Shmoop Just Added 12 Literature Courses to Their College Courses

[dfrecore]

I still think it's going to be hard to get that BA in Lit with these courses. There is no survey of Lit I & II, no non-western Lit, and we don't know if any of these courses are going to come in as UL.

But, it's still nice to have all these options.

[dfrecore]

This doesn't really fit in this thread, but it kind of does because mednat mentioned the BA in English being easier now with these Shmoop courses, so I'm going to ask here anyway. My end goal is to get a degree because one is needed for better jobs teaching English overseas where I live and plan to stay. Any degree will help greatly, but there are better jobs and more variety with a relevant degree like English, Linguistics and so on. My plan was to just get the BSBA because it is the fastest and probably easiest for someone going in without any credits and also avoids the $1500 capstone.

Saying all that, my main question is this: would it make sense for me to also get an AA since I will already be paying the residency waiver and graduation fee for the BSBA? I won't be able to do the capstone this year because of finances and I already paid the yearly fee for Study.com so I have to keep going with the BSBA at this point. However, a BA in English would seem to be fairly easy goal in the near future if these Shmoop courses will work towards that and it would make a lot more sense for my end goals.

Is there something I am missing or can I just tell TESU that I also want to go for the AA at the same time? Are there extra fees? Will it even matter in the future that I have the AA if I do move forward for the BA at some point or will I just send in my transcripts like normal and just have those slots filled and there not really be any advantage? I know I read a thread on here that said some people just like to get the extra associate's just for their own recognition and I think it would be kind of cool for myself to have a degree in both Science and Arts even if the AA is pretty pointless.

To add: another cool thing for me would be to be able to tell my parents that I essentially have two degrees no matter how powerful they each are. They were not able to go to college because of circumstances and I think they would be just a little more proud if I said I got the Bachelor's plus an additional Associate's.

You can certainly get an AA (and an ASBA) on the way to your BSBA, but I don't think it will make a lot of difference. But if you want to hit that intermediate goal as davewill suggested, that's not a terrible plan. I just personally don't see an AA making much of a difference, and I would hate to pay the $2000 residency waiver, not finish up in a year, and then have to pay it again to get your BA/BS later (assuming that you would have to pay, which I am completely unsure of at this point as to whether or not there is a 1-year time limit or not).

But if it motivates you, by all means, grab it on your way. You could do the ASBA instead (or as well).

[KayV]

I went through the PLA database and compared course descriptions with the new Shmoop offerings. Of course, we won't know until someone tries to get them transcripted, but here's what I found:

Shmoop (College)/ [TESU PLA Database]
American Literature (College)/ [American Literature LIT-205]
British Literature (College)/ [English Literature LIT-208]
Contemporary Literature (College)/ [Contemporary Fiction ENG-387]
Drugs in Literature (College)/ [probably an ENG- or LIT-299 or -399]
Holocaust Literature (College)/ [The Holocaust I ENG-301]
Introduction to Poetry (College)/ [Poetry I ENG-246]
Literature in the Media (College)/ [closest was Literature and Film ENG-347]
Modernist Literature (College)/ [probably an ENG- or LIT-399]
Shakespeare's Plays (College)/ [Shakespeare I LIT-320]
The Bible as Literature (College)/ [Biblical Literature I LIT-242]
Western Literature (College)/ [Literary Works in Western Culture LIT-202]
Women's Literature (College)/ [Women in Literature LIT-323]




Also, I think that this really might be a game changer for the TESU BA in English.

1. Survey I and II for 6 hours: CLEP American Literature 6 or CLEP English Literature 6
(Has TESU stopped accepting the CLEPs for these?)

2. Analysis and Interpretation of Literature 3: CLEP A&I Lit 6 (also fulfills Info Lit requirement)

3. Non Western Lit > Complete one Non-Western Literature course (non-British; non-American)
I think you could make a case for Bible as Literature (or even Holocaust Lit) being “non-British; non-American,” but there’s also University of Texas Extension World Lit for $550.
World Literature | University Extension, The University of Texas at Austin

5. LIB-495 Liberal Arts Capstone 3

6. After the Capstone, you would need 15 hours of upper level credits and 18 hours of English electives total. If Bible as Literature counted as non-western lit at 200 level, you could use the other upper levels listed above to complete the UL requirements.

7. And you might as well take the rest of them to fill up those general ed and free elective slots.


As I said above, we won't know until we see it, but I think this really does sound promising.

[KayV]

And of course, I would wait until ACE actually has these in their database before taking any of these courses.

[ndelco]

You can certainly get an AA (and an ASBA) on the way to your BSBA, but I don't think it will make a lot of difference. But if you want to hit that intermediate goal as davewill suggested, that's not a terrible plan. I just personally don't see an AA making much of a difference, and I would hate to pay the $2000 residency waiver, not finish up in a year, and then have to pay it again to get your BA/BS later (assuming that you would have to pay, which I am completely unsure of at this point as to whether or not there is a 1-year time limit or not).

But if it motivates you, by all means, grab it on your way. You could do the ASBA instead (or as well).

How does it work with using the same courses for two degrees? I just need new courses for the area of study which would be 33 credits for the BA English? Can I reuse electives?

[alleycat]

These new course offering are going to be useful for people seeking Humanities degrees also. It will be helpful if some are upper level.

[dfrecore]

How does it work with using the same courses for two degrees? I just need new courses for the area of study which would be 33 credits for the BA English? Can I reuse electives?

It depends on the first degree and the second degree. For the AA to a BA, then you just add onto the AA with another 60cr.

If you were going to get the BSBA then the BA in English (or something like that), then that's getting a 2nd Bachelor's degree, and you would have to do 24cr additional in the area of study. So you would do the BSBA, and get all of the Gen Ed requirements done, and all of the BSBA AOS requirements. Then, you would wait until the degree was conferred before taking any additional courses, and then after your degree came, you could start taking the 24cr additional that you need for the BA in English.

[dfrecore]

I went through the PLA database and compared course descriptions with the new Shmoop offerings. Of course, we won't know until someone tries to get them transcripted, but here's what I found:

1. Survey I and II for 6 hours: CLEP American Literature 6 or CLEP English Literature 6


3. Non Western Lit > Complete one Non-Western Literature course (non-British; non-American)
I think you could make a case for Bible as Literature (or even Holocaust Lit) being “non-British; non-American,” but there’s also University of Texas Extension World Lit for $550.
World Literature | University Extension, The University of Texas at Austin

As I said above, we won't know until we see it, but I think this really does sound promising.

I didn't realize that the Am Lit or English Lit courses were the "survey" courses they were talking about, so that's good to know.

I'm not sure if Holocaust Lit would count as non-western, since most of that happened in Europe. But maybe bible would work, if so, that would be great.

[mednat]

I doubt that it will count As nonwestern lit. Europe is typically considered western. My understanding of it is the way it's designated isn't so much geographical as cultural (Australian lit is usually western). Hopefully im wrong!

[KayV]

For the purposes of the English degree, TESU describes Non-western Lit like this:

Non Western Lit > Complete one Non-Western Literature course (non-British; non-American)

and that is why I hope that Bible as Literature (or Holocaust Lit) would count as non-Western, although I usually don't count it as such. We shall see.

I hope they will publish a course called Non-Western Literature soon, and they might as well add a Literary Theory and a general Survey of Literature, along with Research and Writing in English/ Humanities. I think that would cover everyone from TESU/ COSC/ Excelsior.