Liberal Arts BA degree plan help. test heavy. big 3

[tecumseh13]

Hi all! I'm newly registered here but have been reading and researching for a while and love this site!
I am having a bit of a hard time sorting out my approach to a degree tho so just a bit of help would be much appreciated. I'm looking to get a degree mostly for personal and not professional reasons. I work as a Director of Construction and am pretty qualified in my field. I'm not looking for anything really beyond a classic Liberal Arts degree with possible concentration in Humanities- most likely through one of the Big 3. I love testing so CLEP is great for me. I'm also signed up for Sophia and working my way through Art History as my first course. 
I'll list what I have below but have a few questions outside of that. 
GRE subject exams- Literature in English- does anyone still grant credit for this?
PLA specifically portfolio- Is it work it to go this route at all? I have lots of project management experience and have also spent several years teaching construction in an AmeriCorps program. Would any of this translate well into portfolios? 
Studio art- I've been a practicing, although amateur, artist for over 20 years and have studied history and theory extensively. Testing credits seem very limited. Again , can PLA and portfolios address this at all?
First post so if i'm doing this wrong please correct me.
TIA

Texas
41 years old
BA Liberal Arts
current credits- 24
CLEP; Humanities(63) Soc. Sci. & Hist.(70) Eng.Lit.(63) Am.Lit.(60) Int.Soc.(60)Analyze&Int.Lit.(80)Princ.of MGMT(68)West.Civ.II(61)
 active Sophia courses- Art History1, Visual Communications.

[ss20ts]

GRE subject exams aren't worth anything today. I can't think of any school that still gives credit for them which is a shame.

PLA's vary by school, but usually they involve a great deal of writing. You still pay by the credit at many schools. Quite often they're far more time consuming than taking a course on Study.com.

Do you have a specific school picked out yet?

[bjcheung77]

Hey! Nice alias! Anyways... 1) GRE exams are no longer accepted for credit at the Big 3. If you know a language other than English, you can try ACTFL instead for the best bang for the buck transfer of credits. 2) Portfolio is only recommended for AOS or hard to find courses for transfer, generally for those Majors that require courses that have courses that are elusive for transfer credit. 3) Do you have certs? How about tuition assistance or reimbursement from work? 4) Are you looking to get an Associates and ladder up or just straight up do a Bachelors?

I would want to sway you into a different direction, you may want to continue with a Big 3, or, from the looks of things, UMPI might be another option for you. I highly recommend doing a BA in Business Admin, but if a Bachelors in Liberal Arts or Studies is the way you want it, the steps are similar. Take roughly 90 ACE/CLEP credits of your choice and transfer them to any of the Big 3 and UMPI or another CBE (Competency Based Education) provider. You should have a degree plan handy, create something like this: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...-for-3-222

[tecumseh13]

GRE subject exams aren't worth anything today. I can't think of any school that still gives credit for them which is a shame.

PLA's vary by school, but usually they involve a great deal of writing. You still pay by the credit at many schools. Quite often they're far more time consuming than taking a course on Study.com.

Do you have a specific school picked out yet?

That is a shame about GRE.
Paying by credit really doesn't seem worth it at all so thanks very much for that info!
and finally- nope- no school selected- really doesn't matter to me other than charter oak has a much better name imho haha

---

Hey! Nice alias! Anyways... 1) GRE exams are no longer accepted for credit at the Big 3.  If you know a language other than English, you can try ACTFL instead for the best bang for the buck transfer of credits.  2) Portfolio is only recommended for AOS or hard to find courses for transfer, generally for those Majors that require courses that have courses that are elusive for transfer credit.  3) Do you have certs? How about tuition assistance or reimbursement from work?  4) Are you looking to get an Associates and ladder up or just straight up do a Bachelors?

I would want to sway you into a different direction, you may want to continue with a Big 3, or, from the looks of things, UMPI might be another option for you.  I highly recommend doing a BA in Business Admin, but if a Bachelors in Liberal Arts or Studies is the way you want it, the steps are similar.  Take roughly 90 ACE/CLEP credits of your choice and transfer them to any of the Big 3 and UMPI or another CBE (Competency Based Education) provider.  You should have a degree plan handy, create something like this:  https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...-for-3-222

Thanks!
I really hate business and management courses so they really seem like work whereas studying arts, history, philosophy, etc etc is a true joy to me so that's why I lean towards that.
As far as an associates and laddering up -is there any benefit to that? Again I'm not really doing this for career advancement or anything so the most economical path suits me best- especially where I can apply the independent studies I'll already be doing.
Be well and thanks in advance

[rachel83az]

In order to get a degree at COSC or TESU, you need to bring in at least 24 RA credits. If you like exams, TECEPs and/or UExcels are a good way to do this. EC doesn't have any such requirement.

EC and COSC both require 30 UL credits while TESU only requires about half that.

