Purdue Global Masters in IT -- certification credit

[walruspanda]

Don't see anything here about PUG's Masters in Information Technology, so want to talk through some of my certification credit thoughts.

I plan to go straight into the Masters after completing my PUG Bachelors in IT (hopefully November of this year), but since I have free time now for the next few weeks, I'm looking to get as much credit as possible going into the MS. PUG is pretty generous with credit from certifications, and it looks like they will allow you to transfer credits in for half of your Masters degree, or 30 of 60 quarter credits. Realistically that's actually 28 credits (7 classes * 4 credits per class).

Here's a list of all the certifications that offer PUG MS IT credit, excepting:

• certs that require years of work experience (e.g. CISM/CISA)
  
• certs more than $500 for one class worth of credit (such as all the GIAC ones)
  
• certs that offer the same class credit as an easier/lower cert (CompTIA's CASP and Security+ both give credit for IT540, but CASP is much harder)
  

What's left:

• AWS Cloud Practitioner Foundational -- $100, IN515 (elective)
  
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate -- $150, IN505 and IN516 (electives)
  
• CompTIA CySA+ -- $392, IT542 (elective)
  
• CompTIA Network+ -- $338, IT530 (core) 
  
• CompTIA Project+ -- $358, IT511 (core)
  
• CompTIA Security+ -- $370, IT 540 (core)
  
• Oracle: Database Foundations Exam -- $100, IT525 (core)
  

That's eight classes worth of credit, so someone would have to do all but one certification to max it out. Network+ and Security+ are lower-lever certs, as are AWS Cloud Practitioner Foundational and the Oracle one, so that's four that are relatively doable, especially if you have IT experience. It's certainly not as easy as getting credit from study.com or Sophia class, but for Masters credit it still seems like a good way to go.

[MNomadic]

For CompTIA, make sure you're taking advantage of the student discounts to get up to 50% off:

https://academic-store.comptia.org/certi...vidual&

[origamishuttle]

Thank you for compiling this list - it's a very intriguing concept. I have four of the certs listed, worth five courses. And I could pass two others and even have my work pay for it... but I'm a slow writer, so PUG really scares me. Even so, transferring half a master's degree may prove too tempting.

[bjcheung77]

Hmm, I forget - I think I wrote about AWS 50% off before... I don't remember, doesn't AWS offer 50% for your next or subsequent exam if you passed their first certification? If so, you can take a cheaper exam and then use ethe 50% off for your second and subsequent exams...