12-01-2016, 11:02 PM
I had earned my initial BA in the 1990s in a field not related to my job in IT. Then in 2015, the executives at work decided they wanted a complete reorg and focus on higher-level IT work. I sensed there would be an attempted culling of the herd, but this scary change also presented an opportunity for me to finally make the final step towards the technical IT glass ceiling of IT architect work. I came to this forum in December of 2015 and initially was deciding between BSBA:CIS and BA CS. I couldn't do an MSCS because I lacked the prereqs. At the time, I thought the competition for the executive ranks was too much (many MBA holders never used their degrees before retirement) and I didn't have the political connections (yet) to make it work which meant no grad school. So I went with the more technical degree and asked TESU to change my major from BSBA:CIS to BA CS. I got the promotion at work with the "anticipated degree Dec 2016" verbiage even though BSCS was a requirement and my HR is a real stickler for meeting minimum qualifications.
The degree plan is in my signature, but I'll just go over the hardest parts. First, I needed 24 new credits in each AOS (48 total) although 12 of them can overlap (9 AOS, 3 capstone). Second, it wasn't obvious how to avoid taking expensive UL courses at TESU. I had tuition reimbursement, but it wasn't enough cover everything. I decided to use the now-defunct enrolled options plan to remove any ambiguity about having to pay the residency waiver fee. I ultimately ended up taking four courses from TESU and could have taken a fifth course if APU hadn't included the expensive e-textbook for free. I wasted a bit of time on GE by taking the CLEP A&I Lit, all of the free ACE courses, and was planning to take speech before one of the TESU advisors told me that I was waived from GE and they plugged in all the holes with random courses. I took the TECEPS in Networking, CIS-107, and Applied Lib Arts Math to make my transcript look better and as part of my original plan to do the 8 TECEPs (now defunct since I went with Enrolled Option).
On the computer science side, I was flabbergasted to find out from degreeforum that MIS and System Analysis counted towards CS. I'm not one to turn down a gift horse, so I passed the DSST in MIS and the CSU Global CBE in System Analysis. I figured I can take a CS MOOC or two later in my life to make up for using business MIS courses in CS. That left 3 UL courses. I tried looking for cheap sources of credit that would count as UL, but I did not have much luck. I decided to take Computer Architecture and the lib arts capstone at TESU. That left 2 UL courses left. Then somebody on degreeforum mentioned that CIS-344 Cybersecurity DSST autopopulated the CS what-if even though the TEEX equivalent (which I had taken) did not autopopulate. I passed the DSST cybersecurity and it went into the UL part of my AOS in CS. I appreciated that nugget since it saved me a whole bunch of money. I already took all of the CS LL courses during my first BA or post-BA/pre-2015. That left one UL course left, which I would deal with later.
I saw that a few people on the forum succeeded in earning the TESU math degree. I might ride the data science horse later on, so I thought it could be useful to bag the math degree now. TESU does not grant 3rd BA degrees, so this was my last shot via a double major. edX had three ACE ACP courses on differential equations in 2016 that counted towards UL in math. I realized it was possible to earn a math degree with the huge help from edX if I could remember the calculus. So I retook Calc 1 and Calc 2 at SL. It took 6 weeks to get through both refresher courses. And those two SL courses gave me 8 new credits at TESU towards the 24. The extra credits from 4 credit courses made up for the 2.66 credit math courses I had. Next, I took two of the three differential equations course. I ordered the verified certificate from edX, passed both courses, and then sent in the ACE request to edX. I took calc 3 (UL) during my first BA. I took the ALEKS statistics as a refresher for $20 to get 3 new AOS credits in case I needed it later and threw in intermediate algebra, college algebra, elementary algebra, and precalc even though I didn't need them and they don't count in the math AOS. That left two TESU math courses and one APU math course, which I got work to pay for. I took College Geometry and Mathematical Modeling from TESU. The APU linear algebra course counted towards both math and the last UL CS requirement. And that was it. I'm at the finish line.
Exactly two months after I applied for graduation, I finally got the graduation letters in the mail. Two letters for each AOS. Now it's official. I'm done.
The degree plan is in my signature, but I'll just go over the hardest parts. First, I needed 24 new credits in each AOS (48 total) although 12 of them can overlap (9 AOS, 3 capstone). Second, it wasn't obvious how to avoid taking expensive UL courses at TESU. I had tuition reimbursement, but it wasn't enough cover everything. I decided to use the now-defunct enrolled options plan to remove any ambiguity about having to pay the residency waiver fee. I ultimately ended up taking four courses from TESU and could have taken a fifth course if APU hadn't included the expensive e-textbook for free. I wasted a bit of time on GE by taking the CLEP A&I Lit, all of the free ACE courses, and was planning to take speech before one of the TESU advisors told me that I was waived from GE and they plugged in all the holes with random courses. I took the TECEPS in Networking, CIS-107, and Applied Lib Arts Math to make my transcript look better and as part of my original plan to do the 8 TECEPs (now defunct since I went with Enrolled Option).
On the computer science side, I was flabbergasted to find out from degreeforum that MIS and System Analysis counted towards CS. I'm not one to turn down a gift horse, so I passed the DSST in MIS and the CSU Global CBE in System Analysis. I figured I can take a CS MOOC or two later in my life to make up for using business MIS courses in CS. That left 3 UL courses. I tried looking for cheap sources of credit that would count as UL, but I did not have much luck. I decided to take Computer Architecture and the lib arts capstone at TESU. That left 2 UL courses left. Then somebody on degreeforum mentioned that CIS-344 Cybersecurity DSST autopopulated the CS what-if even though the TEEX equivalent (which I had taken) did not autopopulate. I passed the DSST cybersecurity and it went into the UL part of my AOS in CS. I appreciated that nugget since it saved me a whole bunch of money. I already took all of the CS LL courses during my first BA or post-BA/pre-2015. That left one UL course left, which I would deal with later.
I saw that a few people on the forum succeeded in earning the TESU math degree. I might ride the data science horse later on, so I thought it could be useful to bag the math degree now. TESU does not grant 3rd BA degrees, so this was my last shot via a double major. edX had three ACE ACP courses on differential equations in 2016 that counted towards UL in math. I realized it was possible to earn a math degree with the huge help from edX if I could remember the calculus. So I retook Calc 1 and Calc 2 at SL. It took 6 weeks to get through both refresher courses. And those two SL courses gave me 8 new credits at TESU towards the 24. The extra credits from 4 credit courses made up for the 2.66 credit math courses I had. Next, I took two of the three differential equations course. I ordered the verified certificate from edX, passed both courses, and then sent in the ACE request to edX. I took calc 3 (UL) during my first BA. I took the ALEKS statistics as a refresher for $20 to get 3 new AOS credits in case I needed it later and threw in intermediate algebra, college algebra, elementary algebra, and precalc even though I didn't need them and they don't count in the math AOS. That left two TESU math courses and one APU math course, which I got work to pay for. I took College Geometry and Mathematical Modeling from TESU. The APU linear algebra course counted towards both math and the last UL CS requirement. And that was it. I'm at the finish line.
Exactly two months after I applied for graduation, I finally got the graduation letters in the mail. Two letters for each AOS. Now it's official. I'm done.
TESU BA CS and Math (graduated December 2016)
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![[Image: congratulations.png]](http://www.balif.org/Resources/Pictures/congratulations.png)
!
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