Thoughts for a new high school graduate?

[savvyg]

Your Location: California

Your Age: 18
What kind of degree do you want?: Bachelor, but open to the field of study.

I'm graduating from high school in a couple of weeks and have been doing concurrent enrollment for the last couple of years. My current plans (set before I found the concept of degree hacking) were to take a year at my local CC to finish a degree in theater and liberal arts (more for fun than anything since most of my high school theater years were taken with covid), then to transfer to Moorpark College where I will take their Exotic Animal Training & Management program to eventually work in a zoo. However, all of this won't get me any more than an associates. For zoo work, the experience is much more important than the actual degree, but I would love to still be able to get a Bachelor's degree because zoo work is low-paying, high demand and I might want to change things in the future. I don't have a specific field for the degree so I'm guessing Liberal studies would be best, though maybe business in case I decide to open a pet-sitting type business in the future?

Budget: Parents will pay for an Associate at local CC and then transfer to the local state school for Bachelor

Commitments: I have a small part-time job (maybe 5 hours/wk) and a theater production that will be about 16 hours/wk. Volunteering a few hours/wk at our local zoo. I hope to get another part-time job.

Dedicated time to study: I should be able to do at least 10 hours/wk

Timeline: 2 years, but sooner would be great. 
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: My parents

Current Regional Accredited Credits:

Bakersfield College - Total Credits:16 (31 after fall)
ART B1 - Art Appreciation, 3 credits - A
KINS B2A - First Aid and CPR, 3 credits - A
ENGL B1A - Expository Composition, 3 credits - A
SPAN B1 - Elementary Spanish I, 4 credits - A
THEA B20 - Introduction to Theatre, 3 credits - A

Upcoming Classes Registered for:
THEA B27 - Acting Theatre Laboratory, 2 credits (summer)
ENGL B1B - Intro to Types of Literature, 3 credits (fall)
Span B2 - Elementary Spanish II, 4 credits (fall)
Stdv B6 - Tools for College Success, 3 credits (fall)
Thea B1 - Introduction to Acting, 3 credits (fall)


Porterville College - Total Credits:7 
HIST P118 - Hist/US 1865 to Present, 3 credits - A
MATH P100 - College Precalculus I, 4 credits - A

Moorpark College - Total Credits: 8
COMM MO1 - Public Speaking, 3 credits - A
BIOL MO1 - Introduction to Biology, 4 credits - B
KIN M23 - Walking for Fitness, 1 credit - A

[dfrecore]

A degree at TESU or Excelsior will be MUCH faster and cheaper than one at your local 4yr school (even though CA has some of the cheapest colleges in the country, if you go to a CSU). 2 years at a CSU will run maybe $15k and take 2 years if you're lucky (2 ½ is probably more doable for most just because they are so crowded, it's hard to get all of the classes you need to graduate on time).

You could probably get your bachelor's at either of these schools before you even started at Moorpark, which would be a good option - it would leave your time free to get that AA and work in the industry.
------------------------------------------
At TESU, you'd need the following:
A Diversity course (Sociology, World Religions, Cultural Anthropology)
An Ethics course
A Civic Engagement course (Am Gov)
A SocSci course (Psych is the easiest to find)
A Science course (any science or Intro to Computers)
5 UL courses in Humanities or SocSciences
7 LL courses in these areas or Science, but must be what TESU considers 200-level
6 courses of free electives

Excelsior will have similar requirements (actually a bit easier to meet), but does require that you take 30cr of UL rather than TESU's 18cr of UL.

It looks like you'd be better off applying for this program as a bachelor's degree holder, and like you've said, having a backup plan is a great idea here.

[rachel83az]

I agree; there's no good reason to go to your local school for a Bachelor's degree.

If you want TESU, we've got specific degree plans here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...ts_Roadmap Depending on your actual non-animal interests, a BSBA Entrepreneurship or BSBA Marketing might be a good fit for your possible future needs.

[allvia]

Since you can see yourself in the future opening your own business. I'd suggest look at the TESU BSBA-GM (General Management) - it offers a broad-based business focus, which would offer exposure to business as a whole (some basic accounting, management, marketing, etc).  Also offers the most options for courses to fill the requirements - https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...egree_Plan

[bjcheung77]

@savvyg, Welcome to the board, is there more info on what the Bachelors is you're looking at? Mentioned are Business, Liberal Studies, Zoo, etc... but there really isn't a specific college or degree you're interested in at the Bachelors level. I would focus on three things, get some certs for that industry you're looking into, the degree of your choice, and experience. Review this thread Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...#pid392935

You're 18, you're not in a rush to jump into things, go at your pace as everyone has their learning habits and study methods... You need to mix/match your study opportunities to suit you. My suggestion is, check those community colleges that have a degree completion option entirely at the institution, as I mentioned in the linked thread above, there are at least 17-18 colleges that now have a Bachelors option, if they take 75% transfers from CLEP/Alternative Education options, you'll be done pretty quickly...

