Intro Post: About to start BALS @ TESU

[rook]

Hello, everyone,

First, the obligatory "first time post, long time lurker" confession. This forum has been a huge help to me so far. So, thank you! I figured it would be good to finally join the forum and start contributing, since I'm about to begin the BALS degree at TESU. I'm also hoping to complete it with the Social Sciences Concentration. Maybe someone else can benefit from my experiences along the way, as I have from many of yours.

To give a little background on my situation-- I'm not starting from scratch; I have already transferred in about 90 credits from various B&M institutions I've attended, with the largest chunk of hours coming from a community college (where I also happen to be employed as a degree auditor). I completed my Associate of Arts in 2012 and recently finished a Web Development certificate. So, aside from the standard Gen Eds that I completed for my associate degree, my coursework is all over the place-- Business, Accounting, Computer Science, Graphic Design, Sociology, Philosophy... However, I was thrilled (and a little surprised) to see that TESU was able to utilize all but ONE course on my degree plan. That was certainly a big part of my decision to go this route!

So, at this point, I need:

• Cornerstone
  
• Ethics
  
• Information Literacy
  
• 3 more hours of a General Elective
  
• 15 hours of UL courses
  
• Capstone
  

Luckily, I applied for admission last December. So, I'm already registered for TES-100 (which starts April 1st) and will complete it before the June cutoff to avoid the new 3 SCH Cornerstone requirement! Thank goodness.

I plan to complete everything else (aside from the capstone, obviously) through Study.com. In order to finish the BALS requirements and get the Social Sciences Concentration, my planned courses are:

• Philosophy 102: Ethics in America (Should fulfill the Ethics requirement, right?)
  
• Religion 101: Intro to World Religions (To fulfill the Information Literacy requirement)
  
• History 108: History of the Vietnam War (To fulfill the remaining General Elective hours)
  
• History 308: Causes and Effects of the Vietnam War (UL)
  
• History 311: The Holocaust & World War II (UL)
  
• Psychology 310: Psychology of Personality (UL)
  
• Sociology 305: Sociology of Work (UL)
  
• Criminal Justice 305: The Juvenile Justice System (UL)
  

Hopefully, that will work! The Social Sciences Concentration isn't a necessity, but I definitely like the sound of it and it suits my primary area of interest. There may be some easier/faster UL courses on SDC, but I'd rather work on something that I actually want to learn than push quickly through something I don't care about.

If anyone has any feedback or experiences to share about these courses, I would love to hear it! I'm excited to start on this...albeit a little nervous, anticipating the Capstone! But, I will be so happy to finally finish a bachelor's degree. I just need to keep myself motivated!

[jsd]

You still have a few days to complete the free 2-credit ethics course. (the left over 1cr will need be made up as a general ed elective, but you can find a free or cheap course like OnlineDegree or Saylor courses for gen ed instead of paying for Ethics in America).

Get on this course fast though, because it expires 3/31. It is easily doable in a day, they give you reading material and you need 70% on their open book exam. You don't even need to setup/pay for a proctor service, as it's online and unproctored.

The material is boring, and will neve rbe useful if you're not going into the insurance field, but free is free and it counts towards TESU's ethics requirement.

The American Institute For Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters (commonly referred to as "The Institutes") offer a free ethics course that is ACE recommended for 2 credits.

312N-H Ethics and the CPCU Code of Professional Conduct (2 credits) - an upper level ethics/philosophy course that meet's TESU's General Education "ethics" requirement (you might have to ask for an exception to be made for the last credit, but typically this is automatically granted. The 3rd credit is to be made up as a general ed elective).
To signup, use the following link: http://www.theinstitutes.org/comet/learn...ethics.htm

Select the FREE option. You should not do the $5 option. The paid option is for "Continuing Education credit," which is different than college credit. The free version is ACE approved for college credit.

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Remember to check out all the other free options as well:


https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Fr..._of_Credit

[quigongene]

If you can finish it in 4 days, the free ethics course is still accredited (and....beat out by JSD :-P).

[natshar]

and for the extra one credit gen edit elective do the free sophia course there are actually 2 of them. The quickest and easiest information literacy is probably library science 101 and it is useful too.

[udi]

Hello, everyone,

First, the obligatory "first time post, long time lurker" confession. This forum has been a huge help to me so far. So, thank you! I figured it would be good to finally join the forum and start contributing, since I'm about to begin the BALS degree at TESU. I'm also hoping to complete it with the Social Sciences Concentration. Maybe someone else can benefit from my experiences along the way, as I have from many of yours.

To give a little background on my situation-- I'm not starting from scratch; I have already transferred in about 90 credits from various B&M institutions I've attended, with the largest chunk of hours coming from a community college (where I also happen to be employed as a degree auditor). I completed my Associate of Arts in 2012 and recently finished a Web Development certificate. So, aside from the standard Gen Eds that I completed for my associate degree, my coursework is all over the place-- Business, Accounting, Computer Science, Graphic Design, Sociology, Philosophy... However, I was thrilled (and a little surprised) to see that TESU was able to utilize all but ONE course on my degree plan. That was certainly a big part of my decision to go this route!

