TESU / Statistics.com Data Science (BSDS) Planning

[mcmctalk]

Hi,

Having worked in the technology industry for the past 10 years, I didn't have the time to finish school. I'm finally at a place in my life where I have the time to commit to studying, so I' going to try to aggressively finish my bachelor's. I'd also love to pursue a data science or bioinformatics graduate degree down the road, and without having a bachelor's degree, it becomes a non starter. The TESU Data Science degree (https://www.tesu.edu/heavin/bs/Data-Science.cfm) seems like a good fit given its focus on statistics and analytics. I'm also open to a different degree if it means I'm able to complete it earlier.

I'm hoping to finish the degree by end of 2018, earlier if possible. Another thing I'm thinking is to maybe try to get an associates from TESU while I work on the BSDS degree. So I'd love to plan with that in mind.

Here's my current list of courses completed at local CC - Note they're quarter credit system, so I recognize I probably have to take a few extra courses to complete.

SOC 231 Sociology of Health & Aging 4
WR 121 English Composition 4
CS 161 Computer Science I 4
EMS 100 Intro Emergency Medical Serv 3
MUS 206 Intro to History of Rock Music 3
PSY 215 Human Development 4
CH 104 (Allied Health Chemistry I) 5
MUS 205 Introduction to Jazz History 3
WR 122 English Composition 4
BI 112 Cell Bio for Health Occ 5
MP 111 Medical Terminology 4
PE 183V Judo 1

Based on what I've read in the Wiki and the forum, it seems like a good starting point is to take the free and quick classes so I'll be starting with the below and try to complete by this weekend.

Ethics from the Institute 2 cr
TEEX Cyber Security series 6 cr

I'm also planning on knocking out a few easy CLEP courses namely:

Analyzing and Interpreting Literature 3 cr
Principle of Management 3 cr
Principle of Marketing 3 cr

Where should I go from this point forward? I'll probably start on intro to stats at Statistics.com. Should I use SL, Schmoop, Study.com ? I spend a lot of time flying for my current role, so reading / audio are usually great formats.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Ideas]

Statistics.com is kind of expensive, and you could do Intro Stats for $20 at ALEKS. And ALEKS would take you under an hour if you know statistics. You could also get 6+ other math credits while you're there. 6-9+ credits for $20 The math credits would not all be used in an Associates, but they would apply if you went for a Bachelor's at a school that takes ACE credit.

[Ideas]

You may want to do Davar courses in June. They are having a special where you only pay $99 for unlimited courses (but their English Comp courses aren't included). You also pay proctor fees (which are only $15 per exam if you choose the cheaper service). They have a lot of business courses, and also some science, computer, history, etc.

[davewill]

Well you're definitely going to want to get the Study.com affiliate pricing at TESU, so I'd plan on applying for the Guardian scholarship. If you get it, you get 6 courses in 3 months for free. The first one has to be Personal Finance, the rest are up to you.

[dfrecore]

If it was me, I would sign up for ALEKS for $20 and take Intermediate Algebra, College Algebra, Precalculus, and Intro to Stats. The courses (not the credits) expire on June 30, so that would be my very first step, even before any of the free courses. Then I would take Saylor's Business Stats course for $25.

Then I would do the TEEX courses, the Insurance Ethics course, and then the CLEP's.

I would also add as many math courses as possible: the College Math CLEP for 6cr; Math for Liberal Arts DSST; Math for Business (Davar) or Quantitative Analysis (Study.com); and Intro to Geometry (Study.com) and you have just completed all of your Gen Ed Electives and almost all of your Free Electives with easy math credits.

With your completed courses, your planned courses, and my planned courses, you're at 74cr! And you'll only have to spend maybe $645 for all of that. Even less if you do the Marketing & Management CLEP's as Saylor exams instead ($495).

[mcmctalk]

Absolutely amazing advice. Thank you all so much!

I'll register for ALEKS today.

I've read DAVAR here and there but not real aware of how it works. Is it similar to SL and Study.com or is it more like a study guide for in person Proctored testing.

[Ideas]

Absolutely amazing advice. Thank you all so much!

I'll register for ALEKS today.

I've read DAVAR here and there but not real aware of how it works. Is it similar to SL and Study.com or is it more like a study guide for in person Proctored testing.

Davar is more like Saylor. They provide some suggestions and material, but mostly you study on your own and take an online proctored exam. However, they are having a June sale, discussed here, which makes the pricing more like SL, but cheaper: http://www.degreeforum.net/saylor-org-st...-99-a.html

[mcmctalk]

Also. What's a good Associates Degree I could get once I complete dfrecore's example of GE and Electives. This is while I work on rest of the Statistics.com requirements.

Would it be something like TESU Liberal Arts Associates?

[Ideas]

Also. What's a good Associates Degree I could get once I complete dfrecore's example of GE and Electives. This is while I work on rest of the Statistics.com requirements.

Would it be something like TESU Liberal Arts Associates?

You would probably want an Associates which has no capstone, to save time and money.

One option is the AS in Natural Science and Mathematics, with a Mathematics concentration, but you would need Calculus II and a more advanced math course.

The easiest would indeed be the AA degree. It has the most flexibility.

