The official guide to self-study RA courses from ASU, BYU, UIdaho, etc.

[rachel83az]

Provider: ASU Earned Admissions
Course: CSE 110 - Programming for Everyone: Introduction to Programming
Course content: There are some videos at the beginning but it's mostly text + programming labs at ZyBooks.
Final exam format: 59 questions (proctored) + a final ZyBooks lab (unproctored)
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The proctored exam had a few minor curveballs due to my misreading the code samples but none of it was entirely unexpected.
Time taken on course: 15 weeks
Familiarity with subject before course: Some previous familiarity with Python (first half of the course & midterm), no familiarity with Java (second half & final).
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: A lot of the content was for 2 weeks at a time. I think this was to allow people to be able to take their time to grasp the concepts but it just made things more difficult for me. I would go through the content for a given week in 1 or 2 days and then have nothing to do for 12 or 13 days. Because of this, I'd forget things that were learned the previous week and have to review them before continuing onward. The two lowest grades for the programming labs are dropped from your final grade, which is great because I got frustrated with the last lab (arrays in Java) because I'd forgotten how the previous week (classes & objects) worked and just didn't bother to finish it. Splitting up the programming labs and/or having more programming labs would've helped alleviate the problem of forgetting. That said, while it is required that you take the proctored final in order to receive a grade, this is a course where it is possible to pass (with a C) before you even take that test. After finishing the unproctored portion of the final, I had a 73% in the class. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 6
Final grade: A

[MNomadic]

Provider: ASU Earned Admissions
Course: CSE 110 - Programming for Everyone: Introduction to Programming
Course content: There are some videos at the beginning but it's mostly text + programming labs at ZyBooks.
Final exam format: 59 questions (proctored) + a final ZyBooks lab (unproctored)
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The proctored exam had a few minor curveballs due to my misreading the code samples but none of it was entirely unexpected.
Time taken on course: 15 weeks
Familiarity with subject before course: Some previous familiarity with Python (first half of the course & midterm), no familiarity with Java (second half & final).
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: A lot of the content was for 2 weeks at a time. I think this was to allow people to be able to take their time to grasp the concepts but it just made things more difficult for me. I would go through the content for a given week in 1 or 2 days and then have nothing to do for 12 or 13 days. Because of this, I'd forget things that were learned the previous week and have to review them before continuing onward. The two lowest grades for the programming labs are dropped from your final grade, which is great because I got frustrated with the last lab (arrays in Java) because I'd forgotten how the previous week (classes & objects) worked and just didn't bother to finish it. Splitting up the programming labs and/or having more programming labs would've helped alleviate the problem of forgetting. That said, while it is required that you take the proctored final in order to receive a grade, this is a course where it is possible to pass (with a C) before you even take that test. After finishing the unproctored portion of the final, I had a 73% in the class. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 6
Final grade: A

I had a 99% going in to the last few assignments so I didn't even bother with the last 2 assignments since they would get dropped anyway. I was pretty worried about how that would impact my performance on the project portion of the final but was pleasantly surprised it didn't include any concepts from the last few weeks. 

I agree that the course structure didn't really work well for someone who finished their assignments in the first day or 2. Will be taking the proctored final tonight.

[ROYISAGIRL]

Provider: ASU EA

Course: CEE 181 Technological, Social and Sustainable Systems

Course content: The material consists of video lectures, assigned reading, Cerego, and weekly quizzes. You have deadlines to complete the quizzes and they only open after a certain day.

Final exam format: The final exam was multiple choice and it was based on the last three weeks of class. That was the only proctored exam.

Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Everything in the quizzes and exams was based on assigned readying, Cerego, and the lectures.

Time taken on course: The course is 8 weeks long and I spent about 2 hours a week on the course doing the quiz and the Cerego.

Familiarity with subject before course: I did have some familiarity. Any environmental or Sustainable courses will have some overlap.

Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This was my second course taken at ASU and I will say it's not the most interesting course, but if you like learning about sustainability then it's the course for you.

1-10 Difficulty level: 3

Final grade: B (I missed a quiz).

