Question if pursuing Psych Major at EC

[P00057870]

I started with IC exactly a year ago with plans of finalizing an AS and no more. Thanks to Marianne202 and to all of you who have gone before, as well as IC, I'm now on my way to a BS and, also due to posts here, I am considering pursuing a major -- rather than a straight BS in liberal studies. My AS will be conferred effective January 15, 2010 -- in Business. Yeah/Celebrate!

Since joining here, I went from 54 credits with the local CC (12 of which were too old to be recognized by them but EC is recognizing them), and have taken in the past year both BM classes and tested out bringing my current credit tally to 89 (10 of which are UL). IC and this forum truly rocks. Not bad for an old lady who works full time, too.

Now to my questions:

1. EC requires a statistics or college level math. I have Intermediate Algebra and plan on ALEKS statistics but not sure how EC handles this. Can anyone enlighten me as to your experiences and how they showed this on your transcript? Is this LL or UL?

2. EC's Liberal Arts Catalog states they require Research and Writing in the Major [LA 490 Research and Writing - Social Sciences] See page 21 of the School of Liberal Arts Catalog: (8-week, 1 credit UL course, is intended to demonstrate student’s ability to understand ability to understand and write in the style of their major.) Has anyone found an acceptable and cheaper alternative?

3. There appear to be two (2) courses which are required by EC for the Psych major that they do not offer as ECEs. Have any of you great wise ones who have gone before located these? If so, where and for how much? Please do share. They are to be one from each of the following:
A. History and Systems/History of Psychology/Psychological Foundations
B. Biological and Physical Foundations: Biopsychology, Physiological Psychology, Animal Behavior, Comparative Psychology, Perception, Sensation, Neuroscience

I have found online courses at University of Central Florida (UCF) for History and Systems (offered in the fall) and Perception ("occasional"), and have written to the professor on the second to see if and when it may be offered next, as I do live in Florida. I did find the "history" course at BYU and at U of Idaho but somewhere on here was a post stating that both places you are pretty much on your own and need proctored tests. Still checking out UCF but it says it is totally online. I'll report back on that.

The question is if anyone has found other alternatives, where, and how much?

4. Ethics -- I thought I had read somewhere that this was required for all BS majors with EC but tonight I went through both the Liberal Arts Catalog for BS requirements and the separate Major in Psychology and have not found anything specific on this. Can anyone enlighten me on this, please?

Any and all help is GREATLY APPRECIATED as I map out the next year.

THANKS!

Judy

[peace123]

Now to my questions:

1. EC requires a statistics or college level math. I have Intermediate Algebra and plan on ALEKS statistics but not sure how EC handles this. Can anyone enlighten me as to your experiences and how they showed this on your transcript? Is this LL or UL?
Judy

For my BS in Liberal Studies degree

My Aleks Intro stats aleks course was posted as :
ALEKS CORPORATION (MCGRAW HILL)
INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICS


INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICS
OF THEORY PROBABILITY

As 3 upper level credits that satisfied the Quantitative requirement with a grade of P .



In regards to Ethics, I think you maybe confusing the Humanities requirement with the idea it is an Ethics requirement.
While Ethics does fill that requirement, other course or exams could also, such as a course in religion, art, a foreign language etc.
The Humanities requirement can be found in Excelsior's catalogs.

[P00057870]

Thanks for clarifying the Humanities requirement. I already have met this with an Arts class. One thing I can strike from my rough plan.

Has anyone else been given UL for ALEKS Stats? That would take care of another 3 credits of the 30 to 33 UL required.

[happymeal79]

Hi, I just got my BS in LS from Excelsior (to be conferred feb 19th) thanks in part to IC.

I was on the BS in psych track but dropped the major because of the LA 490 Research and Writing requirement (the next class starts in January and I didn't want to wait to get a degree) To my knowledge (after badgering my advisor for a month on some way to complete it faster), the only other option of satisfying that requirement is to try to get it waived, and in order to do that you have to have an 8+ page research paper reviewed that was used and graded in a psychology related class. (I actually had one but used it to get my eng comp waived and they wouldn't let me use it again, lol)

For the rest of your psych credits and including the ones with no comparable exams, why not take the GRE subject test in Psychology? it's only $135, and can yield up to 30 credits. I think the next one is offered in April. Start studying now.

I started studying on like September 1st, took the GRE on October 10th and got a 650-- which only yielded me 21 psych credits. That was half of what I needed after all my old credits transferred in. With all the studying for the GRE I had already done, the rest of the (ECE)psych exams were a piece of cake, I only enrolled in Excelsior in November needing forty-ish credits and am already done.

[jadechow]

I started studying on like September 1st, took the GRE on October 10th and got a 650-- which only yielded me 21 psych credits. That was half of what I needed after all my old credits transferred in. With all the studying for the GRE I had already done, the rest of the (ECE)psych exams were a piece of cake, I only enrolled in Excelsior in November needing forty-ish credits and am already done.

Wow. 21 credits for a month of studying - that pretty awesome. I think you're being modest saying "only" yielded 21 credits. You should be pretty impressed with yourself - I am.

I am curious, how have you completed 40ish credits since your November enrollment? That's a fantastic accomplishment! Good for you. What's your secret - I sure could use it!

