New here; intrigued, slightly confused and overwhelmed

[jobojoe285]

Hello everyone, I am quite new to this community, only finding about it earlier today. I also never knew about communities such as this one where people look to maximize their education in this way be it with graduation speed (speed running bachelors?) and / or minimize spent money. I never thought that something like this could be done and I am really interested, not to mention this gives me a bit of hope.

I am slowly going through the beginner guides (https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...dit--24842) but I also have some questions that I was hoping someone could help with.

Some background on me:

I am Canadian and have a college 2yr program diploma in Computer Engineering technology from Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. I graduated in 2013. I do not remember my college grades (to be honest, they were not that great, maybe about 2.7 out of 4 gpa). I do not remember my high school grades either, but again, they were not the best (I believe around 60's% - 70's%).

My goal:

I need to get a bachelor of computer science or computer engineering (although I am heavily on the computer science) to advance my web dev / soft engineering career (I have been a professional in this field for around 6 - 6.5yr now). I don't think the university matters as long as it's accredited. I am mostly interested in getting the paper as soon as I can.

Initially, I thought I was a bit screwed due to my high school / college grades but I found out that some universities have mature student or continued education admissions which seem to be easier / a bit easier to get through but still not sure if I can actually get in. I also found a couple Canadian universities that seem to offer online programs (university of Athabasca, Thompson rivers university) which gives me some hope.

My questions:

- Anyone here have any experiences with Canadian schools? I would also be ok with attending an international university (I noticed many USA uni's are talked about in this community) as long as I could get it for a reasonable price (I also noticed some threads talking about quite cheap and / or free courses for credits)

-Most important question: Am I actually screwed due to my lackluster grades in high school and college or can I somehow get into a bachelor of computer science program somewhere?


Side note:

Apologies if portions of my text were talked about elsewhere. I am still looking through everything, it's just that I am feeling pretty overwhelmed and stressed out about the whole situation.

[bjcheung77]

@jobojoe285, Welcome to the board, that's a good introduction post with some details and questions. You really should fill in the addendum and template in order to provide us an even greater picture of your situation, with these extra pieces of information, we'll have the 'full' picture of your overall scenario. Update us with a reply, here's the link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Forum-D...ing-Advice

[rachel83az]

Canadian universities are usually more expensive, especially for mature students, than the universities we discuss here. Even when one is a Canadian citizen.

Depending on exactly where in Canada you're located, your best option for Comp Sci (or related) at a low cost and at a faster speed would probably be either WGU or TESU. If your programming diploma gave university credit, WGU would not recognize that (too old) but TESU ought to - assuming a favorable evaluation.

WGU is pass/fail. All transfer credit should be completed before you can even think about applying. They will not accept additional credit after you are enrolled - though you can defer enrollment if you find you need to transfer in additional credits. Due to your experience, you stand a good chance of being able to complete a WGU degree in 6 months, assuming maximum transfer. We can certainly help you with sourcing credit to maximize your chances of a quick degree. There are some degree plans here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Category:WGU

TESU is a bit more complicated. They should accept your old credits, but that depends on what the evaluation says. For a BACS specifically, you can transfer in up to 117 of 120 credits. (Other degrees are up to 114 of 120.) If you can complete WGU in 6 months, TESU would be more expensive. If it would take you more than 6 months (due to time commitments, etc.) to finish, TESU should be at least marginally cheaper. There are TESU degree plans and more information here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Category:TESU

Neither TESU nor WGU should care about your prior low grades.

[jobojoe285]

@bjcheung77, thank you I will write it down below. Please let me know if I missed anything or if I should include anything else. I want to make sure I give enough info so everyone gets a clear picture of who I am / where I am, etc.

@rachel83az, thank you so much for the info! It makes me a bit sad that Canadian uni's are more expensive even as a citizen, but can't say I'm surprised based on how this country has been in the past years. I am also open to American, etc. uni's.

Your Location: Alberta, Canada (open to out of province or international uni's)
Your Age: 30
What kind of degree do you want?: bachelor of Computer Science / Computer Engineering (heavily leaning on Comp Science as it will be easier for me to learn quickly; not great with electrical + advanced math of electrical)
Current Regional Accredited Credits:

-Northern Alberta Institute of Technology : Computer Engineering Technology - finished 2013 (Uni of Athabasca may offer 30 credits for this program, roughly 25% of their comp sc which is about 120 credits)
-Macewan University : Web Design & Development Certificate - finished 2017 - this was an independent course I took, not sure if it would be applicable for any credits

