Need help all you IT and TESC forum pros

[skyfall123]

I'm trying to get my son on track. He now has a good IT job working as a civilian employee for the Dept of the Army. In this job, he can earn ACE credits for free (mostly IT and a few Business) through Skillsoft via e-Army learning. I've earned a BS Business from Excelsior with the help of this great forum and InstaCert, so I can point him down the CLEP, DANTES, TECEP, ECE FEMA, Penn Foster path...I want him to get the B.S.B.A CIS from TESC, because that is his current job path. He wants to get a Computer Science degree. I have a few question:
1) Rules wise: Can he obtain both a BSBA CIS and either a BA Computer Science or BSAST Computer Science from TESC ? ...or are they considered too similar ? (I know he will need the 30 additional credits)

2) The Skillsoft ACE credits range from 1 to 6 credits...for instance the MCSE training allows 1 credit for each of 7 or 8 sections and the Security+ earns two credits, the VB is a bunch of sections that when finished in total, add up to 6 credits. Will TESC allow a bunch of 1 credit ACE credits in a major area of study (or as major area of study electives, like they do with FEMA credits ?

3) How is GPA calculated at TESC on the final transcipt? GPA wise he has 2 years of Community college completed with a 2.5 GPA, transcript wise...Do I need to get him up to a cummulative 3.0 GPA before he finishes (would require 10 A's), or will taking 4-5 UL CS classes at TESC with A's and B's be enough to show a Graduate school that he has what it takes to do upper level CS.

Thanks in advance for replies.

[NJMedic]

2.) You can get credits in any distribution you want with TESC - they dont particularly care if its a 6 1 credit classes or 1 6 credit class, unless the requiremnts specifically state so (I have a bunch of ACE 2 credit courses in CS) - which brings me up to the next part:

TESC does not consider all IT related topics computer sci. (COS) - some are CAP. The COS ones will fulfill the nat sci/math requirements the CAP will not. I had to petition for my courses to be re-evaluted (multiple times till it reached the dean) for them to be usefull.

3.) I dont know which specific grad school your looking at but in general I would think a 2.5 would rule out any with a reputable program, unless they had an open admissions policy. Thats not to say good programs dont exist with open admissions - Harvard (HES) has their ALM in IT which is technically open admissions, but you need to prove your worth by taking 3 classes with a minimum 3.0+ before acceptance into the degree program.

But I would see no reason the GPA could not be raised via a few graded courses at TESC. Classes like the 6 credit ENS314 (Env. Sci) are easy ways to boost GPA.

[skyfall123]

NJMedic,
Thanks for the input, thats what I was looking for! The plan is for him to take as many TESC CS classes as are needed (probably 6-8) to gain the knowledge and bump up the GPA. Your tip on taking the ENS 314 is exactly what I needed. You're right, he can bump it up with that! Since MIT Open Courseware is full of CS courses, I think that he can use that as an additional study source.

BTW here are a couple of interesting Masters that will take 2.8 and 2.7 GPA

http://www.outreach.uidaho.edu/eo/ViewPage.aspx?pid=33

Department of Computer Science

Thanks again