[happymeal79]

Thanks Jade I was just really motivated I guess, I'm moving to Japan and I can't get there without a degree (at least I can't stay there longer than 3 months and work without one)

I think I was a bit misleading; let me clarify, When I said needed 40ish credits, that didn't include the GRE ones yet, so I only needed like half of that after EC reviewed my GRE score.

So from that I guess you could say the key was the 21 credits from the GRE (well actually only 18 counted because I already took 'intro psychology')

To prepare for the GRE I got the princeton review GRE prep guide (it's the thinnest one by far ), and studied a few hours a day. I think there were around 20 chapters so I gave myself 1-2 days to memorize each chapter. Basically I read through the whole guide once and then from there I would spend a couple hours in the morning making flashcards from a chapter and then I would do whatever for the rest of the day, taking a few breaks here and there to review the cards, then an hour or so at night making sure I had them all memorized. Then before going to sleep I would read the next chapter so it'd be kind of in my head for the next morning when I'd make flashcards for it. Each successive day you'll have more and more flashcard piles, you'd review the one from 'yesterday' almost as many times as 'today's' and the one from 'the day before that' you'd review less and so on and so forth, just enough to keep it in your memory. The key was taking breaks and not wearing yourself out, also you have to not get frustrated with yourself, you only need to memorize to the point of recognition not recall (it's a multiple choice test) but make sure you understand concepts.

-Keep in mind this is the 'one-month' study program that didn't net me full credit so I'm sure if you gave yourself more time you'd do better than I did.

After the GRE went to EC I got my english composition requirement waived by showing them some papers i've written before(it took nearly a month for them to get back to me, in fact it was one of the last requirements I completed), took the INL102 information literacy requirement in a few hours and then was left with 19 credits needed(one would've been LA490, but as I mentioned earlier I didn't want to wait) I took 4 UL psych exams with barely any studying because of the studying I had already done for the GRE, just a run through of the IC cards. Then for the rest I must credit the secret to IC, I took 3 Dantes tests in one sitting - MIS, Substance abuse, and statistics. I used only IC for like a week for those 3 and that's it, that was my degree.

[jadechow]

Wow! That's impressive. And a true testament to what you can really accomplish if you set your mind to something. You did an amazing job!!

So, Japan? That's totally cool. That is one place I have always wanted to visit but haven't gotten around to yet. I think the "language barrier" scares me. I have seen Lost in Translation twice - as close as I'll probably get to Japan for a while. hilarious

[happymeal79]

I'd like to recreate that scene where they get chased out of the place with a bb gun or whatever that was, oh and what did he whisper to her in the end damnit!
But about the language thing, it's the opposite for me, the language barrier exists so that I can break through it. I think it'd be amazing to learn another language and since I've always had an interest in Japan, it's two birds with one stone. Immersion is the number one way to learn a language. Plus I like the whole idea of being completely alone in some unknown place . And thanks again for the kind words, I'm sure anyone could do it if they wanted to though.

[P00057870]

Thank you so much HappyMeal for all of your suggestions. You did a remarkable thing in getting your degree so quickly and Japan should be a life-changing experience.

I had not considered the GRE but since I will be putting in that much study time anyway, I guess I really need to consider this as a possibility and I could really use the advantage of saving money. Who couldn't.

My question is that I have already taken Intro to Psych, Lifespan Development, and Educational Psych -- How would this affect the possible GRE scoring?

Judy

[happymeal79]

Your GRE subject exam score will give you credits on a sliding scale, it depends on your percentile score so if you get in the 30 percentile you get 3 credits, and if you get in the 80 percentile you get 30 credits. The first 12 credits are lower level and the rest are upper level. I got 21 credits, which should be 12 LL and 9UL, but i already took intro into psychology so I actually only got 9 LL and 9 UL. If you get the full 30 credits it would override all your previous classes i think because it's a full major requirement out of the way. But if you only get partial credit like I did, it'll depend, any lower level credit will probably get overridden, but not all UL will, or perhaps none at all, I'm not completely sure how it works. I tried asking, believe me, I wanted to start testing before they got my GRE's in hand (even though I told them the score and they told me how many credits i'd get) but they couldn't tell me which classes I could take that wouldn't 'double up' until they actually put the GRE into my transcript. All they could tell me beforehand was that the credits don't line up with specific classes...

Also some added suggestions to my "study guide." Concepts are most important! The questions rarely test you on rote memory. Also if you decide to use the princeton review guide, try using another source too. Don't get me wrong, princeton review's cracking the gre was very good. I mean, it got me from taking one previous intro class to getting a decent score in a month, but I had the thing completely memorized and ran into a lot of things I had never heard of, so another source would be a good thing. If I had given myself more than a month I would definitely have thrown in another source. I heard the Kaplan one is a nice compliment to the princeton one, but I wouldn't know, you'd probably be better off reading amazon reviews.

Btw, I think April is a good time to take it, less students take it then, and since your percentile score is more important than your actual score this matters. For instance, most "serious" students want to take their test in the fall and as early as possible which is october, fewer take the next one offered (november) and even fewer in the spring. This is just based on when they would usually apply to grad school and from seeing most of my 'serious minded' friends take the earliest fall one when i was in school. In any case, when I took the test in October and scored a 650 i was only in the 64th percentile while someone on this board took the later test and got a 670 and was in the 77th percentile. Of course the difference could be in the difficulty of the test itself, but I think my theory plays a role as well.