TESC CJ Questions & Introduction

[saintanky]

Good evening.

I just sent in for my Thomas Edison academic evaluation for a 2nd Bachelors in Criminal Justice. I already have a Bachelors and Masters in Biology from earlier, 26 FEMA credits through Frederick Community College (I'm doing their AAS program also) and am taking the DSST (Intro to Law Enforcement, Criminal Justice, Substance Abuse) within the next week and a half. Based on my past coursework, I should have all of the non-major requirements out of the way, and FEMA and the 3 DSSTs should give me a decent start.

I read through the great CJ degree plans on this forum. My only concern is that many of them use Penn Foster quite heavily. This is totally fine, but might not work for me. I am currently a government employee working towards this degree so I can get promoted into the criminal enforcement division of my agency, and the HR department can be quite psychotic and petty. While the degree is accredited, if HR sees some of the classes (they analyze class by class on the transcript) are from for profit schools like Penn Foster then they might not accept that.

One other question. I have never served as a police officer, but through my job I do write a lot of reports for civil enforcement actions. I was wondering if anybody has ever passed the TESC prior learning assessment AOJ 115-Report Writing for Police despite not being a cop? I certainly have the equivalent experience, but have never been a sworn officer. I wrote to the PLA folks at TESC and got a bunch of canned messages back that didn't really help.

So, besides this, where would you start? I was planning on getting the results back of the eval and basically going to work on random TESC AOJ courses. Unless anybody knows of other DSST or CLEP exams that count towards that CJ major.

Thanks for your great help. This is a very informative forum.

[skyfall123]

Since you are going to have to take the CJ courses anyway (if PF is out) why not consider one of the top CJ programs in the nation.

FSU Online - Prospective Online Students - Undergraduate Programs - Criminology

or better yet why not enroll in their Masters CJ FSU Online - Prospective Online Students - Graduate Programs - Criminology

[sanantone]

A local community college would be the cheapest option. If you don't have a community college in your district that offers online courses, then look at Central Texas College. It would have been much cheaper not to have obtained your associate's at FCC. You could have knocked out a bachelor's and associate's at TESC for one enrollment fee and TESC does not charge for the acceptance of FEMA credits. It would have only cost you an extra $272 to apply for graduation for the associate's instead of the thousands that is probably being spent at FCC.

[saintanky]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions.

Yeah, I agree about the community colleges for some of the CJ courses. The thing about FCC was I already had all of the degree requirements transfer in with the exception of the FEMA classes, so while I did have to pay the $75 for each of them, the rest of it was pretty much cost free. I wish I would have known about transferring the CEU transcript from FEMA directly to TESC though, since that may have eliminated the need to do an AAS and I could have saved about $1700 at FCC transferring in. But hey, live and learn, and I do have FCC under my belt, so I have that going for me, which is nice.

Anyway, I assume that DSST-Substance Abuse (SOS-305) will transfer in as a CJ Criminal Behavior class for the major? I have not had the evaluation come back yet. I figure it will be another month or two (they finally acknowledged my transcripts yesterday). Also, has anybody done the PLA for AOJ-115?

Thanks again.

[sanantone]

I believe Substance Abuse would count as a CJ elective. I didn't take the test, but I got credit for SOS-304 Drugs and Society and it was counted as a CJ elective. From my understanding, the criminal behavior requirement is covered by victimology or criminology.

[saintanky]

Yay! I got my passing scores on my 3 DSST tests (Intro LE, Criminal Justice, Substance Abuse). I'm thinking my next one should be (LAW-202-DE Business Law II (3)). That is the only CJ related DSST or CLEP exam left I can find. Then it's on to the program itself! This is so exciting. I could not have done it without the study guides on this website.

As a new person, I do wish TESC would list the courses that applied to each section of the degree program (CJ Electives) etc. I couldn't find it anywhere on the website or in the catalog.

[bricabrac]

Yay! I got my passing scores on my 3 DSST tests (Intro LE, Criminal Justice, Substance Abuse). I'm thinking my next one should be (LAW-202-DE Business Law II (3)). That is the only CJ related DSST or CLEP exam left I can find. Then it's on to the program itself! This is so exciting. I could not have done it without the study guides on this website.

As a new person, I do wish TESC would list the courses that applied to each section of the degree program (CJ Electives) etc. I couldn't find it anywhere on the website or in the catalog.

Maybe these two links will help? Thomas Edison State College | BA in Criminal Justice Credit Distribution and Thomas Edison State College/ Bachelor's Degree in Criminal Justice

[sanantone]

Yay! I got my passing scores on my 3 DSST tests (Intro LE, Criminal Justice, Substance Abuse). I'm thinking my next one should be (LAW-202-DE Business Law II (3)). That is the only CJ related DSST or CLEP exam left I can find. Then it's on to the program itself! This is so exciting. I could not have done it without the study guides on this website.

As a new person, I do wish TESC would list the courses that applied to each section of the degree program (CJ Electives) etc. I couldn't find it anywhere on the website or in the catalog.

Business Law will end up in free electives. I got credit from Law-201 Business Law I from a course I took and it ended up in free electives. The Research Methods in Psychology ECE might fulfill the Research Methods in Social Science requirement.