New Member that's interested yet confused... Help please :)

[Crawdad1075]

Hello everyone. My name is Chris. I'm a 29 (soon to be 30... ugh) year old male. I just happened to stumble across this forum while doing some other searching. I'm not generally the type of person to join a forum but everything that I've read through seems to be coming from extremely helpful people.

So from what I've gathered, it's best to give a short "about me" in order to get the best advice. So here we go...

I'm not very picky at all when it comes to which degree to take.
My main objective is to get a Bachelors degree in anything in order to teach English abroad.
I believe I have around 9 credits from a community college from about 6 years ago.
Credits are from microeconomics, psychology, and English 101 (I believe).
My background has been all over the place. Spent many years in door to door sales and customer service, 2 years as a front desk manager in a family owned hotel in Yellowstone, some time as a prep cook, a server, bartender, and for the past 3 months as a mental health tech at a behavioral hospital.

I'm just looking for the quickest, easiest, and cheapest option. I was one of those kids growing up that I never knew what I wanted to grow up to be. Teaching overseas has sounded like an amazing thing to do however the thought of having to obtain a bachelors degree has always held me back. Then I found this site... 

I have read through some of the beginners guides but have gotten slightly confused. After deciding which college/program to take, it mentions signing up with ACE. What exactly is ACE and how does it work? Does it keep track of which exams I have taken? I'm sure I will have many more questions to ask all of you but first I'd like to fully understand the beginning process before I make any mistakes or waste time/money. Thank you all so much and I look forward to sharing my experiences with all of you.

[zapproximator]

Hey Chris,
Welcome to DegreeForum!
I did a bit of searching and found this https://www.teachaway.com/2016/06/16/wha...sh-abroad/. It looks like you just need any bachelors degree and probably the TEFL certification (don't know what that is!).
I could easily be wrong, but if that's true, just pick any accredited degree!
To get an intro, make sure to read this wiki made by DegreeForum: Degree Forum Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia to get the basics and also check out their degree plans. Here's a link to Charter Oak plans: COSC Degree Plans | Degree Forum Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia, Excelsior: Excelsior Degree Plans | Degree Forum Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia, and Thomas Edison:TESU Degree Plans | Degree Forum Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia. I think business and liberal arts are generally good degrees to test out of.

I don't know much about ACE, but here is a bit on it:
ACE CREDIT is the American Council on Education's College Credit Recommendation Service. ACE CREDIT recommendations are used by students to obtain college credit or advanced college placement for formal courses or exams taken outside the traditional classroom.

Students commonly take formal courses and exams eligible for ACE CREDIT through:

Online college course providers
Businesses
Unions
Government
Military
Associations
ACE CREDIT Registry and Transcript Service is able to keep a lifelong record of all your ACE CREDIT recommendations.

Earning ACE CREDIT recommendations for your formal coursework or exams does not guarantee that your courses will be accepted as transfer credit by a receiving institution. It is advisable that you ask ahead if your college will accept ACE CREDIT for transfer.

To find a specific ACE-recommended course or exam, you can search ACE CREDIT | The National Guide to College Credit for Workforce Training | Find a Course or Exam

Hope this helps!!

[zapproximator]

Also, this is specifically at students my age, but here's an article on how to start: https://bachelorsby18.wordpress.com/2017...-to-start/

[socsci]

Hello everyone. My name is Chris. I'm a 29 (soon to be 30... ugh) year old male. I just happened to stumble across this forum while doing some other searching. I'm not generally the type of person to join a forum but everything that I've read through seems to be coming from extremely helpful people.

So from what I've gathered, it's best to give a short "about me" in order to get the best advice. So here we go...

I'm not very picky at all when it comes to which degree to take.
My main objective is to get a Bachelors degree in anything in order to teach English abroad.
I believe I have around 9 credits from a community college from about 6 years ago.
Credits are from microeconomics, psychology, and English 101 (I believe).
My background has been all over the place. Spent many years in door to door sales and customer service, 2 years as a front desk manager in a family owned hotel in Yellowstone, some time as a prep cook, a server, bartender, and for the past 3 months as a mental health tech at a behavioral hospital.

I'm just looking for the quickest, easiest, and cheapest option. I was one of those kids growing up that I never knew what I wanted to grow up to be. Teaching overseas has sounded like an amazing thing to do however the thought of having to obtain a bachelors degree has always held me back. Then I found this site... 

I have read through some of the beginners guides but have gotten slightly confused. After deciding which college/program to take, it mentions signing up with ACE. What exactly is ACE and how does it work? Does it keep track of which exams I have taken? I'm sure I will have many more questions to ask all of you but first I'd like to fully understand the beginning process before I make any mistakes or waste time/money. Thank you all so much and I look forward to sharing my experiences with all of you.

Hi Chris, and welcome.

Read about ACE here: Using Your ACE Credit Recommendations

Sign up here (it is free): https://www2.acenet.edu/credit/?fuseacti...ripts.main

Basically, ACE checks courses and approves them for credit. We can use their system to store our credits once we have completed courses. For example, if you take a course at say study.com and complete it, then you can request to have the credits added to your ACE account. You can build up credits from many different courses and store them all in one place. When you are ready to send the credits to the university you can send the transcript from ACE for a small fee.