Budget: bachelor budget ~20k.  I'd like to go the cheapest route possible, but will consider spending more for easy and fast. If I can significantly speed up the process, I am willing to consider spending closer to the 20k, however, this will be based after careful considerations of all my options.
Commitments: I am working full time as a web developer, in a committed relationship, have a sort of side business (as of now it will not be taking much time at all).
Dedicated time to study: Depending on the specific courses, I could study 1-2 hours every work night, with 3+ on the weekends (potentially more). So it a rough range, 11hr - 25hr. I am considering heavily the Comp Sc bachelor because I have 6+yr exp as a web developer so in theory even if I do not know the course material, I could (hopefully) pick it up quickly due to my past exp + thought process.
Timeline: Finishing the courses required for the degree as fast as possible would be ideal.  I would like to finish within 1-1.5 years (12-18 months) - I would be open to increasing study time to get it in this time frame
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: Right now, I would most likely pay everything myself, if I end up going with a Canadian uni, there might be some sort of government grants that I could potentially get. My work may or may not cover.

Additional Info + goals: My main goal is to get bachelor ASAP to progress my career. I was also looking at attempting to get a job with a USA company (due to the extremely terrible situation in Canada, settling down is becoming harder and harder with the salaries  ), but I will need a bachelor degree related to software engineering in order to be allowed to work for a USA company.

[rachel83az]

If you want to work for an American company, having an American degree may work in your favor. Americans can be a bit strange about "foreign" degrees, even if the other country is Canada. So that's good!

Monetarily, $20k is more than sufficient for a TESU degree. If your programs are worth university credit, you're looking at (approximately) 4-6 months of Study.com ($235/mo.), 3-6 months of Sophia.org ($99/mo., $299 for 4 months, or $599 for a year), and maybe a couple of Coursera certificates (currently $299/year). Plus TESU tuition & fees of around $4k-5k, depending on your choices. (If your Canadian studies aren't worth university credits, there would be additional tuition of $1000-$2000, depending on additional college/university.) As a bonus, if you think you might ever want to move to management, it's possible to get a BS(BA) CIS degree at TESU at the same time as a TESU BACS and you'd only spend slightly more time/money on this when planned out carefully. It's like a BOGO deal for degrees!

$20k is also more than sufficient for about 2 years at WGU: https://www.wgu.edu/financial-aid-tuitio...grees.html Plus approximately 2 months of Sophia, maybe 6-8 months of Study.com, and maybe a Coursera certificate or two. Coursera certificate equivalencies can be found under "The American Dream Academy" on the WGU partnership page: https://partners.wgu.edu/home Without Sophia, SDC, and Coursera, WGU would almost certainly take significantly longer than 1-1.5 years. With them, it can take 6-12 months.

But I'm not 100% sure that you could complete a WGU degree. I'm not sure if they're open to people in Alberta. IIRC, you have to be within a certain distance of Toronto in order to be accepted. But maybe if you're located in a big city? Not sure. 

There is technically also a BSIT degree from PUG available: https://www.purdueglobal.edu/degree-prog...echnology/ But that's IT, not Computer Science. And there is a LOT of writing at PUG. Every single credit requires at least one paper or project at PUG. You can transfer in 75% of the required 180 credits, but that's still 45-50 papers that you'd have to write. Minimum. Some people have been able to complete it all in under a year, but it's still a lot of work.

[jobojoe285]

If you want to work for an American company, having an American degree may work in your favor. Americans can be a bit strange about "foreign" degrees, even if the other country is Canada. So that's good!

Monetarily, $20k is more than sufficient for a TESU degree. If your programs are worth university credit, you're looking at (approximately) 4-6 months of Study.com ($235/mo.), 3-6 months of Sophia.org ($99/mo., $299 for 4 months, or $599 for a year), and maybe a couple of Coursera certificates (currently $299/year). Plus TESU tuition & fees of around $4k-5k, depending on your choices. (If your Canadian studies aren't worth university credits, there would be additional tuition of $1000-$2000, depending on additional college/university.) As a bonus, if you think you might ever want to move to management, it's possible to get a BS(BA) CIS degree at TESU at the same time as a TESU BACS and you'd only spend slightly more time/money on this when planned out carefully. It's like a BOGO deal for degrees!

$20k is also more than sufficient for about 2 years at WGU: https://www.wgu.edu/financial-aid-tuitio...grees.html Plus approximately 2 months of Sophia, maybe 6-8 months of Study.com, and maybe a Coursera certificate or two. Coursera certificate equivalencies can be found under "The American Dream Academy" on the WGU partnership page: https://partners.wgu.edu/home Without Sophia, SDC, and Coursera, WGU would almost certainly take significantly longer than 1-1.5 years. With them, it can take 6-12 months.

