Liberal Arts TESU Degree just some questions (Complete newbie)

[Seiph1358]

Hello All
I have a few questions that I hope you all could help me answer

I am going to pursue a Liberal Arts degree from TESU(for now will go for a more notable degree in the future, would like to just have something under my belt).

I will be doing a complete test out, save for the Capstone, which is where my first question lies: Since I will be doing the test out save for having to do a Capstone course will I have to sign up for the Per Credit tuition plan? and if so will it be the Per credit $499 plus the price of the capstone course? also can I complete the capstone course early or do I have to go through the whole 3 months? One more thing is it possible to get a rough estimate about how much I will be looking to pay by the end of it all?

Also is it possible to complete everything within a 6-8 month time frame? I recently came in to a month of down time which I will be solely dedicating to knocking out as many tests as I can.

For my free Electives I am planning on taking some TEEX and NFA courses, is it possible for some one to give me a list of courses that TESU will accept? or is it pretty much anything ACE accepts on the transcript? I would like to reduce the number of Saylor tests I have marked down on my road map for my free electives

I really apologize for all the questions, I just want to hit the ground running

Also, one last thing, Can someone take a look at my degree plan and tell me if it needs any adjustments? any and all input here would be very much appreciated ( it is in a Excel 2010 file)

  Less than 1 minute ago">TESU degree path Reservation in progress.xlsx (Size: 12.86 KB / Downloads: 2)

Thank you all I really appreciate it

[bjcheung77]

Since you're familiar with ALEKS, you might want to consider doing 2 more courses from them (Precalculus and Statistics).
I was just thinking, are you close to a CLEP or DSST center for testing? If so, that looks like a workable option...
Otherwise, you can swap them out with Saylor, Straighterline, Study.com
I also noticed 6 TECEPS, are you on an older calendar year?

I haven't cross referenced it yet, but you can find the details on the TESU website for exams.
CLEP - College-Level Exam Program
DSST (formerly DANTES)
Thomas Edison State University | All TECEPÂ Tests
Thomas Edison State University | General Education - 2016 or After

[dfrecore]

I have noticed on this thread lately that the people who do the most courses in a single month are people who do Straighterline. I haven't done that, so I'm not a good person to ask, I just think most people can complete a bunch of courses for less that way (average, with fees of a CLEP/DSST is $100, while if you can knock out more than 4 SL courses, the average cost can go well below $80). It used to be CLEP/DSST years ago, but now it's definitely SL.

Of course if you're military, and CLEP/DSST exams are free, then by all means go for it.

As for the per credit option, you enroll that way and it's free. THEN, if you take a course at TESU, the cost is $499/credit (so $1500 for the capstone course). Otherwise, you don't pay for any other credits.

Capstone cannot be completed early as far as I can tell. Takes the full 3 months.

For pricing, average $100 per course for testing, and $1500 for the capstone, $2000 for the residency waiver fee and $300 for graduation fee. That's a good estimate. It may be a little more or a little less depending on how you do it.


Finally, here are the changes I would make:
1) not sure why you would take English Comp as a TECEP if you could do it as a CLEP? I would do the CLEP. I wouldn't do any TECEP's if you didn't really need them, they are harder than CLEP exams (unless you need them for UL)
2) You only listed 9cr in Knowledge of Human Cultures, A&I Lit is worth 6cr.
3) Saylor Biology course is a duplicate of the CLEP, replace it with something else
4) General Anthropology DSST exam is not available right now, it's being revised, replace it
5) College Math CLEP and Applied Math TECEP are easier than ALEKS College Algebra, so think about doing those after you finish ALEKS
6) Think about grouping some more courses to make study easier:
- since you're taking the Tech Writing DSST or TECEP, think about taking the Advanced Tech Writing study.com course (and it's UL)
- since you're taking the History of the Vietnam War DSST, think about taking Causes & Effects of the Vietnam War study.com course
- since you're taking Intro to Psych, think about taking more psych courses (Human Growth & Dev is an easy one, but some are also UL)
- since you're taking US History II, American Government, & Western Political Thought, think about US History I and Intro to Comparative Politics
- since you're taking the Civil War & Reconstruction DSST, think about The American Civil War Era from study.com as well

Things like that, where you kill 2 birds with 1 stone, can be helpful in getting a study plan going. Then, do all similar courses together. Do all math consecutively. Do everything history/politics related the same way. All English/Lit courses. etc.

Hope that helps.

[davewill]

Deleted .........

[Seiph1358]

I have noticed on this thread lately that the people who do the most courses in a single month are people who do Straighterline. I haven't done that, so I'm not a good person to ask, I just think most people can complete a bunch of courses for less that way (average, with fees of a CLEP/DSST is $100, while if you can knock out more than 4 SL courses, the average cost can go well below $80). It used to be CLEP/DSST years ago, but now it's definitely SL.

Of course if you're military, and CLEP/DSST exams are free, then by all means go for it.

As for the per credit option, you enroll that way and it's free. THEN, if you take a course at TESU, the cost is $499/credit (so $1500 for the capstone course). Otherwise, you don't pay for any other credits.

