I haven't been on this board in a while, thought I would give a quick update in case it's helpful for someone else considering their educational journey. tldr I graduated from the UIUC MSM a few days ago.

Background: Completed 120 credit hours as a traditional college-age student, but didn't graduate (some credits were electives that didn't fulfill requirements, then I took a job in another state, intending to return to finish, then never returned to finish for decades)

Went to UMPI last summer, completing a BBA in one session, with a 4.0 GPA.

Applied to UIUC MSM, Georgia Tech Master of Cybersecurity-Policy Track, Boston University Master of Data Science, and UMPI MAOL. Accepted to all. Decided to do MSM.

The UIUC MSM is about $13K and about one year, though you can go a little faster or a lot slower if you choose. I completed it in 10 months by taking a heavier than normal courseload in one 8-week session. I graduated on Aug. 11 with a 4.0 GPA and am now moving into the UIUC MBA, which stacks.

The MSM is 9 classes/36 hours. The MBA is 18 classes/72 hours, and is about $26K. (One class at UIUC is 4 credit hours, vs the more typical 3 hours, so the numbers are a bit inflated. The prices are actually billed per credit hour, with two classes costing around $2800.) A full course load is two classes/8 hours per 8-week session. It is not CBE. The work is divided by week, with due dates each week. You can't do a future week's work early. Most classes have required teamwork assignments that you do with fellow students, which often involve Zoom meetings, but not every week, only around the time of the assignments. Most student groups use a Teams channel for routine planning and communication.

The MSM coursework "transfer in" as 9 classes toward the MBA's required 18 classes. The only caveat I will mention is that the MBA has 7 required quantitative classes, and the MSM has only two. So, I now need 5 quant classes out of my remaining 9 classes, ouch. I hope I can maintain the 4.0 but we'll see.

In case anyone is wondering, this is "the" University of Illinois, the Fighting Illini, currently in US News & World Report's top 35 national universities in the U.S., not an alternate online-only campus or anything like that. Graduates can walk in the ceremony in Urbana-Champaign.

I am describing it in some detail to help people judge if this is the program for them. I recommend it, but there are many options and it's best to consider multiple options before deciding. If anybody has questions about the UIUC programs, please don't hesitate to ask.

Hello everyone,

I've combed through the forums looking for information about Coopersmith. It seems to be a recommended provider at times, but I haven't seen anything by anybody who has actually taken courses with them. I'd like to get a sense of what it's like to work with them. Would love to hear from anybody whose successfully completed one or more of their courses. For example:

What was the learning format? Videos? Reading? Something else?
Was there a final exam? (I think the answer is yes.)
Was the final exam proctored? (again, I believe the answer is yes)
Can you share a course syllabus?

Thank you.

First, thank you to the administrators and supportive members of this forum – what an incredible resource for people like me who are doing their best to navigate my higher education options!

I am pursuing a bachelor's degree to then apply to master’s programs in special education or applied behavioral analysis to become a BCBA.  I currently work as a registered behavioral therapist providing early intervention for children with autism.  I moved to this path after previously earning an associate degree in hospitality management from a California community college and getting burnt out working in luxury hotels for several years. 

BCBA programs require a bachelor's degree, though they do not usually care what field (and sometimes only want nationally accredited rather than regionally).  I began my process by starting to study for a couple new CLEP exams (using ModernStates) and looking into UoPeople’s bachelor’s programs before finding this forum!  I generally would like to pursue a BA relevant to ABA (psychology, education, social work), but would prefer efficiency if a different program would be significantly faster/cheaper to complete given my associate’s in hospitality management.

I am still learning (from this forum and wiki!) about the non-CLEP options for credit sources, which I think will be a huge help.  But I’d love some general guidance on choosing a school and program.  I think I will ultimately submit initial evaluations to a few schools to know for sure, but I am uncertain mainly about how useful my RA hospitality-specific credits are.  For example, would hospitality law or management fulfill a business law or management requirement?  I know I will only know for sure from the evaluations, but I am trying to get a general sense.  If many of my credits could apply to a management BA, it might make sense to follow that route and request initial evaluations for those programs.  But I feel like most of my credits will only be elective credits and not useful for most BA programs.
Thank you so much for reading this and for any help!
 
Location:                                      North Carolina
Age:                                                29
Desired Degree:                        Bachelor’s (any is fine, but psychology/education/social work preferred to then pursue a Master’s in ABA to be a BCBA)
Regional accredited credits:             
         Cypress CC:   HRC120           Sanitation & Safety                  3.0, A
                             HRC101           Intro to Hospitality                   3.0, A
                             HRC152           Hospitality Purchasing              3.0, B
                             HRC164           Hospitality Law                        3.0, A
                             HRC125           Restaurant Management           3.0, A
                             HRC160           Hotel Operations                      3.0, A
                             HRC 170          Beverage Management             3.0, A
                             HRC230           Hospitality Leadership              3.0, A
                             HRC231           Cost Control in Hospitality         3.0, A
                             HRC232           Special Event Management       3.0, A
                             HRC295           Hospitality Internship               3.0, A
 
                             PHIL170           Logic and Critical Thinking       3.0, A
                             ASTR116          Intro to Astronomy                  3.0, B
                             ECON105         Principles of Microecon             3.0, B
 
