Newbie Canadian looking for advice - where to get liberal arts degrees?

[TinHead]

I'm a Canadian. Do one of the "big three" as they will still be less money than any university in Canada -- even with the exchange rate. Study.com + Straighterline will be your best friends. A lot of the courses I took via other comapnies (CLEP, DSST, etc.) are now offered via both of them and it will save you time and money. Best of luck. This forum will have the answers for everything you need.

[Cdnbackpacker]

Sorry, I did miss your previous post,* I thought that I read somewhere it was difficult to transfer university credits to the big 3 and that they mainly took regionally accredited college courses.

*I attended the University of Winnipeg and got credit for

1000 level Intro German 6 credits
1000 War and peace in history 6 credits
2000 History of Africa 6 credits
1000 Academic writing 3 credits
1000 cultural anthropology
3000 Ancient Greek warfare 3 credits

**I think I have decided on TESU because I can get a fairly cheap history degree, and I like that it has university in the name instead of college (perhaps it will look better for teaching abroad)
Does anyone have any advice or opinions?

Thank you all for your help, I appreciate it (and this forum) so much. This is absolutely incredible and life changing. I have been stressing about university for years and for the first time feel truly optimistic.

[dfrecore]

Sorry, I did miss your previous post,* I thought that I read somewhere it was difficult to transfer university credits to the big 3 and that they mainly took regionally accredited college courses.

*I attended the University of Winnipeg and got credit for

1000 level Intro German 6 credits
1000 War and peace in history 6 credits
2000 History of Africa 6 credits
1000 Academic writing 3 credits
1000 cultural anthropology
3000 Ancient Greek warfare 3 credits

**I think I have decided on TESU because I can get a fairly cheap history degree, and I like that it has university in the name instead of college (perhaps it will look better for teaching abroad)
Does anyone have any advice or opinions?

Thank you all for your help, I appreciate it (and this forum) so much. This is absolutely incredible and life changing. I have been stressing about university for years and for the first time feel truly optimistic.

I think your first step should be getting your credits evaluated. Once you have done that, then we can tell you how the courses will apply to a BA in History at TESU (or wherever you choose to go).

While you're waiting for that, you should start on the courses/exams that you want to take for the remaining credits. Are you able to get to a CLEP/DSST testing center? If not, then you'll want to do Straighterline or Study.com for most of your credits, but that should be fairly easy. There may be a few credits that will be more expensive to do, so you'll have to find those courses. But it's pretty doable.

FYI, if you'd rather get an English degree, I think you can test out of that more easily than a History degree. And a Liberal Studies degree for sure is able to be completely tested out of.

[Cdnbackpacker]

I looked into straighterline, study.com and shmoop the day after posting this and felt stupid because the answers were so easily found. I'm not able to make it to a DSST or CLEP center unfortunately. Im thinking of doing a double major history/English because the degree equirements are the same and I enjoy both subjects. I was only thinking of getting a liberal arts degree due to how easy it seemed, but now I realize how attainable it is to get a degree in something I actually enjoy.

[bjcheung77]

Don't feel stupid! There's no need. I think a dual concentration is workable, it's awesome to have both English/History.
You maybe able to do it without getting more than 120 credits!
The second major can take up the Free electives+General Education Electives.

Essentially, get your plan of action/courses you need to take and place them into a spreadsheet.
The courses you transfer in can be placed into the "General Education Electives, or Free electives", you have a total of 47 credits to dump there.

You're correct, the general education requirements for both TESU BA English and BA History are the same.
I would work on those first, see wiki for details: Sanantone's TESU General Education Options After July 1, 2015 | Degree Forum Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
English: Bachelor's Degree in English at Thomas Edison State University
History: Bachelor's Degree in History at Thomas Edison State University

Credit Transfer: Transferring Credit at Thomas Edison State University
Catalog - Credit Transfer: Transfer Credit
International Evaluation: International Student Policies
If you need some free credits to place into your "Free Electives", here are some: Free Sources of Credit | Degree Forum Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia

[Cdnbackpacker]

Wow thank you so much for those links, they are very informative. It says that TESU does not offer letters of acceptance but I can enroll if I get accepted through another university or college, so I assume I would get all my SL courses and everything completed and then apply for a student visa for the US? Hopefully it doesnt cost too much...

[Cdnbackpacker]

Apparently to get an i20 or student visa I need to apply at another school and prove I have the funds to study and support myself... I hope there is a way around this, if not that would be devastating.

[bjcheung77]

Apparently to get an i20 or student visa I need to apply at another school and prove I have the funds to study and support myself... I hope there is a way around this, if not that would be devastating.

Wow thank you so much for those links, they are very informative. It says that TESU does not offer letters of acceptance but I can enroll if I get accepted through another university or college, so I assume I would get all my SL courses and everything completed and then apply for a student visa for the US? Hopefully it doesnt cost too much...

Um, the link I sent to you is just for your reference and also to show you where/who to go for an evaluation. You do not need to apply for a student visa.
You get your courses completed in your neck of the woods (Canada, Asia, or even if you're in the great old USA), it won't matter where you are.

Straighterline and Study.com are affiliates/partners with TESU (as well as COSC/EC/WGU, etc), you should apply to TESU when you're done with your general education courses. Since you have roughly 30 credits scattered, you need to try to "place" your courses in the right areas, so get a spreadsheet up!

What you should do basically is to start getting your general education courses complete from Shmoop/Straighterline first and use Study.com to complete the remainder of the courses not offered at Shmoop or Straighterline. If you want to add to the mix and you're an awsome test taker, try your gig at Saylor too.

If I was in your shoes, I would pretend I'm starting from scratch and use one of dfrecore's spreadsheet templates, do all the general education requirements.
Then plug in the courses you have to transfer into the "General Education Electives" section. Try to plug in English/History into the AOS and you're done!

[dfrecore]

Apparently to get an i20 or student visa I need to apply at another school and prove I have the funds to study and support myself... I hope there is a way around this, if not that would be devastating.

You are not moving to the US as a student, you're completing an online degree at a US university, so this does not apply to you.

[Cdnbackpacker]

I was talking about the international student policies page that you also posted. I assumed that if I got it done online in Canada a visa wouldn't be necessary so it's good to be reassured, I just immediately panicked when I saw mention of a visa on TESU's international students page. Thanks a bunch for the advice, I'm going to get started on my general education courses right away and work on saving up some more money for SL.