Some Guidance in My Degree Plan...Please

[JKSahara17]

Hi Everyone, I am new to the forum and I was hoping to get some additional guidance for my degree plan.  

Prior to discovering this forum, I spoke with an admissions person at Excelsior and she recommended that I have ECE do a course by course evaluation of my previous junior college credits that I had obtained while living in Canada many many years ago, thankfully TESU uses ECE also.

ECE’s final judgement was that I had the equivalent of one year of undergraduate study. I took the transcript they sent me and put the evaluation breakdown with the courses, credits and grades in a spreadsheet along with the great degree plans provided by bjcheung77 (thank you!) for both the BALS and BSBA(GM). 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing

While I was waiting for the ECE eval to come back, I completed ALEKS Trigonometry, Business Stats, Intermediate Algebra and College Algebra and added those to my ACE transcript. I also completed my first SL course, Intro to Religion and The Institutes Ethics course as well.

I applied to TESU first at the start of the week. Initially, my plan was to work towards the TESU BSBA(GM) degree following bjcheung77 plan but now I'm thinking that maybe the BALS might get me ever so slightly closer depending on which of my credits from Canada they would accept and how they are applied to my degree plan. I know that some of you have more experience with how prior course credits transfer...would love to get your thoughts.

Also, when I initially spoke with the Excelsior admissions representative, she told me that their BS in Liberal Arts was hands down the most flexible degree out there but, from what I’ve gathered since then, it really doesn’t seem any more flexible or quicker to complete than TESU’s BALS. Am I correct in saying that or am I missing something?

[bjcheung77]

For the BALS, I would highly recommend doing ALL the FREE courses and do a couple more ALEKS courses and a majority of the Shmoop courses. These will all be non proctored and the cheapest/easiest/fastest courses for your BALS degree. Then end your courses with Straighterline. Here's an example of the 94 credits I have from Straighterline alone.

Accounting I: 93%
Accounting II: 89%
American Government: 83%
Anatomy & Physiology I: 85%
Anatomy & Physiology II: 84%
Business Comm: 86%
Business Law: 84%
Business Statistics: 85%
Cultural Anthropology: 89%
Economics I: Macroeconomics: 90%
Economics II: Microeconomics: 90%
Eng Comp I: 93%
Eng Comp II: 93%
Financial Accounting: 91%
General Chemistry: 76%
Intro to Biology: 81%
Intro to Comm: 86%
Intro to Criminal Justice: 95%
Intro to Environmental Sciences: 93%
Intro to Nutrition: 85%
Intro to Programming C++: 81%
Intro to Psychology: 85%
Intro to Religion: 95%
Intro to Sociology: 86%
IT Fundamentals: 84%
Managerial Accounting: 79%
Medical Terminology: 99%
Microbiology: 82%
Organizational Behavior: 90%
Principles of Management: 91%
Survey of World History: 78%
--Intro to Statistics: 65% (D, sadly not transferable as it didn't reach 70% or higher, took SL Business Stats and got 85%)

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One more reason you want to do more of the FREE credits/ALEKS/Shmoop is because, you have 20 credits general education electives and 27 FREE electives you can practically choose any course for these (as long as it's transferable).

Take all you can from the mentioned (FREE/ALEKS/Shmoop) and again, finish the degree with whatever SL courses you can get to transfer to the BALS. I see you're in Canada, if you really need, subscribe to Study.com and take 2 courses only, get the affiliate pricing/cornerstone waiver and a cheaper tuition for the final capstone course.

PM me if you need further info, I have a few customized templates for some people, it may work for you as well...

[Ideas]

Here's an example of the 94 credits I have from Straighterline alone.

The limit isn't 90?

[bjcheung77]

The limit is 90 for one source, I just took SL C++ for 4 extra credits and for fun, it wasn't for the degree.
I wanted to learn more programming and that was the course that got me started... took the longest too!
I'm still learning to program as we speak as I really had a hard time with it... I did poorly in the final.

[dfrecore]

Well, obviously EC is going to tell you that their school is the best school for you, and I'm sure their BSLA is "the most flexible degree" on the planet.  But, they aren't the cheapest, and they require 30cr of UL, which is harder to get than TESU's 12-18cr of UL for their degrees.  TESU's BALS is just as flexible in my opinion, especially considering all of your credits are Gen Ed's, with a couple of free electives.

Anyway, I happen to be a little biased toward TESU just because I think they are easier to manage - very clear direction on what counts where.  But that's also because of this forum - so many people get evals, and then let us know what comes in as what, so I have a 1000-line spreadsheet with course equivalencies for most of them.

The spreadsheets you got from BJCheung are actually mine, with his revisions, so I'll give you an updated copy of the BSBA in GM, with your particular courses in it.  The one I'm not sure of is the Essay Writing course, which may come in as English Comp I, in which case you shouldn't take English Comp I - you would need to get an eval through TESU to see what they bring that in as.  Other than that, I'm pretty good at putting courses in the right places, and think I have yours correct.

If you want the BALS instead, it won't make a ton of difference, but will give you a little more room in the free electives area.  You'll need more UL credits (15 + capstone) as opposed to the 12cr of UL required for the BSBA, all in the AOS.

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For the BALS, I would highly recommend doing ...a couple more ALEKS courses

TESU will only accept the 4 ALEKS courses you did, so don't waste any time and money doing anything else there.

[JKSahara17]

Really helpful. Guess I will see how the TESU eval comes back but in the meantime I have a better idea of what direction
with the courses I should focus on next. Thank you all so much for this!