IT professional wants to earn bachelors

[dfrecore]

TESU won't tell you how to get a degree with alternative credit. You have to come up with the alternative credits on your own. That's why this forum is so popular. A BSBA (and a few other degrees) can be done for around $3K in TESU fees plus the costs for the various tests and online courses from CLEP, DSST, Saylor, SL, Study.com, etc... ($33 per credit is a good rule of thumb, often much, much less)

TESU fees:
Application fee: $75
Cornerstone course: $300
Capstone TECEP: $114
Residency Waiver: $2000
Graduation Fee: $323

Don't forget that the Capstone TECEP is only available for the BSBA. Everything else will cost $1500 for the actual online course.

[davewill]

Don't forget that the Capstone TECEP is only available for the BSBA. Everything else will cost $1500 for the actual online course.

Yeah, I wasn't very clear on that. I revised the post.

[2Cool4School]

Alright folks. I've received my transfer evaluation from WGU, and it looks like I've earned 49 credits towards my bachelors. While TESU wouldnt accept any of my credit from Katherine Gibbs (now Sanford-Brown institute), WGU has accepted 38 credits for use towards earning a bachelors. Nobody has accepted these Gibbs credits over the years... Nobody.


That's great news. Now for the next step - building a degree plan.


I've embedded a link to my transfer evaluation via my google drive. If I'm interpreting this correctly, I should be able to take a handful of what I would consider standard CompTIA tests (Network +, Sec +, Project +, Linux+ etc) and earn a few more credits via those certs.


For the remaining items (e.g.: business ethics, organizaiton behavior and leadership, etc), where would I go to determine what competency tests would satisify the requirements? This is still a but fuzzy to me. I've been taking certs for years now and I don't doubt that I could knock out the compTIA tests very very quickly. I plan on enrolling and sitting in for a semester or two with WGU, but I would like to minimize the WGU expenses if possible.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzaS_s...nJKc0oyTVU

[bjcheung77]

That's great news. Now for the next step - building a degree plan.

For the remaining items (e.g.: business ethics, organizaiton behavior and leadership, etc), where would I go to determine what competency tests would satisify the requirements? This is still a but fuzzy to me. I've been taking certs for years now and I don't doubt that I could knock out the compTIA tests very very quickly. I plan on enrolling and sitting in for a semester or two with WGU, but I would like to minimize the WGU expenses if possible.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzaS_s...nJKc0oyTVU

The only recommendation I have for you is to take those courses you listed above "remaining items" at least 4 courses from Straighterline.
This is to maximize on their "scholarship" that they have for students transferring to WGU. And for the other courses, you can try Saylor.
They came out with a few more CompSci courses that may fit into the program, get approval first and do not enroll until you've max out on the transfer.
They will not allow you to transfer credits into the program once you have enrolled. Good luck...

Links: WGU Welcomes StraighterLine Students
WGU StraighterLine Scholarship | Western Governors University
Western Governors University & StraighterLine - Degree Savings Partnership | StraighterLine

[jsd]

I specifically knocked out Organizational Behavior by transferring in the course from Study.com. I can't access Google Drive right now so I'm not sure what else you're looking at, but that one transferred in without issue.

Other ways to get Org Behavior:
DSST, Straighterline, Study.com, Propero, Coopersmith, CSU Global CBE

Thankfully my degree plan doesn't have Business Ethics on it. Saylor Business Law and Ethics might satisfy it, so you might want to ask about that. DSST has Business Ethics & Society (due to expire at the end of this month), Study.com has business ethics, as does Straighterline. I'd ask about any of those.

Like you said above, you can knock out a bunch of courses with industry certs, but those can get expensive if you're paying out of pocket. Part of the reason I enrolled was to get those paid for by the school as part of my tuition.

[dfrecore]

I'm not sure why you would want to pay for certs ahead of time to transfer them in, when you could just get them included in the cost of the degree?

[jsd]

I'm not sure why you would want to pay for certs ahead of time to transfer them in, when you could just get them included in the cost of the degree?

Agreed. Unless you can get your employer to pay for them, which certainly isn't unheard of in IT (I'm not so lucky, however).

[2Cool4School]

I want to get as many certs completed now so my plate is lighter once I enroll with WGU. I would like to keep my costs with WGU to a minimum, i.e.: keeping the requirements as low as possible. It makes sense to get these certs now, rather then tackling them while my term-clock burns away.

[dfrecore]

I want to get as many certs completed now so my plate is lighter once I enroll with WGU. I would like to keep my costs with WGU to a minimum, i.e.: keeping the requirements as low as possible. It makes sense to get these certs now, rather then tackling them while my term-clock burns away.

This was just discussed on another thread today. The problem is, the cost of the certs was about $2k, plus study materials if you need them (which is actually more expensive than the cert exams), is more than it costs to go to WGU for an extra term. So, unless you already know the material, it's actually more cost effective to take the certs through WGU.

Just a thought, you get to decide. But you should do a cost comparison before you enroll.