Thinking of Starting online college... help greatly appreciated.

[Lamtldealer]

I recently joined this forum and am debating to join a online college/university. Its important to me that wherever I pick is regionally accredited. Eventually I would like to attend onsite, a graduate program in California (where I'm from.) I just finished "Algebra with trig" and "intro to statistics" over at Aleks. Any recommendations?

Would ASU or Penn be a better choice than Thomas Edison?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

[KayV]

Which major(s) are your interested in? Do you have any other college credits, AP credits for high school exams, IT certifications...?

[Lamtldealer]

No college credits, at this point I've got a high school diploma and the 2 classes I've taken at Alek. I'm interested in Psychology and criminal justice. for a while I thought homeland security would be good but after googling it... I don't really understand what I could do with it? If Homeland security opened up doors at a government job that would be good.

[OakLakeNC]

The advantage of Thomas Edison is you can test-out or transfer in a generous amount of ACE credit. You can save a ton of time and money. But that may not be best for you. Maybe the other two schools have really good Homeland Security programs.

[Lamtldealer]

I've been following this thread and think I might just follow this plan...

http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...ath-b.html

[cookderosa]

Emotions pick colleges based on brand names or sports teams.
Emotions pick majors that are exciting and interesting.

Being pragmatic picks colleges based on cost, location, likelihood of completion, degree.
Being pragmatic means picking a major that makes you employable.

I'm not trying to burst any bubbles, but my sincere advice is to: pick a career path THEN decide what major is required to do that career THEN decide if an online college accomplishes that goal THEN decide if you can use courses like ALEKS to meet the degree requirements. Seriously, you're doing this in reverse and while nothing "bad" will come it, missteps cost TIME which is very very valuable. They can also cost money, which may or may not be important to you.

[KayV]

Echoing Jennifer with my Doda's advice: Get a bachelor's degree that makes you employable and work up from there. So, teaching certificate, business degree, BSN, etc. Then get added degrees for promotions once you know what you need for your job.

[TESUAbroad]

I would not recommend any "Nationally Accredited" college to graduate from. Some employers frown upon such degrees.
Also, it would make your shot at getting into a grad school in California very slim.

We are biased as we are from this forum, but I would recommend either Thomas Edison State University, Charter Oak State College Or Excelsior College.
The reason for this is that they are all regionally accredited, NON-PROFIT, public universities. They are known as the "Big Three" on this forum, because all of them allow generous transfer credits.
For example, I am currently making my way towards a Bachelors in Business Administration conc. Marketing.
The only classes I will have to take from Thomas Edison, I can test out of via TECEP (their test for credit exams) and the rest I am taking with resources that will grant ACE/NCCRS credit recommendations, which are accepted by these colleges.

Now as Cookderosa has said, you must choose first what career you would like to pursue later on...
You mentioned government jobs, so I would look for a degree that would put you towards the specific government job you would like to end up in. There is a vast amount of diversity in government jobs, so I can't recommend any degrees without further information.

Good luck and keep asking questions