Edit to add: In regards to the experience, you can find a company like PetSmart to work for and use their tuition assistance/reimbursement to fund your local Bachelors. You get the experience and the degree from a local university of your choice. Find the degree/school program and see if it's within budget, energy, time to complete. That's why I recommend completing the template/addendum, and extra details you can think of, to get the fuller picture...

[ss20ts]

Since you can see yourself in the future opening your own business. I'd suggest look at the TESU BSBA-GM (General Management) - it offers a broad-based business focus, which would offer exposure to business as a whole (some basic accounting, management, marketing, etc).  Also offers the most options for courses to fill the requirements - https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...egree_Plan

I'd definitely take courses in small business management. Learn all that you can about running a business and all that it entails. It will help tremendously in the future. Things like HR many people never bother with when they open a business and then discover there's a ton of state and federal laws that must be followed. They're clueless which can be quite costly.

[dfrecore]

@savvyg, Welcome to the board, is there more info on what the Bachelors is you're looking at?  Mentioned are Business, Liberal Studies, Zoo, etc... but there really isn't a specific college or degree you're interested in at the Bachelors level.  I would focus on three things, get some certs for that industry you're looking into, the degree of your choice, and experience.  Review this thread Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...#pid392935

You're 18, you're not in a rush to jump into things, go at your pace as everyone has their learning habits and study methods... You need to mix/match your study opportunities to suit you.  My suggestion is, check those community colleges that have a degree completion option entirely at the institution, as I mentioned in the linked thread above, there are at least 17-18 colleges that now have a Bachelors option, if they take 75% transfers from CLEP/Alternative Education options, you'll be done pretty quickly...

Edit to add: In regards to the experience, you can find a company like PetSmart to work for and use their tuition assistance/reimbursement to fund your local Bachelors.  You get the experience and the degree from a local university of your choice.  Find the degree/school program and see if it's within budget, energy, time to complete.  That's why I recommend completing the template/addendum, and extra details you can think of, to get the fuller picture...

OP already has all of the required pre-reqs for the AS degree he/she wants, and wants to do a Theater/Acting program at their current CC because they missed out on the one at high school.  So that's pretty clear for the next year.

The AS they want is a 22-mo program, and it's going to be very involved.  So they really don't need to spend an extra 2 years FT at a local CC doing a BA/BS program if they don't need to, considering that those all have miles-long wait lists (like years) and none of them are in the fields OP says they are interested in (Exotic Animals and Business).  They are things like Airframe Manufacturing Technology, Mortuary Science, Respiratory Care, etc.  They all have lots of pre-reqs to complete (you can't even apply until you have all pre-reqs completed), so you're telling OP to spend even MORE time to get a degree they aren't interested in, and might not be able to get into a program at all for years.

[savvyg]

Our local CC has one bachelor program, but it's industrial automation or something like that. Definitely not something I'm interested in pursuing.

I'm going to work on comparing the rest for my AA at my local CC with a TESU business degree and see what it looks like. I'll post back when I have that done. Thank you!

[bjcheung77]

@dfrecore, I'm at the rudimentary stage of actively getting more feedback and throwing in suggestions, nothing is written in stone. I'm not asking anything but trying to find more details from them before proceeding. I'm thinking more for their personal situation as their scenario may change, it depends on the student.

@savvyg, If you have the energy, money, time to work on those three I mentioned above, you can go for a double degree at TESU, it will only take a few extra courses, it'll hit your Bachelors of Liberal Studies with a NSM concentration, and you can go for a BSBA Entrepreneurship as you're looking to start your own business.

[savvyg]

Hello All,

I've been working on a degree plan, but I'm sure you have some good thoughts for me. How does this look so far? Questions off the top of my head are..
Will the theater classes from Bakersfield College work as the electives for TESU?
Should I take a few more TESU classes to have the cheaper tuition? If so, which ones?
Do I have the right amount of LL vs UL? I'm still a bit confused about that.
Do you have a good game plan for making the most use out of my time with study.com and sophia.org?
Any other thoughts?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing

Thank you so much for your help!