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[doom]

Provider: ASU EA
Course: MAT 210 - Brief Calculus
Course content: The course is delivered almost entirely through Gradarius online learning platform. Each topic (25 in total) includes a video lecture that is  partially interactive, in the sense that video pauses a couple of times and the student has to answer a question on the topic being explained in the lesson. There's also a link to a downloadable slide presentation next to each video.
Each video lecture ends with a guided, interactive exercise in preparation to the assignments. Assignments are graded and count for 5% of the overall grade and allow +oo attempts. There are 5 graded quizzes in total, about 10 questions each and max 3 attempts per question. Quizzes count for 15% of the final grade. There's also a Final Practice exam at the end of the course, 26 questions, +oo attempts per question.
Final exam format: 25 questions related to the entire course content. Two attempts per question (*).  Unlike other math exams at ASU, this exam is taken in Gradarius.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The exercises in the exam are very similar to those presented in the course, some of them slightly more difficult.
Time taken on course: 15 weeks, including finals week. I spent about 10 hours per week, slightly above the effort indicated in the syllabus (8-9 hours).
Familiarity with subject before course: I was familiar with most of the content.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: final lasts 3 hours (instead of 2 as indicated in the rubric). (*) However, although you have 2 attempts per question, you won't get answers graded until the course finals deadline is reached. In other words you won't know if your first attempt is correct or not. I know this is non-sense, but is the way it is.
1-10 Difficulty level: 7 - you need to get used to Gradarius, which in turns may save your life when it comes to boring calculations. I personally found Gradarius even more fun than ALEKS.
Final grade: A - I loved Prof. Jay Abramson's lectures. All the topics are explained clearly and are supported by useful examples and exercises.

[Suspiria]

Provider: ASU
Course: Technological, Social and Sustainable Systems
Course content: lectures, textbook, cerego, quizzes
Final exam format: Multiple choice
Time taken on course: 8 Weeks total. 2-3 hours a week on lectures and reading.
Familiarity with subject before course: None

Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: I liked the first week of the class only. I find the lectures to be dry, drawn out and sometimes an unnecessary and vague analysis on various concepts. I feel like I don't have the correct brain that is wired for this type of course though, so it may be better for others. There were a few terms and concepts I had to spend time googling and reading about just to understand the lecture and textbook. The quiz and exam questions are sometimes worded in ways that I have a hard time with.

1-10 Difficulty level: 5

Final grade: A (89%, but there was a grading curve which made this score an A)

[wow]

Provider: ASU EA
Course: Chemistry for Engineers
Course content: Course presented through videos and printable handouts. I did not read the handouts separately from the lectures the first few weeks, but in later weeks read them first and that helped a lot.
Final exam format: Multiple choice. 40-60 questions (I don't remember exactly)
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Covered entire course. No curve balls, but that doesn't mean I got everything right.
Time taken on course: Many hours each week. They recommended something like 18-23 hours a week and I was probably hitting that if you include watching the lectures.
Familiarity with subject before course: I took high school chemistry and college physics, but it's been a while
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This course was rough. It was done in 8 weeks; I think 16 weeks would have been better and allowed more time for processing the huge amount of info covered. The TA was responsive to questions, though. There was more atomic/subatomic physics than I would have expected, and a lot of it was stacked right at the front. Some weeks were easier than others. I struggled more in the weeks when Prof. Jones was the only lecturer--the way she presented information was not easy for me to digest. Later in the course I would focus on reading the handouts and then play her lectures on 2x after I had processed the concepts. That worked better. I probably only managed to complete the course because I really, really wanted to have a better understanding of chemistry and get a chemistry course on my transcript.
1-10 Difficulty level: 8
Final grade: A (I got a B or C on the final, but lab and weekly homework grades pulled the overall score up)

---

Provider: ASU Earned Admissions
Course: CSE 110 - Programming for Everyone: Introduction to Programming
Course content: There are some videos at the beginning but it's mostly text + programming labs at ZyBooks.
Final exam format: 59 questions (proctored) + a final ZyBooks lab (unproctored)
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The proctored exam had a few minor curveballs due to my misreading the code samples but none of it was entirely unexpected.
Time taken on course: 15 weeks
Familiarity with subject before course: Some previous familiarity with Python (first half of the course & midterm), no familiarity with Java (second half & final).
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: A lot of the content was for 2 weeks at a time. I think this was to allow people to be able to take their time to grasp the concepts but it just made things more difficult for me. I would go through the content for a given week in 1 or 2 days and then have nothing to do for 12 or 13 days. Because of this, I'd forget things that were learned the previous week and have to review them before continuing onward. The two lowest grades for the programming labs are dropped from your final grade, which is great because I got frustrated with the last lab (arrays in Java) because I'd forgotten how the previous week (classes & objects) worked and just didn't bother to finish it. Splitting up the programming labs and/or having more programming labs would've helped alleviate the problem of forgetting. That said, while it is required that you take the proctored final in order to receive a grade, this is a course where it is possible to pass (with a C) before you even take that test. After finishing the unproctored portion of the final, I had a 73% in the class. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 6
Final grade: A

Great evaluation! I just want to add that I loved their Q&A sessions on Zoom. They were done by one of the professors who designed the course, and there were three or four over the course. He was extremely helpful; watching participating in those helped me a lot with the midterm, final, and homework problems I'd gotten stuck on.