Capstone cannot be completed early as far as I can tell. Takes the full 3 months.

For pricing, average $100 per course for testing, and $1500 for the capstone, $2000 for the residency waiver fee and $300 for graduation fee. That's a good estimate. It may be a little more or a little less depending on how you do it.


Finally, here are the changes I would make:
1) not sure why you would take English Comp as a TECEP if you could do it as a CLEP? I would do the CLEP. I wouldn't do any TECEP's if you didn't really need them, they are harder than CLEP exams (unless you need them for UL)
2) You only listed 9cr in Knowledge of Human Cultures, A&I Lit is worth 6cr.
3) Saylor Biology course is a duplicate of the CLEP, replace it with something else
4) General Anthropology DSST exam is not available right now, it's being revised, replace it
5) College Math CLEP and Applied Math TECEP are easier than ALEKS College Algebra, so think about doing those after you finish ALEKS
6) Think about grouping some more courses to make study easier:
- since you're taking the Tech Writing DSST or TECEP, think about taking the Advanced Tech Writing study.com course (and it's UL)
- since you're taking the History of the Vietnam War DSST, think about taking Causes & Effects of the Vietnam War study.com course
- since you're taking Intro to Psych, think about taking more psych courses (Human Growth & Dev is an easy one, but some are also UL)
- since you're taking US History II, American Government, & Western Political Thought, think about US History I and Intro to Comparative Politics
- since you're taking the Civil War & Reconstruction DSST, think about The American Civil War Era from study.com as well

Things like that, where you kill 2 birds with 1 stone, can be helpful in getting a study plan going. Then, do all similar courses together. Do all math consecutively. Do everything history/politics related the same way. All English/Lit courses. etc.

Hope that helps.

fantastic, thank you, the reason I have TECEP was because I thought I read somewhere either here or one of the hundreds of other places that I looked at if you are an out of state resident and doing per credit you needed to have 24 credits in TECEP but with my luck, I misinterpreted it.
the A&I I came accross this: http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...ded-8.html which lead me to this https://clep.collegeboard.org/develop/ace-credit
I actually have both math courses finished through ALEKS did them both yesterday and ACE approved them today

[dfrecore]

If you are not already enrolled, and can complete 16cr of TECEP's by the end of the May term, then you aren't eligible for the "TECEP counts as residency" credit. So, skip the TECEP's if you don't qualify. You now will just pay the $2000 residency fee and not have to spend anything else at TESU unless you have the cornerstone ($300) and capstone ($1500).

[Seiph1358]

Sounds good, I'm not enrolled yet so I won't have to deal with the teceps, which means I'll have to switch over what I do have to dsst/clep or straighterline equivalent

[Seiph1358]

Quick question, I was giving a second look at the General Management degree and remembered that this is supposedly the quickest/cheapest route towards a more notable degree, I also remember a while that there is a loophole to get around the Capstone, bust as I was looking around yesterday I was looking around and saw that because of the residency waver and no longer the need of TECEPS, the loophole involving the Strategic management TECEP is closed, can anyone confirm this? it isn't that I doubt the information just need some clarification is all, wouldn't the Penn Foster course still be a viable option or is that door closed as well?

the tl;dr, if I go the route of a General Management degree do I still to take the capstone? I haven't applied yet to TESU and only have 06cr

[ajs1976]

You can still take the TECEP for the BSBA capstone. That hasn't changed yet.

What has changed is that the TECEPs no longer count towards residency and the PF Strategic Management course can not be used as the capstone. Unless you were grandfathered in for some reason.

[dfrecore]

Quick question, I was giving a second look at the General Management degree and remembered that this is supposedly the quickest/cheapest route towards a more notable degree, I also remember a while that there is a loophole to get around the Capstone, bust as I was looking around yesterday I was looking around and saw that because of the residency waver and no longer the need of TECEPS, the loophole involving the Strategic management TECEP is closed, can anyone confirm this? it isn't that I doubt the information just need some clarification is all, wouldn't the Penn Foster course still be a viable option or is that door closed as well?

the tl;dr, if I go the route of a General Management degree do I still to take the capstone? I haven't applied yet to TESU and only have 06cr

The "loophole" was never getting around the capstone - it's that you can take the Strategic Management (capstone) course as a TECEP exam, which means that it only costs $114 (instead of $1500 for the course through TESU). It's still available.

The former way of getting residency at TESU could be met by taking 24cr worth of TECEP's (and then later, 16cr) - that is no longer the case. So you now don't NEED to take TECEP's if you don't want to, but you can if you'd like to. I imagine most BSBA students will take the TECEP.

As for Penn Foster's Strategic Business Management course, that option is going away - TESU will no longer be accepting the course as the capstone after July 1. There is some question as to whether you have to finish the course by July 1, or whether you only have to enroll by that date, but for someone who is not enrolled at TESU, I imagine that it doesn't matter - they will not accept a transferred-in capstone course after July 1 if you're not a student.