Mind reviewing my degree plan? TESU BSBA Acct/CIS

[dfrecore]

I appreciate the advice! I've been planning (and replanning, and replanning....) a TESU degree for years. Well before UMPI was on the scene, so to be honest, they just haven't been as heavily on my radar. Definitely an option to consider. I'll need to do some more homework on them.

If I were to ultimately stick with TESU, what about using my tuition reimbursement to take one easy TESU course per term while also racking up ACE credits? I feel like the workload for classes like Intro to Critical Reasoning or Computer Concepts and Applications would be pretty easy to fit into my schedule and allow me to get some graded RA credits without having to pay for them. If I did one per term for the next year, I'd get enough credits to not have to pay the waiver, while also not having to squeeze them all into one term (scary!!). Is that how that works? Is there a time limit for the 16 residency credits?

That should work fine. If you want to be able to go slower like that, TESU is the best choice. UMPI is only cheaper if you're able to cram the required credits into two or three terms. It doesn't sound like that's your bag. Do keep in mind that with 12 week terms, taking one every term will have you in up to three overlapping classes at the same time. Truly taking one course at a time only gets you through 4 in a year. You probably can afford to overlap some of them, but you probably want to be taking (or at least finishing) the capstone all by itself.

Great point, thank you!! I don't know why I had in my head that the terms were only 8 weeks long.

I would suggest instead that you do 3 non-overlapping terms per year, because then tuition reimbursement will fully cover that ($5250/cr / $535/cr = 9.8cr per year.  I would probably choose at least 1 UL accounting course, because the TECEP is not that easy, so you're better off doing an UL accounting course (Study.com has the other 3 UL's needed for the degree).

Plan out your degree utilizing Sophia and Study.com first, then go back through and choose your TESU courses to replace what you've planned: 1 UL accounting course that you'll need (Advanced Accounting II, Auditing, Advanced Auditing, or Federal Income Taxation), and then 2 easy courses.  Also figure out how to get some more RA credit (14cr worth), either via TECEP or CC or something.

[Kones]

I appreciate the advice! I've been planning (and replanning, and replanning....) a TESU degree for years. Well before UMPI was on the scene, so to be honest, they just haven't been as heavily on my radar. Definitely an option to consider. I'll need to do some more homework on them.

If I were to ultimately stick with TESU, what about using my tuition reimbursement to take one easy TESU course per term while also racking up ACE credits? I feel like the workload for classes like Intro to Critical Reasoning or Computer Concepts and Applications would be pretty easy to fit into my schedule and allow me to get some graded RA credits without having to pay for them. If I did one per term for the next year, I'd get enough credits to not have to pay the waiver, while also not having to squeeze them all into one term (scary!!). Is that how that works? Is there a time limit for the 16 residency credits?

That should work fine. If you want to be able to go slower like that, TESU is the best choice. UMPI is only cheaper if you're able to cram the required credits into two or three terms. It doesn't sound like that's your bag. Do keep in mind that with 12 week terms, taking one every term will have you in up to three overlapping classes at the same time. Truly taking one course at a time only gets you through 4 in a year. You probably can afford to overlap some of them, but you probably want to be taking (or at least finishing) the capstone all by itself.

Great point, thank you!! I don't know why I had in my head that the terms were only 8 weeks long.

I would suggest instead that you do 3 non-overlapping terms per year, because then tuition reimbursement will fully cover that ($5250/cr / $535/cr = 9.8cr per year.  I would probably choose at least 1 UL accounting course, because the TECEP is not that easy, so you're better off doing an UL accounting course (Study.com has the other 3 UL's needed for the degree).

Plan out your degree utilizing Sophia and Study.com first, then go back through and choose your TESU courses to replace what you've planned: 1 UL accounting course that you'll need (Advanced Accounting II, Auditing, Advanced Auditing, or Federal Income Taxation), and then 2 easy courses.  Also figure out how to get some more RA credit (14cr worth), either via TECEP or CC or something.

Thank you, this is really helpful! For the record, I'm a NJ resident so tuition would be $411/cr and I can squeeze another class into my tuition reimbursement. But the idea of taking an UL accounting course is a great plan instead of just taking all easy courses, especially if I may have trouble preparing for a difficult test like Federal Income Tax. As for additional RA credit I plan on taking a few ASU courses to fit into the CIS portion of my degree and using a couple TECEPs to fill in any gaps.

Appreciate all the suggestions!

[MuadDib]

Depending on your goals, you could instead do a double major since both ACC/CIS are BSBA degrees at TESU, in lieu of the CIS cert if you're up to doing a few more than 120 credits (minimum would be 138 credits needed for both).

You can compare the differences needed in my completed degree plan here if you're interested: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...S-DEC-2021

On course providers:
If you haven't already, I'd recommend searching this forum for some discussions of differences in course providers for specifically accounting courses, as sadly not all of them are created equal. Accounting knowledge is very hierarchical in nature and getting a solid foundation early on is massively important for surviving the later courses and not feeling like you're missing a lot when you get further into the course progression.

The advice of Straighterline over study.com for foundational accounting knowledge in the linked thread is a strong recommendation. Having actual, professional textbooks is vital for learning adequately early on the broad knowledge base that you'll need to draw on as you move through intermediate accounting 1&2 and the upper level ACC courses. By the time I finished all the SL accounting courses, I was able to basically breeze through the few necessary Study.com courses with my Straighterline knowledge. Had I done the reverse, or relied solely on Study.com's poor Principles courses, that certainly would not have been the case, and I, like many others before me here, would have struggled with that progression. I really can't recommend that enough, TBH.

[Kones]

Depending on your goals, you could instead do a double major since both ACC/CIS are BSBA degrees at TESU, in lieu of the CIS cert if you're up to doing a few more than 120 credits (minimum would be 138 credits needed for both).

You can compare the differences needed in my completed degree plan here if you're interested:  https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...S-DEC-2021

On course providers:
If you haven't already, I'd recommend searching this forum for some discussions of differences in course providers for specifically accounting courses, as sadly not all of them are created equal. Accounting knowledge is very hierarchical in nature and getting a solid foundation early on is massively important for surviving the later courses and not feeling like you're missing a lot when you get further into the course progression.

The advice of Straighterline over study.com for foundational accounting knowledge in the linked thread is a strong recommendation. Having actual, professional textbooks is vital for learning adequately early on the broad knowledge base that you'll need to draw on as you move through intermediate accounting 1&2 and the upper level ACC courses. By the time I finished all the SL accounting courses, I was able to basically breeze through the few necessary Study.com courses with my Straighterline knowledge. Had I done the reverse, or relied solely on Study.com's poor Principles courses, that certainly would not have been the case, and I, like many others before me here, would have struggled with that progression. I really can't recommend that enough, TBH.

Thanks for your reply! I am actually planning to do the dual concentration in Accounting and CIS with a cert in Organization Leadership. And I have to say, I’ve seen your post and it’s a big reason I decided to go for both. There’s not many of us on this forum with that type of degree plan so I really appreciate the in depth account of your experience, it definitely inspired me!
As far as the accounting courses go, that’s great advice. I will keep that option in mind. So far I’ve been focusing on Sophia courses and haven’t gotten to SDC yet. So, time will tell if that is the type of learning environment for me to be successful or not. I certainly appreciate the textbook learning style, but I also don’t have the same 40hrs per week that you were able to dedicate. I’ll give my hand at SDC for efficiency, but be open minded to switching to SL if I find myself struggling too much. Also planning to take the final Taxation credits as an actual TESU class, both for RA/residency credit but also because I’ve heard the TECEP can be quite difficult. Id prefer to have the guidance of a class.