[SolarKat]

I'll leave the gen eds recommendations to the masters - check out the spreadsheet dfrecore made! I also agree with davewill's recommendation for the Guardian Scholarship...free & fast courses, definitely easy to travel with.

I'm about halfway through the degree myself, so here's my 2 cents. Statistics.com courses are heavily software-based. While I'd already taken Intro Stats (many moons ago), I repeated it with Stats.com and for me, it was extremely helpful to do so...not because it reinforced theory but because it was a fast & dirty way to practice statistical problems in R, Box Sampler, RSXL, and Statcrunch. (They give you the methodology for all 4 packages.) For that alone, I'm very glad I took the 2 course sequence (Stats 1 is descriptive stats, Stats 2 is inferential stats. They get into some basic regression, as well.)

Beyond that, some interesting notes:

a) You can arrange a payment plan with Statistics.com, if you choose, over 18 months. They'll give you a code to use to register for courses once you've enrolled.

b) Some courses have no prereqs (Intro Stats/1&2, Social Network Analysis, R Programming Intro 1 - an AOS elective), so you can do these immediately, even before Intro Stats.

c) Four of the 8 AOS electives listed in the TESU degree pathway are actually ACE-accredited for graduate credit. TESU offers a graduate certificate in analytics (not the MBA concentration, those are all in-house TESU classes!) that uses these 4 courses (Risk/Simulation/Queuing; Financial Risk; Integer & Nonlinear Programming; Regression Analysis)...so if you choose these as the 4 electives for your BS, once the BS is conferred you can immediately turn around and request conferral of the graduate certificate (which will happen at the next conferral - they won't confer a grad cert unless you've already received a bachelors at a previous conferral).

d) The dean is open to considering other AOS electives (for example, they'll allow R Programming Intro 2 as a substitution, and I'm waiting to hear on others, particularly Survival Analysis). However TESU has an in-house course, DSI-something "Visualize That: Interactive Data" or somesuch...this will not fill an AOS elective - it would be considered a Free Elective...don't do that one unless you're super keen. TESU also has an in-house Intro Python and Intro R - these *will* meet the AOS elective requirements, if for some reason you feel like spending 3 months and paying through the nose for them. However, this gives reason to hope that folks that have Py/R from other accredited courses could transfer it in as AOS elective...

e) Watch your due dates. The clock runs out at 2am Eastern Time on the due date...so for all intents & purposes, you need to have it done *the day before the posted due date*. Some classes have an intro assignment due in the middle of the first week, too, so take careful note of all assignments/dates. On the other side of this coin, most classes will count 3 of the 4 assignments and use the 4th for extra credit...which means if you miss an assignment, you won't be heavily penalized.

f) The professors and teaching assistants are SUPER responsive. The classes are extremely intense, but the faculty are right there with you to help with assignment questions, software concerns, etc. And in my experience so far, grading is amazingly quick. (I've submitted a complex assignment and had it returned with copious notes/discussion, in as little as 2 hours. It's INSANE. These people don't seem to sleep.)

g) They've started adding a "discussion board question" to some classes/assignments. Fortunately this is just a "write a few thoughts about..." type discussion, not the forced fake conversations of other online providers (you know, "Write a 400 word post. Respond to 2 of your classmates with a 250 word post." Ew. None of that cr@p!) So don't be afraid of the discussions at ALL.

h) Each course, on its own, is so quick it can only really skim/blast through the material...they don't waste your time making you hand in a zillion repetitive problem sets, etc. It's totally on you to do supplemental work, practice problems, deep dives into the provided data sets, the sorts of things that will really reinforce your learning and promote mastery. While it's possible to just do the minimum to pass on the few graded assignments, if you plan to go farther with analytics, that "15 hrs/week" recommendation per class is not so far off the mark. And the benefit is, the professors/TAs have all been excellent in my experience - they're happy to offer supplemental problems/data sets, extra study ideas, etc...take advantage of this opportunity!

i) The biggest piece of advice is this: if you have any kind of a timeline requirement, you need to Gantt the whole program carefully. Some classes are offered 3-4 times a year, some are only offered once or twice. You need to plan those limited offerings ASAP and build the rest of the program around them. For example, Financial Risk (an AOS Elective, one of the 4 grad classes for the grad cert) only runs once per year, in June...and Risk/Sim/Queuing is the prerequisite for that class. Risk only runs twice a year, in May and November. So if you want FinRisk, you need to block out both that *and* Risk in stone. Integer/Nonlin only runs in September. Optimization only runs in August & January (and really, the sequence should be Optimiz, Integer, then Risk...they're all taught by the same VATech professor from the same book, sequentially...optim is an undergrad level course, whereas the other 2 are grad level). Social Network Analysis has no prereqs (truly, it's a good place to start) but only runs in August & February. It gets complicated quickly. But even while you're planning out all the gen-eds, get started on the AOS plan first...develop your dependencies, then fill in the free time around those set-in-stone courses. It'd be awful to get through everything only to learn that you have to wait 6 months until the next offering of that final AOS class!!

Happy to field any questions you might have, based upon my own experience with the program/people. (And yes, you can definitely be done by the end of 2018. I started this past February with 47 transfer sci/engineering credits from 30 years ago, and I'm on track to be done this October. 144 days to go, not that I'm counting or anything.) Good luck!