My Technical Studies Degree Plan

[shadowgem]

Official Evaluations are in! They are attached. I really appreciate all of your thoughts and advice on this. It sounds like although I have more credits that transfer to the Technical Studies degree, a BALS degree may be easier and faster to obtain. Do you all agree?

I should add that I have the following CLEPs and DSST that haven't been evaluated by TESU yet:
Analyzing and Interpreting Literature - 6 ACE recommended credits
Information Systems and Computer Applications - 3 ACE Recommended Credits
Personal Finance - 3 ACE Recommended Credits

I'm not sure in your particular case that the BALS would be that much faster. You seem to be closer to finishing the BSTS if you want/can take 4 UL Computer courses. With the BSTS, they did bring in CIS courses for the AOS, so the courses I suggested earlier look like they could work there as well. I just think that with the BSTS you are more limited in course selection to fill the UL AOS and would probably want to get any courses you would plan to use approved and added to your plan ahead of time, if you went with that degree program. But you do appear to have options that are self paced/exams. 

Also I noticed with the two science requirements (I thought I had seen this before as well which led to some confusion for me that we were discussing in another thread) that they show Pick ANY 2, however the catalog appears to state it must be two sequential courses Chem 1/lab and Chem 2/lab OR Phys 1/lab and Phys 2/lab. If you really could pick any two in order to meet the science requirement it would be very fast/easy, but my understanding is they must be 2 sequential courses and the 2nd lab is harder to find. So you may want to clarify if it is Pick ANY 2 or if the requirement is indeed for 2 sequential courses.

Alliva's suggestion for Chem I/II w/ labs at the online CC earlier is an excellent option. I think Chem I must be finished prior to Chem II being started, so it may take a bit longer to complete the requirement.  TESU also brings in the Chemistry Clep for Chem I/II which you could take for free if you do the Modern States course. And then you could do the Straigherline's Chemistry I Standalone Lab and the TESU Chemistry II Six Week Lab Course. Another option would be Study.com Physics I (no lab)/Study.com Physics II (no lab) which are both self paced and only require quizzes and a final. And for the Labs you could do Straigherline's Physics I standalone lab (self paced, no proctored exam just labs/lab exams) and then the Physics 2 Standalone Six Week Lab Course with TESU for a possible faster option.

Your original plan looks fairly solid if you decided to work towards the BSTS. You would just want to get clarification/confirmation on the two above points (would UL CS courses meet the remaining 12 hours required in the core and whether the sciences can truly be any 2 of the 4 listed or must it be 2 sequential of the 4 listed) and then get them approved, add those courses into your plan and budget your time accordingly. Also, I'm not sure but I think your POLS201 course could fill the civic engagement requirement instead of under Human Cultures. 


For the BALS, you may have more options/flexibility to fill the UL Core/AOS with courses. However, you will need to do more courses. On the other hand, you can more quickly meet the science requirement as it can be any science (including computer science) and you would only need 4 credits there vs 8. Also you would not need to take any labs. Again I would question the placement of the Political Science course and see if it could be moved to fill Civic Engagement. Also you have a CIS course (Intro to Operating Systems) sitting under Free Electives in your evaluation that may be able to be moved into the natural science area. It could be worth asking about as well. Then you could either just do 1 lab or take the free TEEX Cybersecurity for IT professionals worth 2 credits which I think most recently transferred into TESU as CIS 244 and should also work in the science slot. Of course confirm that with TESU ahead of time. You can find more information on that course at the Degree Forum Free Sources of Credit Wiki. There are other Free self paced credits listed there that you may want to take advantage of if you choose to do the BALS degree plan as well which may help speed things up a bit for you as well. 

If you decide to work towards the BALS, you should have a lot more flexibility (course options) to meet the 15 UL credit requirement which could allow you take more courses that you are specifically interested in learning about instead of being as limited. However, it looks like you will need a few extra courses (about 4 more I think) which may also add to the amount of time you need to finish.

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That's strange they put your POLS201 in human cultures. I'd have thought it would go into civic engagement...

Also interesting that they put 10 ELT credits in your liberal studies but none of your other electronics courses. You could try and request that they move more of your "other courses" into that area(bringing the goalposts closer potentially). They may "make it work." Or they may not, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Based on your past experience, I think you wouldn't have any problems with quickly finishing the Project management, statistics, maths and UL computer courses that shadowgem mentioned(assuming TESU approves them). The only *potential* bottleneck I see is those labs. It all just depends on timing and scheduling I guess with Rio(or whoever you go with).

On the other hand, the BALS only has like 13 more credits you'd need. I'm very much a math/science person and I think I could do the extra LS/Gen Ed courses faster than working through labs, math, and computer science courses in the BSTS.

I think it ultimately comes down to which courses you think you could complete faster based on interest/enjoyment of the subjects.

I agree, the placement of POLS201 in human cultures seems ..out of place lol TESU seems to do some strange things though, but I would definitely take MNomadic's advice and see if that can fit under civic engagement. 

As to the remaining 10 ELT credits that they placed under "other" I think that may be because there is nothing left to fill in the core except the UL requirements 12UL (in any technical study part of the Core/AOS) and then the remaining 6 UL with Project Management and the AST Capstone. So I think since those credits are all LL they just didn't fit anywhere else into the BSTS plan. But absolutely it can not hurt to double check that as well. 

Also TESU will give you 6 credits for the Analyzing and Interpreting CLEP. It comes in as LIT-291 Analysis & Interpretation of Literature and LIT-292 Analysis & Interpretation of Literature II so you should be able to apply the remaining 3 credits to part of the LS/Gen Ed. The Management Information Systems DSST comes in as CIS-201 Management Information Systems at TESU and I think you may be able to apply that towards the Natural Sciences part of the BALS. And lastly the Personal Finance DSST comes into TESU as BUE-101 Personal Finance and can fill another slot in the Free Electives portion of the BALS which could take the place of the CIS-140 course that is currently under electives if you were able to get them to move that to the science part of the BALS.