About doing a degree in anything in order to teach English. Many countries have restrictions on who is allowed to teach English and some countries even state that a teacher must have a degree in something related to the subject being taught. For English teaching this would mean, an English degree, an education degree, a literature degree or at least a humanities degree. Other countries don't have such restrictions and are a bit more open. However, I would suggest setting your target onto a more specific degree because it will be more useful in the future, it will open up all countries, higher paying positions and also primary/secondary schools as an option.
The restrictions in certain countries are not from employers but from governments and are needed to meet visa purposes.

Edited to add an example: A BA in humanities with a transcript that has literature courses will be much better than a business degree for teaching English.

[Synicaal]

If you are considering a Degree is English then Online Courses - Core curriculum & electives for middle & high school students | Shmoop is going to be your best friend. Personally I dislike Shmoop but they have an abundance of course options. Either way if the degree you choose needs math I would recommend signing up for ALEKS today and knocking out at least 1 or 2 math courses before April 30th. ALEKS is $20 a month so well worth the money when you could potentially knock out 12 credits. If math isn't a requirement but you can manage I would still take a few its cheap credits and never wasted, Math counts for Gen Eds so why not.

[rlw74]

To build on socsci's recommendations - the BALS at TESU is very flexible. You can pick a concentration too such as Humanities. I am getting a social sciences concentration but its basically the same degree - you just pick UL courses that fit whatever concentration you want. The rest of the degree is pretty flexible in what it allows for electives. If you choose an English degree specifically there is only one course that is hard to find or a little bit more expensive and that is a non-western literature course. If I had had the time to do it differently I would have opted for an English degree. It would have only meant spending an extra $400-$500 overall if I had decided on it early on. Instead I spent my study.com scholarship on the UL social sciences electives and I ran out of time to take the non-western lit course through a place like BYU. At this point I just want to graduate and don't care what the degree is in. I figure I'll specialize in my master's program if I chose to go into education (which is my long-term plan after I spend a year or two substitute teaching - the reason I need any degree to get started). So it is definitely doable. Either way you decide - whether to specialize with an English degree or get BALS with a concentration - both have almost the same direction as far as courses you would take early on.

Apply for the Guardian Study.com scholarship too. If you get it, you get six courses free (about a $600 savings). You can knock out most of your gen ed courses with study.com. Good luck!

[Crawdad1075]

Thanks everyone for the great replies. I feel like I'm starting to figure it out. I'm thinking TESU is the route I'm going to go with a BA in English. I'm hoping the few credit hours I have from my local CC will transfer over. But what I've read suggests to wait to apply to TESU until I've built up a nice amount of credits, is that the general consensus? I'm also just so worried to pay for all these classes/exams and come to find out they don't transfer over into credits earned hahaha. But after seeing everyone here, it kind of eases the worry.

Only part that sucks is my current work schedule. I work 12's at night but only 3 days a week. Will be nice on my off days but when I'm working 2-3 days in a row, it's going to put me behind on my studies.

Anyhow, I've signed up for ACE, now I just have to add some things to it 😃 I also randomly signed up on FAFSA. Not sure if it was necessary but thought it wouldn't hurt. I'll keep you all updated. Thanks again for all the help.

[SolarKat]

Hi Chris! I just hit 50, so don't you fret about that age thing. Also, don't fret about your study/work schedule. The folks here are incredibly knowledgeable and experienced with this, so keep asking questions.

My only addition to the thread is this: Visit https://study.com/blog/guardian-s-person...rship.html and fill out the application for the Guardian Scholarship. It can take a while to get an approval letter, so get the ball rolling now.

If awarded, you'll need to pass their Personal Finance course first, for free, but you get a free 3-month membership to also complete up to 5 additional ACE-accredited courses at Study.com. This forum has several threads about it. One nice feature, beyond the whole "free" thing: you can take the proctored finals anytime, 24/7, without an appointment. This should fit well with your unique work/sleep needs.

There are also some completely free independent study courses that you can easily do now, while you think about your path forward. Search this forum for The Institutes - Ethics, Sophia - Developing Effective Teams, TEEX - Cybersecurity, or Saylor (who offer free classes, but require a $25 exam proctor fee).

Good luck! You can do this!!

[davewill]

I'm a fan of applying as soon as you're committed to getting your degree. That way you can get your existing credits evaluated. It also counts as a positive step taken towards your goal. The two things that I found it important to manage were uncertainty and motivation. Getting my eval with my credits all neatly slotted into the degree requirements helped me with both.

After you apply, you have up to a year to become enrolled. Enrollment happens when you register for a course or TECEP. Once you've enrolled, that locks in your catalog year. You remain enrolled for a year. You must either graduate within that year, or take another course or TECEP which extends your enrollment another year.

A lot of people who want a BSBA are rushing to apply and register for the capstone TECEP exam for the May and/or June terms. After that, the test option goes away and the BSBA capstone will be a required 12 week online course like most of the other bachelor's degrees have. For the degrees you have mentioned so far, a capstone course is the only option.

[dfrecore]

Regarding your study schedule, I don't think any particular schedule is required - just whatever works for you. So, if you decide that you're going to schedule 4 days of studying and then 3 days of working, that's perfectly fine. There really isn't a way to "get behind."