                             KIN110           Surfing                                     0.5, A
                             MAD195          Science Fiction in Film               3.0, A
                             DANC101        Multicultural Dance in US            3.0, A
                             DANC105        Ballet I                                     2.0, A
                             DANC107        Modern Dance I                         2.0, P
                            
CLEP exams:             Taken: College Composition (3 credits from CC)
                                             Sociology (3 credits from CC)

                                  Currently Studying:    Psychology
                                                                 Human Growth & Development
 
Credits:            50.5 RA w/ grade, 2.0 RA w/ Pass, 6.0 CLEP

Budget & Timeline:     Here is how I’d order my top five factors by relative importance
1.     Time to completion
2.     Total cost
3.     Program relevance (i.e. more relevant to an ABA master’s program vs a degree that might be faster to complete using my hospitality management credits)
4.     Program quality (how much do I feel I am learning/retaining)
5.     Intensity/difficulty

Hello. I studied Computer Science at UoPeople and completed around 4 computer science courses there. Now I want to enroll in an Associate in Mathematics at Tesu and transfer those UoPeople courses, as well as complete others that could be transferred to Tesu. 
Does anyone have a route on how to do that and which courses would be recognized? Can these computer science course go under Electives and Computer science electives ( 3 + 9 credits)? But what about other 6 math courses? Do they accept these sophia.org courses? 

• Introduction to College Mathematics
  
  
• Introduction to Statistics
  
  
• Precalculus
  

Has anyone done or thought about this?  I just need to check a box. 

https://ace.edu/degree-programs/educatio...eadership/

Hi everyone! I'm asking for some guidance on planning my degree before I register for classes. I have 61 credits from Community College.
I know that TESU allows 90 college hours/credits from Colleges and 90 from ACE/NCCRS sources (TESU Credit Info). 
Does this mean I can take my 61 credits from community college + earn 60 from ACE/NCCRS to make the 120 for a Bachelors degree? Along with the 2 required classes TESU makes you take.

Thank you! I emailed an academic advisor already but they've taken forever to get back to me so I wanted to ask as I've been anxiously trying to figure this out.

Self info:
Your Location: Florida  
Your Age: 28
What kind of degree do you want?: Ba in Psych or Sociology or Anthropology (These 3 fit the req. I need for my career path) 
Current Regional Accredited Credits: 61 credits from Community College
Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: None
Any certifications or military experience?: KP Python Code Specialist 
Budget: preferably $5k range 
Commitments: Currently a full time student
Dedicated time to study: All, I am full steam ahead with getting my BA 
Timeline: I hope to get my BA this year so I can apply by January of next to a graduate program
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: Pell grant

Hello 

I'm currently looking for PG degrees which are affordable and related to facilities or operations management. By the way, I will be taking MSB HRM at UMPI.

It would be better if you could suggest a cheaper school for like pad up certificates. 

If you know some doctorate degree after my MSB, I would highly appreciate.

Thank you all here at degreeforum, I lurked the forums for well over 10 years and I finally decided to jump into a degree with both feet after watching so many of you navigating the complexities of being your own advisors and sourcing transfer credits from the most obscure places. I really can't express my gratitude enough to bjcheung77, dfrecore, and rachel83az, you all contributed heavily in helping me understand the process well enough to take the initial step in persuing my degree plan. I initially did a ton of Sophia and Coursera courses, then I got my Pierpont BOG AAS with a focus on Information Systems, laddered up to the UMPI AALS, then BAS in Management, Project Management, and Management of Information Systems, and finally I completed my MAOL! If you are reading this and have been overthinking it, you may need to trust the forums and dive in head first. I completed the Associates through Masters in roughly 1.5 years.

I just need to vent a bit. And I also know why I am here.

I know none of us are here to expect Harvard, and most of us knew what we wanted and just want to get it over with and move on with ourlives. We all wanted accredited school, low cost, time-flexible, and man isn't UMPI yourpace sweet in that.

But man some of the courses I've finished felt like it was put together in one semi-drunk afternoon. The content was either a series of youtube link that was 7 years old, a link to a blog on either investopedia/betterup/atalassian. Like, thanks for choosing and vetting(which I admit has some real value) my youtube feed for me? 

And also there is just broken content: In one of my liberal arts classes which I guess most people tranferred from Sophia,
 we were supposed to analyze U.S. murder trends. There’s literally a slide that says "Chart" with a broken symbol of image where the graph is supposed to be. That’s it. No graph. Just “Chart.” It's one than one classes, and I stopped sending email to those instructors after the second one.

Okay now I feel better, and to be fair, not all classess are like this  I’ve had a few gems, like one of my accounting classes where the instructor actually gave incredibly thoughtful and detailed feedback. You could tell they cared and wanted us to learn something beyond just checking boxes. So it’s not hopeless—it’s just wildly inconsistent and lack a universal quality control.

Sorry for anyone who read this and I might wasted 45 seconds of your precious life. I just needed to vent and now I am already feeling better.

• BA in Computer Science and Homeland Security, or
  
• BA in Computer Science and Associate Degree in Aviation Maintenance
  

• Bachelor's degree in Social Work from a foreign country (not yet evaluated course-by-course)
  
• Master’s degree in Social Work from a U.S. regionally accredited institution
  

• Complete a Bachelor’s in Homeland Security, or
  
• Earn an Associate Degree in Aviation Maintenance alongside the CS degree.