Can you please help out a beginner. Any advice appreciated!

[Atomsk]

This old thread, especially the post by KayV, might or might not be helpful. The plan she mapped out is based on old requirements to get a BA. http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...broad.html

That link was extremely helpful. I'm Considering getting a different certifaction instead of the TEFL and a BA in humanities with English in it (I'm not good with college kt know anything as much please excuse the lack of knowledge aha)

[dfrecore]

So I just enroll into the college and take the tests? Transfer the credits, etc? I do plan on getting my GED it's free and will help the fees later on. Financial aid is definitely an option as money is tight. I'm sorry I just don't know much of the process of enrolling at college.

I would not enroll in any of the schools until you figured out which one you wanted to go to and which degree you wanted to get. Also, for EC and COSC, you have to pay for enrollment based on time, so you don't want to enroll until you're ready to go, with a bunch of courses under your belt.

I don't think an IEP Diploma will stop you from going to any of the Big 3.

Can't help with financial aid, as I don't know how it works. But there are people on this forum who can help with that - makes it a lot more complicated to take courses, rather than just taking the ones you want and paying out of pocket. Check out posts on financial aid.

[topdog98]

So I just enroll into the college and take the tests? Transfer the credits, etc? I do plan on getting my GED it's free and will help the fees later on. Financial aid is definitely an option as money is tight. I'm sorry I just don't know much of the process of enrolling at college.

If you went with COSC, you would need at least nine credits before enrolling. Actually, for COSC at least, it is more cost effective to wait until you have more than that accumulated before enrolling. Others will know the best strategy for TESU.

[davewill]

Once you get a certain number of credits, any problem with your H.S. diploma will likely become moot. I'd consider going to community college. I would think it wouldn't be that hard to find one that will let you enroll. Once you have a couple of years' worth of credits, I'm confident that you could apply as a transfer student almost anywhere. Some of them have GED programs as well, but I'm not sure you need it. The Big 3 are a great option if you are ready to do a lot of testing and online classes, but if you need a more traditional learning environment, it's hard to beat your local community college in bang for the buck.

The only stumbling block I would worry about is if your H.S. diploma isn't sufficient to qualify for financial aid, then you may well have to get that GED.

[dfrecore]

A business BA sounds good actually. I don't mind it at all as I would like to open up a business eventually and I assume that would come in handy. I also don't mind getting multiple bachelor's ha-ha. My focus is just getting one quick so that I can't start a new life. I assume I can always go back and use the last CLEP test taken towards a new BA?

You could get a Liberal Studies degree first, which has the most flexibility. Then later you could come back and get your BSBA.

Or you could get a BSBA first, and then go back later and get a different degree if you thought it might help.

Either way, you would need to take additional courses towards the new degree. At TESU, that would be a minimum of 24cr (8 courses). The previous courses you took would count towards your General Ed and Free Electives, you'd just be left with requirements for the degree. It's a little confusing, it's much easier to just figure out which degree you want in the first place and then get that, and worry about a second degree later.

[Leherself]

The trouble with financial aid is that by and large it doesn't help much with alternative methods of education. If you qualify for a pell grant, then you can sometimes get some of it disbursed as cash - but that usually requires that you be a full time student enrolled in a traditional University of some fashion (either online or in person). As far as I know there isn't a way for CLEP or DSST to be paid for directly by financial aid. And tuition at the big three is so expensive that you're probably going to want to minimize the number of courses taken there even if you do have assistance.

If you want to get started for cheap then I'd recommend Saylor - $25 per exam is hard to beat. Alternatively, you could look into the study.com coupon - a yearlong membership for about $1000. That gives you the opportunity to take 6 credits a month for 12 months, which means that if you pass that many classes then you can get up to 72 credits for what amounts to less than $15 a credit hour.

There's a rumor going around that TESU is still giving 6 credits apiece for CLEP literature exams (Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, English Literature, and American Literature). Those plus CLEP College Composition, and TECEP or DSST Technical Writing, are pretty much all of the exams I can think of off the top of my head that would apply to an English focus.

As for majors - the TESU humanities major might be a good option. You need 30 credits in three different humanities topics (English, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, Communications, Art, etc.), including 15 credits of upper division. Straighterline offers three courses that would apply as upper division to a Humanities major - Business Ethics (PHI-386), Business Communication (COM-300), and Intro to Religion (REL-405).

While it's your life and you can do whatever you want, I honestly don't see much point to the GED. Once you've got a degree (even an Associate's) the importance of a high school diploma basically disappears. And I'm not sure that a GED would be seen as any better than an IED diploma - I have a GED myself and the usual reaction I got when I used it (very infrequently and a long time ago) was "so... why didn't you graduate high school?"

TESU's Associate of Arts doesn't require a capstone. That'd be a good intermediate goal to shoot for on your way to a Bachelor's degree, rather than a GED, and all of the credits would apply to your Bachelors (if you picked a liberal arts degree) so you wouldn't be going out of your way.

[Atomsk]

I really like the way you planned that out thank you. Realistically how long and how much would it cost to do everything you said?

[Atomsk]

I think liberal studies sounds good. Employers over seas would like to see some sort English in there ha-ha.

[Atomsk]

Thank you for all the replies! All this advice is great! I appreciate it!

[Atomsk]

So I can just take enough CLEP tests and has those credits to enroll into a college. Don't i need to be enrolled in a college to take one?