[jch]

Provider: ASU Universal Learner Courses
Course: ASM 246: Human Origins
Course content: Generally the standard ASU ULC format, with lecture videos, short readings, Cerego flashcards, and weekly quizzes. Two exams, each covering about half of the course. Optional but helpful discussions. My term did not include any live sessions. No written assignments. 
Final exam format: 50 Multiple choice or true/false questions, proctored. 
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The proctored final covered the last half of the course, sharing the quiz and Cerego question pool. Vague study guides were provided each week but weren't tremendously helpful. 
Time taken on course: About 7 hours/week for 7.5 weeks
Familiarity with subject before course: None
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This course contains a ton of information that can be hard to manage. Make sure you have strong study and notetaking skills before starting this course. I'd recommend against taking this as your first ASU ULC course - start with something a bit easier to get up to speed. 
The professor, Dr. Don Johanson, is a preeminent leader in this field. He has personally made some of the discoveries you will hear about in the course and communicates a clear passion and enjoyment of his work. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 4, driven by the numerous Latin names that you have to memorize
Final grade: High A


Provider: ASU Universal Learner Courses
Course: SOC 101: Introduction to Sociology
Course content: Generally the standard ASU ULC format, with lecture videos, short readings, Cerego flashcards, and weekly quizzes. Two exams, each covering about half of the course. Mandatory discussions via Yellowdig, participation graded based on word count. The two optional live sessions were helpful for review. 
Final exam format: About 50 Multiple choice and true/false questions, proctored. 
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Everything was covered very well by the lectures and readings, and overlapped a lot with the study guide, Cerego, and quiz items. 
Time taken on course: A few hours per week for 7.5 weeks
Familiarity with subject before course: None, although I quickly realized that many of the topics covered in Sociology are things I was already aware of. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: The course team provides an extremely helpful fill-in-the-blank study guide in each weekly overview. Follow along with that as you go through the course materials, and you will be all set for the quizzes and exams. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 1 - This is probably one of the easiest graded RA courses out there. It's a great place to start your ASU ULC experience. This course will introduce you to the platform while fulfilling a GenEd requirement. 
Final grade: High A


Provider: ASU Universal Learner Courses
Course: HEP 100: Introduction to Health and Wellness
Formerly EXW 100
Course content: Generally the standard ASU ULC format, with lecture videos, short readings, Cerego flashcards, simple multiple-choice case studies, and weekly quizzes. Two exams, each covering about half of the course. Mandatory discussions via Yellowdig, participation graded based on word count. My term did not include any live sessions. 
Final exam format: About 50 Multiple choice and true/false questions, proctored. 
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: High overlap with the quiz and Cerego question pools. A decent study guide is provided for each week and exam. 
Time taken on course: About 2-3 hours per week for 7.5 weeks. 
Familiarity with subject before course: Very high. I've been concerned with personal health, wellness, nutrition, and fitness for a long time. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: The first week is a bit rough, but after that, it's generally smooth sailing. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 2. A few of the weeks were somewhat intimidating, such as the section about all of the different types of nutrients during the nutrition module. Still, this course is a great place to start your ASU ULC experience. 
Final grade: High A


Provider: ASU Universal Learner Courses
Course: HST 102: Western Civilization: Ancient and Medieval Europe
Course content: Generally the standard ASU ULC format, with lecture videos, long readings, Cerego flashcards, and weekly quizzes. Two exams, each covering about half of the course. Optional but helpful discussions. The two optional live sessions were somewhat helpful for review. 
Final exam format: About 50 Multiple choice and true/false questions, proctored. 
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: High overlap with the quiz and Cerego question pools. No study guide is provided. 
Time taken on course: About 4 hours per week for 7.5 weeks. 
Familiarity with subject before course: Minimal. I had very little prior exposure to non-US history. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Every week in this course, you are provided with nearly 100 pages of primary source readings. It's not necessary to really analyze them in detail. In fact, the abstract/introduction in the course website provides most of what you will need to know about them. 
This course does not expect memorization of dates, but rather the general progression of events. 
There's a "design project" due during the last week that is worth 5% of your grade. That's the only written assignment in the course. Don't stress too much about it; you're simply asked to find some common theme or element across several weeks of the course and represent it creatively. It's self-graded, so just use the rubric as a checklist and you can legitimately award yourself all of the points. Personally, I made a pamphlet outlining how the church evolved over the periods covered by the course.  
1-10 Difficulty level: 3. This course contains a lot of information that can be hard to manage. Make sure you have strong study and notetaking skills before starting this course. I'd recommend against taking this as your first ASU ULC course - start with something a bit easier to get up to speed. 
Final grade: High A

