TESC New Requirements --- Division of Credits Question

[Daithi]

According to the BA in Liberal Studies Credit Distribution you need to meet various requirements in section "I. General Education Requirements". For example, one of the requirements is a "Responsible Ethical Leadership" course. This could be met with the "Business Ethics and Society" DSST which is transcribed as PHI-384 and is an upper level course. However, is there any advantage to planning an upper level course in this section?

You need 18 upper level credits. However, according to the Credit Distribution, these are supposed to fall into section "II. Area of Study: Liberal Studies". This was the case in the past as well, but it was easy enough to move courses around. With the new requirements, the breakdown of courses in section "I. General Education Requirements" are more limited in terms of choices, so it is harder to move courses around and simultaneously meet both the Upper Level requirements and the specific course requirements.

On the other hand, if the college guidance counselor (or whatever they're called) only cares if you have 18 UL credits spread out through the whole degree plan then there isn't a problem. So, does anyone know how these requirements are actually being enforced?

[prateeksg]

I can't give you an answer backed up by information from an advisor, but I'm fairly sure the 18 UL credits have to be taken within your area of study. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like any there's any tests out there at the moment to satisfy the Responsible Ethical Leadership requirement other than the Business Ethics DSST.

What this means is that if you were using just DSST exams alone, you'd need 5 more 3-credit tests to satisfy the UL area of study requirements (the last 3 UL credits are covered by your capstone). I believe at moment, DSST has 7 such UL tests available;

U Money and Banking 3 ECO-332-DE
U Organizational Behavior 3 MAN-311-DE (Communications?) Social Science
U Introduction to World Religions 3 REL-405-DE Diversity/Global Li
U History of the Vietnam War 3 HIS-351-DE
U Intro to Modern Middle East 3 HIS-309-DE
U Rise and Fall of the USSR 3 HIS-386-DE
U Substance Abuse 3 SOS-305-DE

And if find yourself wanting more options for UL Liberal Arts credits, UExcel has plenty of credits too:
UEXCEL - TESC Equivalency

[Prloko]

According to the BA in Liberal Studies Credit Distribution you need to meet various requirements in section "I. General Education Requirements". For example, one of the requirements is a "Responsible Ethical Leadership" course. This could be met with the "Business Ethics and Society" DSST which is transcribed as PHI-384 and is an upper level course. However, is there any advantage to planning an upper level course in this section?

You need 18 upper level credits. However, according to the Credit Distribution, these are supposed to fall into section "II. Area of Study: Liberal Studies". This was the case in the past as well, but it was easy enough to move courses around. With the new requirements, the breakdown of courses in section "I. General Education Requirements" are more limited in terms of choices, so it is harder to move courses around and simultaneously meet both the Upper Level requirements and the specific course requirements.

On the other hand, if the college guidance counselor (or whatever they're called) only cares if you have 18 UL credits spread out through the whole degree plan then there isn't a problem. So, does anyone know how these requirements are actually being enforced?

I read through the catalog a couple days ago, and the intent behind the new Gen Ed requirements is to incorporate the liberal arts "throughout" the curriculum, which in my opinion means both lower and upper level courses. So I believe it was their intent to have upper level gen ed requirements.

When I run "what-ifs" through TESC's academic eval, it doesn't seem to accept business ethics DSST as the philosophy requirement. Maybe it's just a computer error, but have you gotten conformation that the DSST counts?

[sanantone]

According to the BA in Liberal Studies Credit Distribution you need to meet various requirements in section "I. General Education Requirements". For example, one of the requirements is a "Responsible Ethical Leadership" course. This could be met with the "Business Ethics and Society" DSST which is transcribed as PHI-384 and is an upper level course. However, is there any advantage to planning an upper level course in this section?

You need 18 upper level credits. However, according to the Credit Distribution, these are supposed to fall into section "II. Area of Study: Liberal Studies". This was the case in the past as well, but it was easy enough to move courses around. With the new requirements, the breakdown of courses in section "I. General Education Requirements" are more limited in terms of choices, so it is harder to move courses around and simultaneously meet both the Upper Level requirements and the specific course requirements.

On the other hand, if the college guidance counselor (or whatever they're called) only cares if you have 18 UL credits spread out through the whole degree plan then there isn't a problem. So, does anyone know how these requirements are actually being enforced?

The 18 UL credits are still supposed to be in the area of study. If you happen to have UL credits in gen ed, then that's by choice. Nothing says that ethics has to be an UL course. I don't think TESC came up with the gen ed requirements with CBEs in mind. If you have to take 7 UL tests instead of 6, I don't think it's really a big deal. EC and COSC have more UL requirements while accepting fewer exams as UL.

[Daithi]

Thanks Sanantone (and Prloko), and yes, I know that 7 courses vs. 6 courses isn't a big deal. However, when I asked the question I limited it to just one example so as to make the question easy understand. In reality, I had been designing a degree plan under the new requirements, and I had several upper level courses in the general ed section (not just the one I gave as an example). Then I realized that TESC probably wanted them in the area of study section, but if I moved them to that section then I lost the specific exam requirements in the general ed section. So my question was more general in nature and not specific to a single test.

It really isn't that big a deal. I can make things work, but I lose some flexibility if only Upper Level courses that fall into the area of study section are counted as upper level courses. I get the impression from the way you responded to my question that you thought I was complaining. That wasn't the case. I was just trying to determine the correct way to design a degree plan. Thus my question.

If indeed the the upper level courses in the general ed section aren't counted towards the 18 UL credit requirement, then other people trying to design a degree plan may also find this information useful.

Prloko, in terms of the business ethics DSST, I took the corresponding straighterline business ethics course, and this was how it was transcribed for me. It is my understanding that they will transcribe it as a business course if you are a business major but are willing to transcribe it as a philosophy course otherwise (I don't know if this has changed).

[sanantone]

Is that because you already had a lot of credits before the change? It looks like all of the gen ed can be done with LL tests except for ethics.

[Daithi]

No. The old catalog applies to my degree. I was just putting together a generic degree plan for the fun of it. I wanted to see what I could put together that would meet the TECEP requirements for the "per credit tuition" plan, plus that would meet all the other degree requirements, and take advantage of as many 6 credit CLEPs as possible. Basically, I was trying to design the lowest cost degree that I could.

In designing the degree, I started by trying to kill two birds with one stone. I purposely used upper level courses that would satisfy the specific course requirements and would also satisfy the upper level requirements. When I got to the area of study section I realized that the approach I was taking was probably wrong. As I read the requirements, it became apparent that they wanted all the upper level courses in the area of study section (at least that is how I interpret it). If TESC doesn't count upper level courses done in the general ed section as applying to the 18 upper level credits requirement then there was no advantage to my attempting to kill two birds with one stone.

I wasn't sure if my interpretation was correct, which is why I asked my initial question. I was hoping someone would say something like "TESC counted my ethics course as an upper level course even though it was done as part of my general ed requirements". I like the idea of being able to take upper level courses in ethics, and diversity, and social science and have them count as upper level courses even though they are also satisfying my general ed requirements. Not counting them as upper level courses actually encourages students to take easier introductory courses instead of the upper level courses.

BTW, I believe you can use the Ethics in America DSST as the ethics course and that one is a lower level course, so I can do all the courses in general ed with lower level courses.

[sanantone]

I couldn't remember if Ethics in America was LL or UL. I'm pretty sure TESC is firm on this. The UL requirements have to be in the area of study.

[Prloko]

I couldn't remember if Ethics in America was LL or UL. I'm pretty sure TESC is firm on this. The UL requirements have to be in the area of study.

On my Eval, Ethics in America transcribed as PHI-287.