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

[rachel83az]

I think it would be helpful if there were a thread for this just as there is a thread for the alt providers. This is NOT for courses from TESU, COSC, etc. (there are other sites for that) but only for self-study type courses that were taken at one university for transfer to another.

Provider:
Course:
Course content: How is the material presented? Videos? Text? External content? Do you have to buy/have other materials?
Final exam format: How many questions? Multiple choice? Essay? Both? Something else?
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Have you seen the information before in the course, or was it a total curve ball?
Time taken on course: Hours? Weeks? Days?
Familiarity with subject before course: Never heard of it before taking the course, Low, medium, high, I do this every day. How would you have scored on the final with no preparation?
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:
1-10 Difficulty level: From learning the colors to rocket surgery
Final grade: If you don't want to post your exact grade, please at least post something like "did really well" or "came close to failing". A difficult class can still have exams that were easier than expected so that you got a good grade.

[rachel83az]

Provider: ASU EA
Course: AST 111 - Introduction to Astronomy
Course content: Mostly videos with some free PDFs to download. Also, Cerego flash cards. You will need to print out one sheet of paper for the exam (it has formulas on it). It is strongly recommended, though not required, that you purchase a physical scientific calculator. There is a web-based calculator that you are allowed to use on the exam but I hated that one. There are a few projects and one of these requires a bag of flour, some cocoa powder, and a couple of rocks or coins. Technically, you can still pass even if you don't do these projects but you'll never get full marks. It is not required, but I personally recommend, getting a Wolfram Alpha subscription just for this course. I wish I had remembered this site earlier in the course.
Final exam format:  About 40 questions. Mostly multiple choice but there were some math problems where you're expected to type out the answers.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The final exam seems to draw from the same pool of questions as the weekly quizzes. There is no midterm so the final covers all weeks.
Time taken on course: 8 week course, including finals week.
Familiarity with subject before course: As a kid, I had so many astronomy books.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: The math concepts are not explained overly well in the example video for each lab section. I may have gotten 100% on one lab section but all of the others were 70-80%. I tried looking for explanations of how to use the formulas elsewhere but that didn't help much.
1-10 Difficulty level: Main portion: 3. Lab component: 8.
Final grade: B - thankfully, there were only a handful of math questions on the final so I was able to score well enough to be able to get a total of something like 81-83% in the whole class; just barely a B.

[rachel83az]

Provider: ASU EA
Course: HST 102 - Western Civilization: Ancient and Medieval Europe
Course content: Mostly videos, some downloadable content. Cerego flash cards. Some PDFs that you're expected to download & read but the videos have sufficient content for all but a couple of questions.
Final exam format: Multiple choice. I think there were about 50 questions.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Draws from the same pool of questions as the weekly quizzes so things should be pretty familiar.
Time taken on course: 8 weeks including finals.
Familiarity with subject before course: Some basic familiarity with history but nothing official.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This course does not expect you to memorize dates! You're expected to know roughly what happened first/second/third in a sequence of events but you're not expected to remember whether a certain thing happened on the 8th of March or the 3rd of August and in what year. The videos were also pretty interesting and engaging despite history often being a dry subject in school.
1-10 Difficulty level: 2 or 3
Final grade: A. I didn't expect to get this high of a grade but this was, so far, the easiest and possibly the most interesting ASU course that I've taken. It makes me wish that I could take more history classes from the same instructors.

[rachel83az]

Provider: ASU EA
Course: ASM 246 - Human Origins
Course content: Mostly videos with some free PDFs to download. Cerego flash cards. Many Cerego topics will show up with exactly the same or only slightly different wording on the quizzes/final exam so it is especially helpful to review Cerego before the midterm and final exams.
Final exam format:  About 40 or 50 multiple-choice questions.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The final exam draws from the same pool of questions as the weekly quizzes. The same with the midterm. Study Cerego and your previous week's quizzes and you should be well-poised to get a good grade.
Time taken on course: 8-week course, including finals week.
Familiarity with subject before course: Not much. I had no idea that there were quite so many discovered human ancestors!
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: I think everything except one or two questions total was covered in the videos and those questions were covered in one of the weekly PDFs. You don't have to go digging for information, unlike with Astronomy. However, the Latin names of the species and the body parts can get confusing. What is a nuchal torus? A sagittal crest? And for which species is this important? These topics are explained simply but I found it difficult to actually retain this information.
1-10 Difficulty level: 3 for the material in general but a 5 or 6 when you factor in the Latin names that need to be remembered.
Final grade: A - I did fairly well through the course, going into the final with something like a 98% for work completed thus far. But the Latin names were not sticking and I was only expecting a C. If I had gotten one more question wrong (and I got many of them wrong), I think I would've dropped down to a B.

[dhillbilly]

I took this course around six or seven years ago. Might be different now, your mileage may vary.

