
CLEP  - 6
InstantCert - 3

Hey, do you know if it is possible to transfer Sophia credits mid term?

[DolceDolce]

I came on here to ask a question about something else, when I stumbled across this thread!  Wow, sure glad you switched that major!  I had briefly considered it, as I'm a professional writer now, but it looks way intense!

So I have a question DeidreA - or anyone else is welcome to answer it with their experience. Why did you select the Bio Lab from Straighterline?  Any tips on it?  And whoever earned the Magna Cum Laude - congrats.  I can't tell who wrote that, with all the reposting of prior communication in each reply....but congrats!

[bjcheung77]

@DolceDolce, the individual took StraighterLine Lab most likely because it was the only lab course available at the time. Sophia.org Bio Lab or the Chem Lab is the way to go now as it's all done virtually online. If you're going the StraighterLine lab option, the kit alone is going to cost more than a couple months of Sophia.org access. I usually recommend Sophia.org for lower level, Study.com for upper level or courses Sophia.org doesn't have, I took over 30 StraighterLine courses as they are the Granddaddy and only option available back then for online courses...

[joshua27]

Congratulations!!!!