alzee Wrote:As soon as you've applied and been admitted, you can email advising@tesu.edu as often as you like with questions like that. They don't cost a thing. Usually they are answered within 24h. Quick tip though: Ask only ONE question per email, and keep it SIMPLE. The more conditional statements and exceptions you pile onto your question, the less likely they are to read it completely before answering. Asking more than one question per message usually results in only the first question being answered.

IMHO you should apply as soon as possible, then take one course or TECEP you know you're going to need as soon as possible, in order to get yourself enrolled and on a catalog. Until you are actually enrolled, nothing that anyone at advising (or on these forums) tells you about your plan is set in stone or anything with a greater consistency than jello pudding.

dfrecore Wrote:Also, when you ask them questions, make sure that you ask the right ones. For instance, asking "where can I take Discrete Math that's cheaper than the course you offer?" is not going to be answered! They are in the business of making money. So, you will want to ask "I'm taking a course at XYZ college, and want to make sure that it will transfer in as the equivalent of ABC course. Can you confirm that?"

For a lot of the testing out stuff, we here can help. Especially in regards to Gen Ed's, Free Electives and many of the AOS courses, we know with certainty what will be accepted and where, due to years of experience and people reporting to us on the forum. Or TESU having an equivalency chart for different things (SL, Study.com, DSST, CLEP, ACP courses, etc.).

So, a few of us can get you 75% of the way there, and then people who have actually gotten CS degrees here can help with the rest. I think TrailRunr is the one who knows this portion the best (that I can think of off the top of my head). There are others who know it as well.

dfrecore Wrote:So, you will want to ask "I'm taking a course at XYZ college, and want to make sure that it will transfer in as the equivalent of ABC course. Can you confirm that?"

alzee Wrote:dfrecore, I'm going to use you as an example here for a point I was making about keeping questions simple; apologies in advance! This example question though is, in my experience, *way* too complicated for TESU's academic advisers:



I agree 100% that this is more likely to get an answer than the other question, but it's also too subject to "interpretation" by the advisers. It would be better asked along the lines of "How does TESU count course ABC from XYZ college?"

You really want to keep these questions to advising as short and to the point as possible. Any information in the question that doesn't help them answer it should be eliminated.

Just my $0.02 after having emailed advising 20-30 times in the past year, half of them being rewording of an earlier question that TESU didn't "get" the first time.

TrailRunr Wrote:The first thing is to know why you're choosing TESU BA CS and not some other degree like TESU BSBA:CIS, one of WGU's IT degrees which comes with a bunch of IT certs, or a even a real CS program that doesn't make use of test-out. If you have no IT job experience and close to zero credits, TESU BA CS with a bunch of MIS type test-out is not going to land you a job upon graduation. You will be poorly prepared for technical interviews, especially if you make extensive use of test-out/nontraditional options for the CS area of study. The technical interview determines whether or not you get the job. The degree just gets you past HR. My signature has a link to a degree plan for CS that makes use of test-out options, but I wouldn't go down this road unless you're already working somewhere in IT.