Provider: Independent Study in Idaho through University of Idaho

Course: Personality Psychology
Course content: The professor provided written "lectures" to review. There were assigned chapters from the textbook with quizzes that were emailed to the instructor. A low tech course with no bells or whistles, which suited me fine.
Final exam format: Mid-term and final. Non-cumulative. Multiple choice. I don't remember how many questions. The exam requires an approved proctor at either a testing center or a librarian.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The exams were clearly based on his material, no surprises.  
Time taken on course: Self-paced with a year limit. I nickeled and dimed most of that year while I worked on other courses.
Familiarity with subject before course: Mixed, There is usually some overlap in psychology courses. Some material I had seen before, some was totally new. I could not have passed the tests cold.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: A low interaction course, which is fine with me. If you have a question you email the professor. He would normally answer by early the next morning. The quizzes was weighted very low. The exams are pretty much your grade. This course requires a level of self-motivation.
1-10 Difficulty level: The class is not rocket science, but requires the effort to read and study the material to pass.
Final grade: A

[SteveFoerster]

I don't have anything useful to add, but I want to be sure I follow this post, so I'm answering uselessly so that the little black dot will remind me to check it whenever someone better than I am responds.

Carry on.

[rachel83az]

If you scroll aaaaaaaaaall the way down to the bottom of the page, you can click "subscribe to this thread" without needing to reply. It's a not very obvious place to put it but it's there.

[Rustydroid]

Provider: ASU EA
Course: SOC 101 Introduction to Sociology
Course content: The material consists of video lectures, assigned reading, Cerego, weekly quizzes and weekly posts to a forum on different topics.
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: Took only a few hours per week to go through everything.
Familiarity with subject before course: I’m a few classes away from an Associate’s and I have close to 80 credits of college work. I have seen some of the ideas discussed in other classes.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This was my first ASU EA class and I took it out of curiosity not really thinking that I had the time to complete it since I was taking classes from a local community college. I enjoyed this class and learned things on conformity and other subjects.
1-10 Difficulty level: I found this class relatively easy sometimes I didn’t even watch the videos just quickly read the transcripts. I did study for the Final and Midterm by going through previous quizzes. Posting answers to a question from class and commenting on other people’s posts is part of your overall grade.
Final grade: I ended with a 88% in this class since I missed a quiz or two. I did not take this class too seriously at first because I didn’t think that I was going to complete it. I thought that there would be essays involved like many of the intro classes at my local community college. This being a four-year university I was expecting work that was a bit more rigorous then my local community college.

[ctcarl]

Provider: ASU EA
Course: HST 102 - Western Civilization: Ancient and Medieval Europe
Course content: Mostly videos, some downloadable content. Cerego flash cards. Some PDFs that you're expected to download & read but the videos have sufficient content for all but a couple of questions.
Final exam format: Multiple choice. I think there were about 50 questions.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Draws from the same pool of questions as the weekly quizzes so things should be pretty familiar.
Time taken on course: 8 weeks including finals.
Familiarity with subject before course: Some basic familiarity with history but nothing official.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This course does not expect you to memorize dates! You're expected to know roughly what happened first/second/third in a sequence of events but you're not expected to remember whether a certain thing happened on the 8th of March or the 3rd of August and in what year. The videos were also pretty interesting and engaging despite history often being a dry subject in school.
1-10 Difficulty level: 2 or 3
Final grade: A. I didn't expect to get this high of a grade but this was, so far, the easiest and possibly the most interesting ASU course that I've taken. It makes me wish that I could take more history classes from the same instructors.

Any papers or other assignments, Rachel?

[rachel83az]

Provider: ASU EA
Course: HST 102 - Western Civilization: Ancient and Medieval Europe
Course content: Mostly videos, some downloadable content. Cerego flash cards. Some PDFs that you're expected to download & read but the videos have sufficient content for all but a couple of questions.
Final exam format: Multiple choice. I think there were about 50 questions.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Draws from the same pool of questions as the weekly quizzes so things should be pretty familiar.
Time taken on course: 8 weeks including finals.
Familiarity with subject before course: Some basic familiarity with history but nothing official.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This course does not expect you to memorize dates! You're expected to know roughly what happened first/second/third in a sequence of events but you're not expected to remember whether a certain thing happened on the 8th of March or the 3rd of August and in what year. The videos were also pretty interesting and engaging despite history often being a dry subject in school.
1-10 Difficulty level: 2 or 3
Final grade: A. I didn't expect to get this high of a grade but this was, so far, the easiest and possibly the most interesting ASU course that I've taken. It makes me wish that I could take more history classes from the same instructors.

Any papers or other assignments, Rachel?

Oh, I completely forgot about the design project. It's only worth 5% of your grade and I completely skipped doing it. It can be pretty much anything, from a poem to a drawing of something you learned, to a brief paper. If you need those extra points it's worth it. Otherwise, don't. But there are no weekly papers or anything like that, just the quizzes and Cerego flashcards.