The official guide to courses from the Big Three: COSC, TESU, & Excelsior

[jsh1138]

Provider: Excelsior
Course: Uexcel World Conflicts Since 1900
Instructor: NA
Course content: there's a study guide on Study.com or another one on the Excelsior site
Final exam format: 113 Multiple Choice Questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: I didn't think it lined up that well. See below
Time taken on course: I spent about 3 days brushing up on my knowledge of 20th century conflicts, which was already pretty good because of other History courses I've taken
Familiarity with subject before course: I've taken US History 2, the LL and UL Vietnam War courses, etc.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: I found the exam to focus very very heavily on the theory of international relations as opposed to facts about the 20th century's armed conflicts. In fact I would go so far as to say that this is more of a political course than a history course. Your mileage may vary but my final had 1 question about Vietnam, 2-3 on Korea, maybe 3 on WW2, maybe 3 on WW1, etc. Probably had 6 on Sierra Leone. Had at least a dozen on bipolar vs multipolar international models plus another dozen on realist vs liberalism conceptual models of international relations. Lots of questions about the 90's conflict in Yugoslavia. Lots of questions about NGO's and the role of the UN. So just bear in mind when you study for this that you need to lean real heavy on those areas.
1-10 Difficulty level: 5ish. If I had gone into this cold I would have known all the questions on WW1, all the questions on WW2, all the questions on Vietnam, all the questions on Korea, and all the questions on the Cold War, and I would have probably still failed it. Me brushing up on the international theory and Yugoslavia is what made the difference between the A that I got and an F.

[mike Joseph]

I need 15 UL courses to finish my BA in Liberal Arts, and Capstone. I'm close for Criminal Justice, as well but this would be quicker. 
Are there any courses on SL or Study.com that would fill the upper courses needed? Also, are there any course that I could test out of with TESU? I was looking at Abnormal Psychology, Marketing Communications MAN 373, Mar-321. I just want the fastest route. Thanks for any advise you can provide.

[jsh1138]

Study.com has a ton of UL courses. Straighterline has very few, maybe 2.

If you want to test out of courses with TESU, you can take the Tecep tests. Some of them are UL. I took a couple and reviewed them here. Also the Uexcel tests from Excelsior are similar and some are UL, but with the Uexcel you have to go to a testing center and the Teceps let you test at home if you want, so I prefer those. TESU won't let you take more than 15 credits in a term so there's a limit there, not sure if there is one for Uexcels.

It's personal preference but if you have a webcam at home I would bet you could do 5 UL courses on Study.com in a month and transfer them over without any problem. Or you could do a mix of all three. It's just up to you and what you feel confident in.

[jsh1138]

I took this test last year but just thought I'd migrate it from the other review thread:

Provider: Excelsior
Course: Uexcel/Study.com Business 221: Business Information Systems
Course content: Standard Study.com stuff
Final exam format: 120 Multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: big problems, see below
Time taken on course: 3 days maybe
Familiarity with subject before course: i've taken other business courses that covered maybe half the material before this course
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: I decided to use Study.com's course to prepare for taking the Uexcel test at a local college. I did fine on the study.com material and had no problems with the practice questions provided by Excelsior for free. I did not take a practice test. When I sat down to take the test for real I discovered to my horror that maybe 20% of the material was totally foreign to me. Several things I not only didnt know, I had literally never heard of before. There is obviously a gap in the design of the study.com material & the actual test. I had heard similar complaints about other study.com/uexcel match ups in the past so I was not totally surprised by this; I had thought my command of the subject matter was strong enough that it wouldn't matter if it happened and that it probably wouldnt happen anyway.

I got a C on the test and I consider myself lucky to have done that well. If I try another Uexcel test I will prepare for it some other way


Difficulty level: i'd say maybe 3 or 4 if you're properly prepared

[withrown]

Provider: cosc
Course: BUS 499 CAPSTONE
Instructor: neil mather
Course content: 1 paper 2 group projects discussion posts
Final exam format: none
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: n/a
Time taken on course: Assignment weeks 3-5 hours, discussion board post weeks 1-1.5
before course: all other classes for the bsba in general management
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: With two weeks left, I feel this is a very doable class, do not fear it. I'll say it's easy with one caveat - at this point in your degree everything your being asked to do is just a retread of what you learned or crammed along the way. 

