optimized road-maps?

[justlearning123]

Is there a catalog of optimized road-maps to getting a degree? For example, if I wanted to get a Humanities degree from TESC, it would be great to be able to go to a webpage that listed how I could complete all the degree requirements in an optimized manner. Such as by using the DANTES, ALEKS, StraighterLine, etc options. It seems many people put in their profile text what path they are following, but there does not seem to be any road-map known in advance. Perhaps it is impossible to know in advance.

I am knew to online learning, so someone like me would probably just take every single course at TESC, never realizing there was a faster and cheaper way to get the credits. Now I know about these other options, but I don't know which degrees are more "optimize-able" than the others.

I am currently leaning towards a film degree from ASU, but I would probably take every class there, which would take a while (though i think I would enjoy the work). I still need to weight that against getting a degree from TESC that is more optimized, but less fun. I am familiar with the IT degrees at TESC, but I know nothing about the ART and Humanities degrees from there (which I might use as a proxy for an ASU film degree).

So I was just curious if there was a place where the wealth of information scattered about on this website are in a more organized place. I also wanted to mention if anyone wants to make a lot of money, they should document some of the roadmaps and sell them in an ebook. It seems a lot of people here know a tremendous amount about getting degrees in an optimized way.

In many online games where you can build up a character, there are websites with optimized "builds" where they tell you how to most quickly level up your character, and what options to take as you gain levels. I guess I am thinking of something like that.

[cooperalex2004]

With many of the degrees (like the Humanities BA you mentioned) a road map is not easy to come up with because of the high number of directions one can go to get the credits. You can obviously see how others have done it, but in the end your experience is likely to vary. The humanities degree, along with others like the social sciences, nat sci/math, or the plain old liberal studies degree all have hundreds of options so a road map is highly dependent on how you want to proceed (with tests, courses taken, or bringing in credits). Unlike the BSBA or other specialized degrees you need to realize the Humanities area of study is not set up to require a specific course, rather it accepts credits from: Art, Communication, Dance, Film, For. Language, Humanities, Journalism, Lit/Wtng, Music, Philosophy, Photography, Radio & Television, Religion, Speech, and Theater. If you're using CLEP/DSST exams to fill the area of study you can look in the college catalog and the equivalencies are sorted by type (so the humanities courses are separated). The best tool TESC has is the evaluation. Once you apply and bring in some credits they will populate on the evaluation and make it easier to see what is missing. You can then plan out the remaining courses with an adviser and then you are all set. At that time you can also use the TESC website to show you an estimate of how your credits fit into any other program you choose.

Degree Layout from TESC - Thomas Edison State College: Humanities
College Catalog (See pages 193/194 for CLEP/DSST) - http://www.tesc.edu/documents/College_Ca...1-2012.pdf

[IrishJohn]

Try this from Degree Forum Wiki:

TESC Degree Plans - Degree Forum Wiki

Surf around because there is a LOT of other useful info too!

[justlearning123]

Wowzers, that page is exactly what I was looking for! They should have sticky for that website somewhere on this forum. Thanks!

[dcan]

Yes, that would be nice. I'll see if Steve or Shoto would consider that. I'm glad it is helping people.

[dcan]

Just to follow up, Steve was kind enough to make the wiki announcement thread a sticky in this forum. I guess it should also double as a "meta" thread to discuss the wiki itself.