TESU has an expensive residency waiver that must be paid if you don't take at least 16 credits with them. TECEPs don't count towards this.

UMPI is good but you should be aware that a lot of their classes have papers as a final assessment and not exams. If you prefer exams over papers, one of the big 3 would be the way to go.

Since you asked about the English GRE exam and you have several English CLEP exams already, perhaps you would like an English degree from UMPI or TESU. TESU would be https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...ts_Roadmap while UMPI would entail taking most of Sophia + Spanish at InstantCert and Biology I at Study.com

[tecumseh13]

In order to get a degree at COSC or TESU, you need to bring in at least 24 RA credits. If you like exams, TECEPs and/or UExcels are a good way to do this. EC doesn't have any such requirement.

EC and COSC both require 30 UL credits while TESU only requires about half that.

TESU has an expensive residency waiver that must be paid if you don't take at least 16 credits with them. TECEPs don't count towards this.

UMPI is good but you should be aware that a lot of their classes have papers as a final assessment and not exams. If you prefer exams over papers, one of the big 3 would be the way to go.

Since you asked about the English GRE exam and you have several English CLEP exams already, perhaps you would like an English degree from UMPI or TESU. TESU would be https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...ts_Roadmap while UMPI would entail taking most of Sophia + Spanish at InstantCert and Biology I at Study.com

Fantastic! Thanks so much! I will look into this approach for sure!
!

[ss20ts]

Did I see somewhere you were interested in history? UMPI has a BA in History/Poli Sci.

[dfrecore]

I would suggest UMPI - you can either do a BLS w/Project Management concentration, or a BA in History (or both I guess).

Honestly, doing as many CLEP exams as possible, and then Sophia, is a cheap and easy way to go; CLEP can be free if you use Modern States, and then Sophia is $79/mo. This will work no matter which school you choose by the way - UMPI or any of the Big 3.

If you don't have any RA credits (or at least, don't have 24cr of RA), then I suggest EC. If you have 24cr of RA, then it opens up COSC and TESU. The main issue with COSC is then going to be a concentration; you have to choose 2, and there's no great way to get your UL Humanities courses (there are a couple through Study.com but that's it). So I'm going to say EC is a better choice here, then TESU.

But really, UMPI is the best option for what you specifically requested - and I'm guessing that you may be able to do the History degree and add a PM minor/concentration if you want. But if not, it really is a great option to just take the courses you want, and then do the BLS w/PM minor, and fill up the degree with tons of humanities courses that you enjoy (via Sophia) and maybe take courses you enjoy through UMPI for the rest.

[tecumseh13]

I would suggest UMPI - you can either do a BLS w/Project Management concentration, or a BA in History (or both I guess).

Honestly, doing as many CLEP exams as possible, and then Sophia, is a cheap and easy way to go; CLEP can be free if you use Modern States, and then Sophia is $79/mo.  This will work no matter which school you choose by the way - UMPI or any of the Big 3.

If you don't have any RA credits (or at least, don't have 24cr of RA), then I suggest EC.  If you have 24cr of RA, then it opens up COSC and TESU.  The main issue with COSC is then going to be a concentration; you have to choose 2, and there's no great way to get your UL Humanities courses (there are a couple through Study.com but that's it).  So I'm going to say EC is a better choice here, then TESU.

But really, UMPI is the best option for what you specifically requested - and I'm guessing that you may be able to do the History degree and add a PM minor/concentration if you want.  But if not, it really is a great option to just take the courses you want, and then do the BLS w/PM minor, and fill up the degree with tons of humanities courses that you enjoy (via Sophia) and maybe take courses you enjoy through UMPI for the rest.

Very Helpful! Thanks so much- I think that narrows it down quite a bit for me. Much appreciated!

[bjcheung77]

Thanks!
I really hate business and management courses so they really seem like work whereas studying arts, history, philosophy, etc etc is a true joy to me so that's why I lean towards that.
As far as an associates and laddering up -is there any benefit to that? Again I'm not really doing this for career advancement or anything so the most economical path suits me best- especially where I can apply the independent studies I'll already be doing.
Be well and thanks in advance

I see, I see, if that's the case, I would select one of the YourPace BA with major. They do have a few, I'm not sure if a BLS with a minor would work for you as all of them are "business/management" related except for the "Education Minor". Furthermore, a BLS is a terminal degree at UMPI, meaning at this time, they will not allow you to take a second Bachelors from them if you ever wanted a second bachelors in the future. Here are the list of options on their webpage: https://online.umpi.edu/programs/

If you're a test taker and good with taking tests, then take more of the CLEP/Modern States courses as long as your area within the state has good test centers, I wouldn't recommend their online @home testing as the software/system platform may have issues. If you like self study and non-proctored testing, then Sophia.org has the best option as they use biometric enhanced proctoring, no webcams required, only $79/month all you can cram, two course at a time... I would take a mix of both as each provider will have duplicating courses for credit.