But I'm not 100% sure that you could complete a WGU degree. I'm not sure if they're open to people in Alberta. IIRC, you have to be within a certain distance of Toronto in order to be accepted. But maybe if you're located in a big city? Not sure. 

There is technically also a BSIT degree from PUG available: https://www.purdueglobal.edu/degree-prog...echnology/ But that's IT, not Computer Science. And there is a LOT of writing at PUG. Every single credit requires at least one paper or project at PUG. You can transfer in 75% of the required 180 credits, but that's still 45-50 papers that you'd have to write. Minimum. Some people have been able to complete it all in under a year, but it's still a lot of work.

Thank you for the info, I will take a look at it and update later if I have any questions or just to let you know what happened !

Before I go off, to confirm: I would take a look at what courses on study.com, etc. are accepted for credits from TESU or WGU (I contacted them, they said it's fine as long as I can get past their admissions; for my college, I would need to get it transferred to USA equivalent and then they would take a look to see if any credits would be awarded) then I would do a count of how many courses would net me a number of credits, do all the courses and only afterwards apply for admission at TESU, WGU, etc? So I would start university with a large chunk completed? Or am I misunderstanding?

As an example for WGU, I was looking at their partners:

For Sophia courses that can be credit transferred for BS of software engineering I would start buying and doing multiple of these Sophia courses:
https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...instId=796

For Study.com: 
https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...instId=678


Some certificates:
https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...instId=870


So basically I would take a look at every course in the bachelor program, and then I would take a look at a 3rd party course that could be exchanged for credits later on. Then I would spend a year doing all these courses and then applying for admission for the bachelor of software engineer, etc.? Then I would just do the program mandatory courses that I cannot get from 3rd party sources?

[Chimera]

@jobojoe285, Welcome to the board, that's a good introduction post with some details and questions. You really should fill in the addendum and template in order to provide us an even greater picture of your situation, with these extra pieces of information, we'll have the 'full' picture of your overall scenario. Update us with a reply, here's the link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Forum-D...ing-Advice

Your goal is absolutely obtainable
Keep at it, you’ve got this !

[jobojoe285]

Thank you Chimera, appreciate the support, means a lot. For a long time I thought I was stuck. I wish I found this community years ago, but better late than never .

As for the university and program, I am heavily interested in WGU Bachelor of software engineering ( https://www.wgu.edu/online-it-degrees/so...ogram.html ) due to a few factors, including the program name (important for TN visa), actual course work and type of certifications.

I am currently reading through the WGU page that @rachel83az provided (thank you!): https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/WG...egree_Plan . I assume this page is referring to the program I linked.

To get past the admission and accepted into the program (whenever that happens) they have these requirements:

-Must have proof of high school diploma

and 1 of the following:

• Option 1: Submit transcripts documenting completion of college-level coursework with a minimum of 2.75 GPA or higher. 
  
  
• Option 2: Possess a bachelors or associate degree (A.A, A.S. or A.A.S. acceptable) from an accredited post-secondary institution.
  
  
• Option 3: Submit official record of completion of a transferable IT certification, some of which may provide transfer credit  into various programs.
  
  
• Option 4: Submit high school transcripts with a minimum GPA of 3.0
  
  
• Option 5: Submit transcripts documenting completion of previous IT coursework. IT coursework must be 300 level or higher.
  

I am not sure how fast I can get through all the courses for the credit transfers, but I want to try @rachel83az's advice and attempt to finish in 6 - 12 months (preferably 6 months depending on how fast I can understand the content). To do this, I want to take up the max amount of courses that can be transferred for credits. Looks like software engineer program allows me to transfer up to 90 credits, while 120 are needed to  graduate.

After I finished all necessary courses (I am interested in the C# pathway, so will look into courses that can be used for credits with C# path), I would look at the admission. I was thinking of giving them proof of my college transcript (to get past the high school requirement) and was thinking of using Option 3 to get past the full admission. Although if I do all these courses, maybe I will also qualify for option 5.

Is the sourcing credit help still on the table? I am investigating this but it would be a great help if someone with more experience in this can give some advice on where to go, etc.

[rachel83az]

Before I go off, to confirm: I would take a look at what courses on study.com, etc. are accepted for credits from TESU or WGU (I contacted them, they said it's fine as long as I can get past their admissions; for my college, I would need to get it transferred to USA equivalent and then they would take a look to see if any credits would be awarded) then I would do a count of how many courses would net me a number of credits, do all the courses and only afterwards apply for admission at TESU, WGU, etc? So I would start university with a large chunk completed? Or am I misunderstanding?

