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+--- Thread: need ideas for a bachelors degree (/Thread-need-ideas-for-a-bachelors-degree)
need ideas for a bachelors degree - logic - 12-30-2025
Your Location: California
Your Age: 45
What kind of degree do you want?: Bachelors degree and possibly a masters
Current Regional Accredited Credits: 31
Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: about 4 courses from sophia
Any certifications or military experience?: no
Budget: any
Commitments: none
Dedicated time to study: every day
Timeline: ASAP! need the degree immediately
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: none
This is a spreadsheet showing all the courses I have ever taken: course progress towards the UMPI Accounting BA degree
I put this UMPI plan together myself, so it might need adjustments. it's 128 credits, and 120 are required for the degree.
I have credits from these schools, which are shown on the spreadsheet:
SMC = Santa Monica College (Santa Monica, CA)
WLAC = West Los Angeles College (Culver City, CA / Los Angeles, CA)
LATTC = Los Angeles Trade Tech College (Los Angeles, CA)
Sophia = Sophia Learning LLC
I was originally going for a computer science / information systems degree. Now I'm looking at accounting or business admin.
If you were me, what would you do? Would you continue toward CS/IS, or switch to accounting/business?
I want to maximize what I already have done, and reduce the amount of additional work needed. Hopefully all my CS courses count as elective filler.
Can I get a CS/IS/MIS minor on an accounting or biz degree with the classes I already have?
If you think a generic liberal arts degree & a business related masters degree is a better option, go ahead and suggest it.
I have seen a lot of people suggesting UMPI BLS + UMPI MAOL here for some reason.
I'm also curious why so many people want to take the project management degree at UMPI? What's the big attraction to that one?
So far I have only really been considering UMPI. If you think another school might be better you can suggest it.
I think UMPI will take all of my comp-sci credits and let me use them as elective classes, which means I won't need any further electives.
potential bachelor degrees:
UMPI YourPace Accounting BA
UMPI YourPace Business Administration BA w/ Accounting Concentration
UMPI YourPace Business Administration BA w/ Supply Chain Concentration
potential masters degrees:
WGU Masters in accounting
UMPI Business, M.S. with Finance concentration
UMPI Business, M.S. with Supply Chain Management concentration
My current idea is to take the UMPI YourPace Accounting BA, and then later I can take the WGU Masters in accounting or some other masters program. I don't really want to take a masters program right away because of the cost involved of both money and time.
If you have an opinion on WGU vs UMPI I also made this thread to ask about it: WGU vs UMPI for accounting
Thanks!
RE: need ideas for a bachelors degree - LevelUP - 12-30-2025
(12-30-2025, 03:21 AM)logic Wrote: If you were me, what would you do? Would you continue toward CS/IS, or switch to accounting/business?
It’s a bit hard to give solid advice without knowing your career background and what you’re aiming to do long term.
(12-30-2025, 03:21 AM)logic Wrote: I'm also curious why so many people want to take the project management degree at UMPI? What's the big attraction to that one?
The UMPI BABA in Project Management is sort of like a business administration degree with a CIS/IS-type focus, and the Project Management concentration plus IS is listed on your transcript when you graduate.
Degree: Bachelor of Arts
Plan: Business Administration Major
Sub-Plan: Project Management and Information Systems Concentration
(12-30-2025, 03:21 AM)logic Wrote: So far I have only really been considering UMPI. If you think another school might be better you can suggest it.
I think UMPI will take all of my comp-sci credits and let me use them as elective classes, which means I won't need any further electives.
TESU isn’t a bad option if you want to pursue a BSBA with an accounting or other concentration. You can also add an associate degree in Computer Science at little to no extra cost, which shouldn’t require many additional courses since you already have a lot of transferable credits.
At UMPI, you can complete a business administration or accounting degree and then add minors if any of them interest you. UMPI is very flexible in that regard.
WGU is a solid choice as well, but you’ll want to carefully consider how much additional work you’d need to do if they don’t accept all of your existing credits.
PUG would be the last of the cheaper, faster options. You can do a business administration or IT major there, but it may be slightly more expensive and take a bit longer to complete than the other options.
RE: need ideas for a bachelors degree - logic - 12-30-2025
I don't really know what I want to do long-term, so I'm looking for a degree that will be flexible. General office and office management work are the bulk of the job openings in my area. They're asking for business admin degrees, and others say they want accounting/finance related degrees. A few are asking for supply chain management. Some are jobs at accounting firms, banks, and big warehouses/factories, the rest are just offices or retail businesses that need managers.
There's not many IT job listings here, and the few I have seen have really extreme demands for knowledge of proprietary software, certs, and years of experience. I need something entry level, no experience. I think it would be hard to get into IT in my area and at my age.
So I was originally looking at the UMPI business admin w/ accounting concentration, but I think the actual accounting degree might be better since it still has almost all of the exact same business classes in it, you just lose a biz ethics and an MIS class, but you gain a lot more actual accounting classes.
I'm looking for a high paying job that I can get into quickly with only the degree (no experience, no certs, etc.) and if I hate it there, I want to have the flexibility to just pick up and move to a whole different company or industry entirely and easily start over.
I have never been very good at math so I like the option of being able to switch into a general biz & management degree if i need to.
RE: need ideas for a bachelors degree - LevelUP - 12-31-2025
(12-30-2025, 11:28 PM)logic Wrote: I don't really know what I want to do long-term, so I'm looking for a degree that will be flexible. General office and office management work are the bulk of the job openings in my area. They're asking for business admin degrees, and others say they want accounting/finance related degrees. A few are asking for supply chain management. Some are jobs at accounting firms, banks, and big warehouses/factories, the rest are just offices or retail businesses that need managers.
There's not many IT job listings here, and the few I have seen have really extreme demands for knowledge of proprietary software, certs, and years of experience. I need something entry level, no experience. I think it would be hard to get into IT in my area and at my age.
So I was originally looking at the UMPI business admin w/ accounting concentration, but I think the actual accounting degree might be better since it still has almost all of the exact same business classes in it, you just lose a biz ethics and an MIS class, but you gain a lot more actual accounting classes.
I'm looking for a high paying job that I can get into quickly with only the degree (no experience, no certs, etc.) and if I hate it there, I want to have the flexibility to just pick up and move to a whole different company or industry entirely and easily start over.
I have never been very good at math so I like the option of being able to switch into a general biz & management degree if i need to.
The math shouldn’t really be an issue since you can transfer those credits in.
If you ever decide you want to get into IT in the future, you could earn some certifications to gain experience. You don’t necessarily need another degree in IT or computer science.
RE: need ideas for a bachelors degree - logic - 01-02-2026
do you know how minors, concentrations, and double-majors work at UMPI? is there a webpage that discusses it? I'm wondering if I took the BA accounting, could i double-major in business admin or if I can make my computer classes into a minor or concentration. I've heard you can have multiple concentrations, and I don't know what the difference is between a minor and a concentration.
also, how many classes towards a masters do they let you take as an undergrad at UMPI? If I can take a lot of them at the lower tuition rate maybe that would be smart.
RE: need ideas for a bachelors degree - bjcheung77 - 02-28-2026
Basically, you should complete as many transfer credits you can with Study.com, as an example - You can do the BA Accounting and BBA PM & IS double major, then go towards the WGU MS Accounting afterwards or the UMPI MSB with a concentration of your choice, if you have tuition assistance, you can do one after the other, and have 3 degrees, each done yearly.