Provider: ASU Universal Learner Courses
Course: COM 100: Intro to Human Communication. 
Course content: Generally the standard ASU ULC format, with lecture videos, long readings, two weekly essays, and weekly quizzes. One exam covering the entire course. Optional but helpful discussions. The two optional live sessions were somewhat helpful for review. 
Final exam format: About 50 Multiple choice and true/false questions, proctored. 
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: High overlap with the weekly quizzes. Helpful study outlines were provided for each week. 
Time taken on course: About 8-10 hours per week for 7.5 weeks. Most of that time was spent on the essays. 
Familiarity with subject before course: Minimal. The Sophia Public Speaking and ASU Sociology courses provided helpful background information, and I'd suggest taking those before this. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This course has two short formal essays due weekly. You're given a prompt, scenario, simulation, or another stimulus, and expected to analyze it using what you learned in the course. Course materials must be incorporated and cited properly in your writings. I'd strongly recommend prior experience with college-level composition before taking this course, otherwise you will really struggle. 
The quiz questions in this course were more challenging than most other ASU ULC courses. They often went deeper than the simple fact recitation I'd seen before.  
1-10 Difficulty level: 5. This was a more intense course than I expected, due to the written assignments and tricky quiz questions. 
Final grade: High A. A slight curve was applied to all grade thresholds in my term.

[jch]

Provider: ASU Universal Learner Courses
Course: CIS 105: Computer Applications and Information Technology 
Course content: Generally the standard ASU ULC format, with lecture videos, long readings, Cerego flashcards, and weekly quizzes. Two exams, each covering about half of the course. Optional discussions and live sessions. No written assignments. 
Final exam format: 40 Multiple choice or true/false questions, proctored. 
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The proctored final covered the last half of the course, partially sharing the quiz and Cerego question pool. A vague study guide was provided. 
Time taken on course: About 1-2 hours/week for 7.5 weeks
Familiarity with subject before course: Very high with the business and technology portions, minimal with the spreadsheet or cognitive bias components. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This course covers three loosely related topics: How businesses can leverage technology, cognitive biases that impact decision making, and spreadsheets. All three are mixed in each week. 
You don't actually have to make or use any spreadsheets yourself. All you need to know is the basic Excel formulas covered each week. There is a formulas list provided summarizing everything.  
Due to the rapid evolution of technology, some readings and lectures are already quite stale.  
The professor appearing in most of the lecture videos died a year ago, but ASU continues to use those videos. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 2
Final grade: High A


Provider: ASU Universal Learner Courses
Course: FSE 100: Introduction to Engineering: Imagine. Design. Discover! 
Only worth two 100-level credits, despite the huge time and effort commitment. This course has a particularly poor credit to time/effort/stress ratio. 
Course content: Short lectures, Cerego flashcards, numerous written and multimedia assignments, digital portfolio, and a cumulative final exam. 85% of your grade is from the projects and portfolio. Optional discussions and live sessions, which may be helpful. 
Final exam format: About 50 questions, proctored. Includes several more challening selection-type questions alongside multiple choice and true/false. Unfortunately, you are virtually guaranteed to get some of these wrong because the grading is configured as all-or-nothing. Also, watch out for the answer position shuffling, even on the true/false questions. 
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: There is a helpful study guide which outlines what you will need to know. Lots of overlap with the Cerego flashcards.  
Time taken on course: 5-10+ hours per week for 14.5 weeks. Almost all of that time is spent on the projects, there are typically less than an hour of lectures weekly. 
Familiarity with subject before course: I'm a huge engineering/infrastructure nerd, but have not previously taken any formal college-level courses in this area. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: I really wanted to enjoy this course. The description made it sound like a fun exploration of introductory engineering skills. However, I found that the inadequate execution and faciliation turned this into a stressful experience. Poor communication by the course team made things even worse. 
During this course, you'll gradually complete two major projects. Every week, you complete one aspect of the final deliverable. Consequently, if you inadvertently select a poor topic, get off to a bad start, or do something incorrectly, you're SOL. 
The projects take a ton of time and effort to figure out what to do and how to do it. Course lectures only provide brief introductions to each topic, then expect you to do everything on your own. Fully satisfying the expectations of the course team is nearly impossible, because they don't fully explain what they are asking for or how to do certain things. 
There is also a bug with the edX platform used by ASU that may result in the system submittng an empty assignment. When this happened, the course staff didn't show any sympathy at all. Always click the file you've uploaded to check it before clicking the submit button! 
1-10 Difficulty level: 7 - You'll need to have quite a bit of time and energy available to devote to this course. Also important is experience with written projects and open-ended assignments. 
Really, I don't know how anyone would achieve an A grade in this class. 
Final grade: Abandoned halfway through, did not complete. I reached the second project but was unable to figure out what to do and ran out of time. 