1-10 Difficulty level: 1.5 - 2. I've taken a handful of B&M business classes and generally they grade papers more on content than mechanics.  This class is no different. Now I don't mean turn in a rough draft but, follow the rubric and then send it to tutor.com and you should be golden. To give a comparison, In the cornerstone class I felt the papers were graded harsher but the instructor didn't really care about what you wrote about. As long as you stayed vaguely on topic you could just make things up.

I had a pet peeve but it was minor.

[akr680]

Dear All,

How hard is COSC cornerstone and Capstone?

How many papers do we need to submit?

Are there any exams along with assignments?

[jsh1138]

Provider: Thomas Edison
Course: Communications 100: Communication Theory
Instructor: Robert Dew
Course content: There's a textbook and that's about it
Final exam format: You have to write a 2000 word paper and do a power point
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The paper is about the course content, the power point is about the paper
Time taken on course: 12 weeks
Familiarity with subject before course: This was one of my last classes for my communications BA
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: this is a 12 week course with 15 assignments. You have to do the final paper/power point and you have to do a podcast. Other than that it's very easy with the rest of the assignments being class discussions or 500 word papers.
1-10 Difficulty level: 1. You could probably pass this course without opening the textbook. It's an intro level course and not complicated at all.

[jsh1138]

Provider: Thomas Edison
Course: Communications 121: Intro to Mass Communications II
Instructor: Janis McFaul
Course content: There's a textbook. Most of your assignments come from that
Final exam format: 8 page paper
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: You have to do an outline beforehand so you won't get too far from that
Time taken on course: Not a ton. This is a 12 week course and there are 13 assignments. You generally have 1 a week and it will take you 30 min tops. This is a 100 level course
Familiarity with subject before course: I took Intro to Mass Communications I so pretty familiar
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This is a simple level 100 course. If you just do the assignments you will be fine. Ms. McFaul is obsessed with templates and will dock your assignments if you don't use the template for that assignment, just fyi.
1-10 Difficulty level: 1. Couldn't be easier

---

Provider: Thomas Edison
Course: Communications 339: The Story of Human Language
Instructor: Douglas Hoehn
Course content: There's a textbook. Most of your assignments come from that
Final exam format: 7 page paper
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: You have to do an outline beforehand so you won't get too far from that
Time taken on course: Not a ton. This is a 12 week course and there are 16 assignments. There's a midterm paper and a final paper, those take a little time
Familiarity with subject before course: Not alot
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: If you read the course description, you might get the idea that this course is about how language is created. It's not. It is more of a technical speech pathology course in the sense that it spends a ton of time on what parts of your mouth make what noises and things like that. A little bit of time is spent on animal language and how words in a language are formed from words from other languages and stuff like that. I wanted the course to mostly be that stuff so I was disappointed.
1-10 Difficulty level: 3 maybe. The technical stuff is a little tricky because you have to learn a bunch of new words. Other than that it's not hard.

[jsh1138]

Provider: Thomas Edison
Course: LIB-495 Liberal Arts Capstone
Instructor: James Cody
Course content: There's a textbook but you don't really use it. All your work is assigned by the professor
Final exam format: 25 page paper and a 10 min oral presentation
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Written assignments 1-4 are basically your paper's rough draft. Written assignment 5 is basically your presentation's rough draft
Time taken on course: It depends. If you're familiar with Power Point and writing papers, not a ton.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Professor Cody is very easy to work with. As always with online classes, do not fall behind or you're in trouble.
1-10 Difficulty level: Depends on how hard you think a presentation and paper are

[bjcheung77]

@jsh1138, you took the LIB-495 Liberal Arts Capstone again? I know for two different degrees, it would require different capstones. I recall going for a second degree in the same school requires another capstone, but don't recall/think they would have required one for someone who may have graduated a year or two ago. I forget the regulations or rules now, I am getting old...

So for example, if someone graduates with a BA History/Psych this Sept, they'll need to redo the capstone for graduating with a BA CS/Math for say a later term such as January 2023? Nothing in the Capstone would have changed in that short of a time! I would say - yes, redo the capstone if someone graduate in say 2018 and coming back for a new degree as they changed the inhouse textbook to another one, but only after one semester or term...