Yes, this is exactly right! Except with WGU, you must finish all available credits before you enroll. With TESU, you can enroll and keep a "running tally" of where your credits are going.

As an example for WGU, I was looking at their partners:

For Sophia courses that can be credit transferred for BS of software engineering I would start buying and doing multiple of these Sophia courses:
https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...instId=796

For Study.com: 
https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...instId=678


Some certificates:
https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...instId=870


So basically I would take a look at every course in the bachelor program, and then I would take a look at a 3rd party course that could be exchanged for credits later on. Then I would spend a year doing all these courses and then applying for admission for the bachelor of software engineer, etc.? Then I would just do the program mandatory courses that I cannot get from 3rd party sources?

Yep, exactly. For most WGU degrees, there are between 78-86 available credits that can be transferred from sources like SDC, Sophia, etc. It looks like the one you want has 84 credits that can be completed via alternate means. The plans on the wiki are kept up to date as much as possible, but definitely double-check with the WGU Partner site to confirm before taking anything (I see a couple of things that should probably be changed/updated; nothing major). They'll sometimes change things around without any real warning. It can be a bit frustrating for potential students. But it's still faster/cheaper to do things this way than to take 100% of your classes from WGU itself.

Start with Sophia. Then I would try the Coursera certificate that isn't covered by SDC/Sophia courses (Google UX Design Professional Certificate). Then try a month of Study.com for things not covered by certificates or Sophia (such as Computer Science 201 and Computer Science 307) This will let you decide if you want to finish with SDC courses or if you find the Coursera style to be faster/easier for you. If you like Coursera better, do those certificates instead of SDC. If you like SDC better, you can ignore Coursera.

[jobojoe285]

Before I go off, to confirm: I would take a look at what courses on study.com, etc. are accepted for credits from TESU or WGU (I contacted them, they said it's fine as long as I can get past their admissions; for my college, I would need to get it transferred to USA equivalent and then they would take a look to see if any credits would be awarded) then I would do a count of how many courses would net me a number of credits, do all the courses and only afterwards apply for admission at TESU, WGU, etc? So I would start university with a large chunk completed? Or am I misunderstanding?

Yes, this is exactly right! Except with WGU, you must finish all available credits before you enroll. With TESU, you can enroll and keep a "running tally" of where your credits are going.

As an example for WGU, I was looking at their partners:

For Sophia courses that can be credit transferred for BS of software engineering I would start buying and doing multiple of these Sophia courses:
https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...instId=796

For Study.com: 
https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...instId=678


Some certificates:
https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...instId=870


So basically I would take a look at every course in the bachelor program, and then I would take a look at a 3rd party course that could be exchanged for credits later on. Then I would spend a year doing all these courses and then applying for admission for the bachelor of software engineer, etc.? Then I would just do the program mandatory courses that I cannot get from 3rd party sources?

Yep, exactly. For most WGU degrees, there are between 78-86 available credits that can be transferred from sources like SDC, Sophia, etc. It looks like the one you want has 84 credits that can be completed via alternate means. The plans on the wiki are kept up to date as much as possible, but definitely double-check with the WGU Partner site to confirm before taking anything (I see a couple of things that should probably be changed/updated; nothing major). They'll sometimes change things around without any real warning. It can be a bit frustrating for potential students. But it's still faster/cheaper to do things this way than to take 100% of your classes from WGU itself.

Start with Sophia. Then I would try the Coursera certificate that isn't covered by SDC/Sophia courses (Google UX Design Professional Certificate). Then try a month of Study.com for things not covered by certificates or Sophia (such as Computer Science 201 and Computer Science 307) This will let you decide if you want to finish with SDC courses or if you find the Coursera style to be faster/easier for you. If you like Coursera better, do those certificates instead of SDC. If you like SDC better, you can ignore Coursera.

I see, perfect, thanks for the info!

Regarding the changes, I was looking at the Sophia partner page: https://partners.wgu.edu/transfer-pathwa...instId=796 and it looks like all the Sophia courses are displayed as a code ( ENG1002 (SOPH-0030), ENG1020 (SOPH-0049), or ENG1001 (SOPH-0015) ) which I can't seem to find anywhere on the  Sophia website. Study.com partner page seems to be the same but there things English 305 seem to have search results when I search for them in the study.com site which is helpful.

To be 100% sure which would be transferable, would I get links of all the courses from https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/WG...egree_Plan and then email an enrollment counselor to confirm, or would there be a faster way (for the courses I have a hard time identifying in the partner page)?