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

[bjcheung77]

@DeidreA, congrats on finishing your degree! Hope your masters degree will be a breeze as well, good luck and have fun! BTW, which degree at WGU, is it the MSML? Did you decide WGU over UMPI due to any specific reason?

Questions for you, why StraighterLine for Science & Lab instead of Study.com as I see you have taken one course from them too? What courses did you complete with CLEP and Study.com? I assume InstantCertCredit was for American Government.

[DeidreA]

@DeidreA, congrats on finishing your degree!  Hope your masters degree will be a breeze as well, good luck and have fun!  BTW, which degree at WGU, is it the MSML?  Did you decide WGU over UMPI due to any specific reason?

Questions for you, why StraighterLine for Science & Lab instead of Study.com as I see you have taken one course from them too?  What courses did you complete with CLEP and Study.com?  I assume InstantCertCredit was for American Government.

Hi BJ,

Thank you. I am thinking WGU MSML because I see many people that have successfully been able to complete it in 1 or 2 terms. I don't know if that's the same with UMPI, but I'll research both fully before I make a final decision. 

I only did the Bio Lab with Straighterline because after seeing a post on FaceBook and speaking with Jessica, I found that I could combine that with my Sophia Human Biology for the Biology with Lab credit. She said that was the only Lab Only course that she knew of. I did College Composition and Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP's. For InstantCert I did Spanish 1. For Study.com I did History of the Vietnam War.

[ss20ts]

Hi BJ,

Thank you. I am thinking WGU MSML because I see many people that have successfully been able to complete it in 1 or 2 terms. I don't know if that's the same with UMPI, but I'll research both fully before I make a final decision. 

I only did the Bio Lab with Straighterline because after seeing a post on FaceBook and speaking with Jessica, I found that I could combine that with my Sophia Human Biology for the Biology with Lab credit. She said that was the only Lab Only course that she knew of. I did College Composition and Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP's. For InstantCert I did Spanish 1. For Study.com I did History of the Vietnam War.

UMPI accepted the Human Biology course from Sophia and the lab only from StraighterLine? That's new! I was told in 2020 that the lab course had to be taken with the science course at the same time from the same place. Good to know for others if they want to go down this path.

[tpowell]

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

Amazing Congratulations!

[DeidreA]

Hi BJ,

Thank you. I am thinking WGU MSML because I see many people that have successfully been able to complete it in 1 or 2 terms. I don't know if that's the same with UMPI, but I'll research both fully before I make a final decision. 

I only did the Bio Lab with Straighterline because after seeing a post on FaceBook and speaking with Jessica, I found that I could combine that with my Sophia Human Biology for the Biology with Lab credit. She said that was the only Lab Only course that she knew of. I did College Composition and Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP's. For InstantCert I did Spanish 1. For Study.com I did History of the Vietnam War.

UMPI accepted the Human Biology course from Sophia and the lab only from StraighterLine? That's new! I was told in 2020 that the lab course had to be taken with the science course at the same time from the same place. Good to know for others if they want to go down this path.

Yup, they accepted it. Like I said, I only found that out from someone in the Sophia Facebook group which was quite a welcome surprise. I checked with Jessica, and sure enough, they accepted it.

---

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

Amazing Congratulations!

Thanks so much!!!

[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!

[Tedium]

Congratulations! I'm so happy for you, and really glad that you took the time to post this, even though you just lurked for so long. You should be so proud of your TWO degrees! It's amazing to see all of your hard work paid off!

I started at UMPI in the English Your Pace. I wasn't able to start classes because of a couple of hurricanes, but after hearing your reports and others, I'm super glad I didn't. That would have been way too frustrating and slow for what I need right now. I was so bummed when the hurricanes disrupted my plans, but now I'm sensing some divine intervention. We end up going down the path we were supposed to.

Congrats again! Take a break. Breathe. WGU will be there when you're ready!

[DeidreA]

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.

[Messdiener]

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

From one fellow lurker to another, congratulations!

And all the best to you as you start your WGU adventures!

[DeidreA]

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

From one fellow lurker to another, congratulations!

And all the best to you as you start your WGU adventures!

Thank you. Good luck to you as well.