Provider: ASU Universal Learner Courses
Course: FSE 150: Perspectives on Grand Challenges for Engineering
Course content: This course examines how engineering can be used to address global problems. Be prepared to encounter the phrase "sustainable solutions" a few hundred times. 
This is the only ASU ULC course I am aware of that is 100% written. Every single point requires you to write something. There are no quizzes, exams, or flashcards. Every week contains some lectures, readings, and documentaries, along with various interactives, videos, and other resources for written assignments, projects, and discussions. There's also a digital portfolio website you'll build throughout the course.  
Final project format: You submit your final digital portfolio link, along with a digital poster showcasing your future solutions project. Essentially just copy and paste elements from your weekly assignments to the poster, and edit as needed for space/formatting. 
Time taken on course: About 5-6 hours per week for 8 weeks. 
Familiarity with subject before course: Very high. I'm quite interested in engineering and sustainability, even though I had not taken a related college course before. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: The assignments and disscussions are often interdependent. Before actually starting to work through a week, skim through everything first. 
As with the other ASU ULC courses that utilize Yellowdig graded discussions, it's possible to earn full points without necessarily participating in every single prompt. Max out the weekly points early on in the course so that you can strategically skip some of the later items. 
Each week contains a handful of informal self-assessed written activities. Just use the rubric as a punch list to bang out a few paragraphs, then you can legitimately grade yourself 100% on those. 
The big Future Solutions Project that you will work on each week expects you to be familiar with concepts introduced in FSE 100, specifically the engineering design process and IEEE formatting. These aren't really covered by FSE 150, but required by the assignments. Problem is, FSE 100 and FSE 150 are normally only offered once annually, starting at the same time. Also, FSE 100 is not a great course. At a minimum, you'll want to signup to audit FSE100. 
Each week of FSE 150 contains several hours of ted-talk style videos explaining the weekly topic and current related research. You really do not have to watch these videos in their entirety. At the minimum, watch enough to understand the topic. The weekly portfolio assignments also require you to write a paragraph explaining what you found the most interesting and/or surprising from these talks. 
Overalll, I thought that this was a fun and interesting course. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 5. Churning out the required writing can be intimidting, but is doable. 
Final grade: High A


Provider: ASU Universal Learner Courses
Course: PAF 112: Identity, Service and American Democracy
Formerly CPP 112 
Course content: Lecture videos, long readings, and weekly quizzes. No flashcards or exams. There is a digital portfolio assignment for each module, and a final paper. Optional but helpful discussions. The optional live sessions are very helpful. In particular, the second session guides you through the final paper in explicit detail. 
Final paper format: About 1000 words, APA 7 formatting. You perform a case study on an organization using themes from the course. At least three citations must be used, at least one of which must be from the course materials. 
Time taken on course: 2-5 hours per week, 8 weeks. 
There are only five modules spread across the eight weeks. Some modules give you two weeks. 
Familiarity with subject before course: Very high. I read a lot about politics and social organizations. I previously completed ASU Sociology, which provided helpful background knowledge. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This is a fun and low-stress course that takes a different perspective on civics. It examines how people and organizations civically engage to build American Democracy and society. 
Don't leave the digital portfolio assignments for the last second. A few of them require you to complete tasks that require some preplanning, such as conducting a site visit or interview. 
Helplfully, this course provides several example submissions from past students for each of the eportfolio assignments and the final paper. If you're lost, just refer back to those. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 2. As long as you don't stress about the writing, this is a very straightforward course. 
Final grade: High A

[MNomadic]

Wow congrats jch on getting so many of those ASU courses and getting A's! Thanks for the write-ups.

[jch]

Wow congrats jch on getting so many of those ASU courses and getting A's! Thanks for the write-ups.

Thanks! I still have three more to write up.