So, at this point, I need:

• Cornerstone
  
• Ethics
  
• Information Literacy
  
• 3 more hours of a General Elective
  
• 15 hours of UL courses
  
• Capstone
  

Luckily, I applied for admission last December. So, I'm already registered for TES-100 (which starts April 1st) and will complete it before the June cutoff to avoid the new 3 SCH Cornerstone requirement! Thank goodness.

I plan to complete everything else (aside from the capstone, obviously) through Study.com. In order to finish the BALS requirements and get the Social Sciences Concentration, my planned courses are:

• Philosophy 102: Ethics in America (Should fulfill the Ethics requirement, right?)
  
• Religion 101: Intro to World Religions (To fulfill the Information Literacy requirement)
  
• History 108: History of the Vietnam War (To fulfill the remaining General Elective hours)
  
• History 308: Causes and Effects of the Vietnam War (UL)
  
• History 311: The Holocaust & World War II (UL)
  
• Psychology 310: Psychology of Personality (UL)
  
• Sociology 305: Sociology of Work (UL)
  
• Criminal Justice 305: The Juvenile Justice System (UL)
  

Hopefully, that will work! The Social Sciences Concentration isn't a necessity, but I definitely like the sound of it and it suits my primary area of interest. There may be some easier/faster UL courses on SDC, but I'd rather work on something that I actually want to learn than push quickly through something I don't care about.

If anyone has any feedback or experiences to share about these courses, I would love to hear it! I'm excited to start on this...albeit a little nervous, anticipating the Capstone! But, I will be so happy to finally finish a bachelor's degree. I just need to keep myself motivated!

Welcome aboard! Thanks for sharing. I also have a bachelor's degree in general studies social sciences. It has helped me twice when a bachelor's degree in anything was required for jobs. If there's a better degree option for jobs for you, I would encourage you to aim in that direction if you don't want a master's. Ultimately, finishing may be more important.

[rook]

You still have a few days to complete the free 2-credit ethics course. (the left over 1cr will need be made up as a general ed elective, but you can find a free or cheap course like OnlineDegree or Saylor courses for gen ed instead of paying for Ethics in America).

Get on this course fast though, because it expires 3/31. It is easily doable in a day, they give you reading material and you need 70% on their open book exam. You don't even need to setup/pay for a proctor service, as it's online and unproctored.

The material is boring, and will neve rbe useful if you're not going into the insurance field, but free is free and it counts towards TESU's ethics requirement.

If you can finish it in 4 days, the free ethics course is still accredited (and....beat out by JSD :-P).

Thank you both for the recommendation! I knew about the free Ethics course, but thought it was already too late. I went ahead and registered for it this morning and was actually able to finished it this afternoon! I just created my ACE transcript account and requested the credit. Sure enough, the ACE site lists the end date for the course as 3/31/2019, so I got it just in time. Cross the Ethics off the list   

Now, I'm thinking of doing one of the 1 credit hour electives to meet the credit deficiency from the Ethics course. Still need to check into that.

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and for the extra one credit gen edit elective do the free sophia course there are actually 2 of them. The quickest and easiest information literacy is probably library science 101 and it is useful too.

I need to look into the Sophia courses. Maybe I can get that knocked out this week too...

The Library Science course interesting. I assume you're talking about the one on SDC? I didn't even know about it. Actually, it would probably be very useful in helping prepare me for my capstone. I think I might go that route. Thanks for the tip!

[jsd]

The free Sophia courses can be knocked out in like 30 mins each

I'm not sure which (if either) of them count as a gen Ed elective, but they're worth doing. I'm sure someone else will confirm if they count as gen Ed or not.

[Supermind]

SDC’s Library science course is the shortest way to fulfill the info literacy requirements. However, since you are starting now at a TESU, aren’t you expected to take the SOS-110 course? I am told that fulfills the info literacy requirement too.

[Merlin]

SDC’s Library science course is the shortest way to fulfill the info literacy requirements. However, since you are starting now at a TESU, aren’t you expected to take the SOS-110 course? I am told that fulfills the info literacy requirement too.

It looks like the OP is still on the 2018-2019 catalog, not the 2019A catalog, so they can still take the TES-100 cornerstone course; that means they will still need to transfer in an Info Lit course to meet their degree requirements.

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The free Sophia courses can be knocked out in like 30 mins each

I think 30 minutes is being pretty aggressive. I'd aim for a half day per course at least for the average test taker.

[Supermind]

Oh ok. Didn’t realise they were on the 2018-19 catalog. In which case, SDC Library science is the best option. You could finish it in a day. 27 lessons.